The 4th Annual Chinese Chorizo Festival returns Friday, October 17 through Sunday, November 9, celebrating Chinese Chorizo Month with statewide events in Tucson and Phoenix. Founded and led by chef and artist Feng-Feng Yeh, the festival honors the once-forgotten delicacy that originated in Tucson’s Chinese-owned grocery stores during the late 1800s.
Yeh organizes and produces the festival as a one-woman show while managing three evolving public art installations across Arizona. Her creative drive continues to bridge cultures, uplift immigrant histories, and strengthen Tucson’s community of artists, chefs, and makers.
Reviving Tucson’s Culinary History
Through the Chinese Chorizo Project, Yeh revives the story of Chinese and Mexican immigrants who built solidarity through shared food traditions. The project donates pork and vegan mushroom-based chorizo to more than 25 restaurants and food vendors. Each creates a dish that reflects Tucson’s deep-rooted history of collaboration.
Over the past three years, Yeh has donated over 2,100 pounds of Chinese Chorizo to 75 local restaurants and cultural organizations. Tucson Foodie joins as a media partner to promote this year’s expanded programming.
Festival Highlights
The celebration begins at Tucson Meet Yourself, October 17–19, where festivalgoers can sample inventive new dishes. The first ever Chinese Chorizo Sonoran Hot Dog by Tucson Meet Yourself and a pork Chinese Chorizo & freshly handmade tortilla by CreSer: Culture & Resource Center for Women & Families will be available exclusively as part of the new Taste of the Festival Passport.
TMY vendor Los Poblanitos will be serving a specialty dish from chef Gustavo’s hometown of Pueblo, Mexico: a plant-based enfrijolada stuffed with mushroom and covered in black bean sauce. AteKei’s Treats will be serving a Filipino steamed rice cake that with the addition of Chinese Chorizo, flirts with the balance of savory and sweet.
Yeh will host Chinese Chorizo Solidarity Demos at the TMY Culture Kitchen, featuring Muna Food, Tucson High Farm, the University of Arizona School Garden Workshop, and Pima County Library’s Nuestras RaĂces and Biblio Lotus.
Tucson Restaurant Collaborations
From October 24 through November 2, local restaurants will feature limited-time dishes celebrating the fusion of Chinese and Mexican flavors. Participating spots include:
- Anello — Black garlic aioli and potato breakfast pizza with Chinese Chorizo
- Rocco’s Little Chicago — Specialty pizzas featuring local ingredients
- Whole Slvce — Vegan Chinese Chorizo pizza
- Sunshine Wine — Grilled yakitori
- Katsu House — Katsudon with Chinese Chorizo
- Kneller’s Delicatessen — Chinese Chorizo knish
- 5 Points — Frozen Chinese Chorizo sold by the pound starting October 24
Cultural Events
The Tucson Chinese Cultural Center will host a historic bus tour from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on November 1, exploring sites connected to Tucson’s Chinese-American community. The tour concludes with a Chinese Chorizo lunch.
On Thursday, November 6, the Tucson Museum of Art will feature Yeh’s Chinese Grocery Store Installation at the restored Casa Cordova. The exhibit showcases reimagined grocery products that tell the stories of Tucson’s historic Chinese-owned markets. Food vendors Odd Dogs, Muffin But Focaccia, and a Chinese Chorizo Project booth will be onsite.
That same evening also marks the opening of reinstalled gallery Art of the American West, an exhibition co-curated by Feng-Feng Yeh. The show reexamines Western art through a contemporary lens, connecting the region’s artistic narratives with the festival’s themes of heritage, collaboration, and identity.
The festival concludes November 7–9 in Phoenix with collaborations at Chilte and Mrs. White’s, celebrating Yeh’s large-scale ¡SOMBRA! Chinese Chorizo Shade Sculpture, a public art project addressing heat resiliency in historically redlined neighborhoods.
About Feng-Feng Yeh and the Chinese Chorizo Project
Feng-Feng Yeh, a chef and multidisciplinary artist, founded the Chinese Chorizo Project to explore mutualism through food, art, and storytelling. Working solo, she continues to produce large-scale public art installations across Arizona while curating this statewide culinary and cultural festival.
Learn more at chinesechorizoproject.com.
Article written by:
Jackie Tran
More about JackieJackie Tran is a Tucson-based food writer, photographer, culinary educator, and owner-chef of the now-closed food truck Tran’s Fats. Although he is best known locally for his work for Tucson Foodie, his work has also appeared in publications such as Bon Appétit, National Geographic, and the New York Times.
An adventurous foodie, he enjoys culinary experiences ranging from seasonal omakase to sloppily devouring green chili patty melts in his car afterhours. His favorite foods include aguachile, garlic noodles, and leftover fried chicken illuminated by the fridge light. His favorite drinks include morning micheladas, fireside imperial stouts, candle-lit negroni, and grassy mezcales.
Outside of food, he also loves playing musical instruments, karaoke, Tetris, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and petting Addie’s dog Spaghetti.
If you’d like to stalk him, visit his Instagram @jackie_tran_ or jackietran.com.
