If you compare the world of gastronomy to a mansion, the elegant and retro granite fountain is the appetizer, the soft marble statue is the bread, the palatial living room is the main course, the spacious and bright terrace is the wine, the exquisite and warm boudoir is the dessert, then the elegant and quiet back garden is the refreshment. Without the back garden, the mansion is incomplete; without refreshments, the food is less meaningful.
The ingenuity of refreshments is that it can be integrated into the whole meal and can be independent; it can be used as a meal and as a social, which forms a unique culture and becomes an indispensable part of the entire gastronomic system.
The back kitchen of Cantonese dim sum
【Chinese refreshments - Cantonese Qingxiu, Huaiyang is dense】
Chinese refreshments have two representatives, one is Cantonese, the other is Huaiyang, one south and one north, each with its own taste.
Cantonese cuisine is a large faction of Chinese cuisine, starting from Guangzhou, Chaozhou, Dongjiang, flourishing in Guangzhou, Tengda in Hong Kong and Macao, and is the highest standard cuisine in China. Cantonese dim sum is based on Lingnan snacks and absorbs the techniques of northern court pastry, which is also influenced by Western dim sum and becomes more abundant.
Mango thin braces are typical dry spots
Cantonese dim sum is divided into dry and wet points. Dry point to fry as a cooking method, char siu crisp and durian crisp as its representative, also known as fried point; wet point to steam as a cooking method, shrimp dumplings, glutinous rice chicken, char siu bun as its representative, also known as steaming point.
Four-color yaki sale is a traditional wet spot
Cantonese people are particular about the time it takes to eat dry and wet spots. Usually, morning tea is open at 4:00 a.m., and guests will use porridge to serve wet spots. The time for afternoon tea is mainly based on eating dry snacks. At dinner in the evening, dim sum is generally eaten with two kinds of dim sum according to the guests' preferences, and the dry snacks are more popular with the guests. Supper people rarely eat snacks, they are mainly wonton noodles, dry fried beef river and the like, if you come to a snack, it is also a wet point.
Of course, there is also a big difference between the traditional tastes of the elderly and the young. Today's young people prefer to go to tea restaurants, where milk tea and pineapple oil are their favorites. Elderly people still love the tea house, and the habit of "one cup and two pieces" is still retained.
Cantonese people love glutinous rice chicken
The temperature difference between the four seasons in Guangdong is not large, and the snack materials are mainly meat, so there is no need to consider the seasonality of the materials. Traditional dim sum mostly uses pork ribs, pork belly, chicken, beef, shrimp, etc., and now the ingredients are more advanced, guinea fowl, abalone, bird's nest, etc., are often used in dim sum, there are pearl glutinous rice chicken, abalone crisp (the traditional abalone crisp only takes the shape of abalone, will not really use abalone), bird's nest egg tart and so on.
Red date cake and osmanthus cake, paired with kung fu tea
Huaiyang area with Huai'an, Yangzhou, Nanjing as the center, Huaiyang cuisine is famous all over the world. During the Qianlong period, jiangnan salt merchants gathered, a prosperous scene, Huaiyang catering developed rapidly, Qianlong himself also six times in Jiangnan, praised Huaiyang cuisine. Coupled with the "yangzhou out of the beauty", the Qinglou industry is booming, people sell gold, but also to enjoy the speed of the mouth, the comparison scene is large, but also to accelerate the Huaiyang cuisine of the material advanced and exquisite workmanship.
Pumpkin fruit, made with pumpkin puree and glutinous rice
Huaiyang listens to the name is very elaborate: hundred flowers pineapple crisp, jujube clay square cake, emerald pomegranate fruit, roast duck shortbread, small soup bun... As a Huaiyang cuisine chef, you must be good at everything, red cases and white cases are good at it, just being able to stir-fry vegetables is not enough to convince the public, and dim sum is also a test of a chef's skill.
Huaiyang dim sum has a wide variety of buns, dumplings, roasted, crisp is several large pieces, each large piece has a place to do outstanding, and Yangzhou's Fuchun Tea House is the essence of Huaiyang dim sum gathered, the master is extraordinary, dim sum selling high prices is also a matter of course. In terms of workmanship, Huaiyang dim sum selection is fine, the knife work is exquisite, and more cooking methods such as stewing and stewing are used, so the taste is relatively light, fresh and less than the gang, sweet and less than Su Xi.
Vegetarian buns, fillings adjusted to the season
Huaiyang dim sum is different from Cantonese, with more vegetables and seasonal variations. Vegetables such as artemisia, greens and celery are used in the best seasons, and in winter, they are also used instead of traditional bean paste and sesame seeds to make soup balls, and in the spring, fresh bamboo shoots are used in large quantities.
【Western-style refreshments - British style, French style】
The origin of Western-style afternoon tea was in Britain, during the Victorian period, and the complicated dress and etiquette kept dinner time indefinitely postponed, and people were often hungry in the afternoon. Queen Victoria's maid, Anna Maria, Duchess of Bedford VII, entertained her friends with bread and tea, and gradually a trend developed.
When The English afternoon tea was transformed from a trend to a culture, afternoon tea changed from a fruity role to a sociable tool, and slowly began to show its elegant side: servants delivered invitations a few days ago, men's tuxedos and women's wide-brimmed hats became standard dresses, pure white lace lace tablecloths and vases of flowers were standard on the table, and some light music was more stylish.
The tableware for English afternoon tea must flash to the eye
The most important thing is the tableware. In the rainy United Kingdom for many years, people's desire for sunshine is very enthusiastic, so the tableware as far as possible to use silverware that can add light, teapots, filters, tea trays, tea spoons, tea knives, forks, three-layer snack racks, biscuit clips, sugar cans, milk cup bottles, sandwich plates, fruit plates, lemon cutters These things are silver, and the silver sparkle on the entire table not only shows the owner's financial resources, but also brings a good mood to everyone.
The dim sum plate, tea plate and tea cup will use more expensive Chinese fine porcelain, and the warm white of the tea cup is matched with the golden red of Indian black tea, bringing the dignity and mystery of the East.
The lowest level of small salty spots
The bottom layer of the three-layer dim sum plate is generally a light taste of small seafood tarts, small sandwiches, small croissants, etc., mainly salty; the second layer is a snack with a heavier taste, according to personal preferences, you can choose to be salty or salty and sweet combination, such as English muffins and bacon rolls and other traditional dim sum, muffins will be accompanied by jam and cream, pay attention to the point of honey; the third layer is placed cheesecake, mousse cake and fruit tart and other small desserts.
The order of consumption of refreshments should follow the law of light to heavy, salty and sweet. From the bottom up, try a salty sandwich to let the taste buds slowly taste the true flavor of the food, and then sip a few sips of fragrant black tea.
English muffins in the middle
Next up is a muffin coated with jam and cream, allowing a little sweetness to slowly emanate in the mouth.
Dessert at the top
Finally, by sweet and thick cakes and fruit tarts, enter the climax of afternoon tea.
Afternoon tea spread from Britain to the European continent and even around the world at the end of the 19th century, when the "Empire of the Sun Never Sets" was strong and forced many countries to more or less accept their culture. Before the French drank afternoon tea, the political, cultural, and economic exchanges between the two countries and the marriage between the royal family and the nobility made the French come into contact with afternoon tea earlier.
The French still prefer to have a cup of coffee in the afternoon
The French, who pride themselves on being "the first in the world of gastronomy", will naturally make some improvements to afternoon tea. Black tea is not as popular in France as it is in Britain, after all, the origin of black tea in India and Ceylon are both Indian colonies, and the French are not as powerful there as the Dutch, so coffee has become the drink of afternoon tea for the French.
Delicate and compact French dessert
It can be said that the meal of French afternoon tea is a microcosm of French cuisine. The French played on the cake in the refreshment, creating more colors, and using more chocolate, candy, nuts, seafood and other ingredients, coupled with the rich fruit varieties of France, making the whole refreshment more French.
【Refreshment Culture - East and West Exchange, Blending and Advancing Together】
Diet is the first need of human beings, with the development of society, it is difficult to meet people's physiological and psychological needs for simple three meals a day, and the birth of refreshments goes with the flow.
Tea originated in China, Chinese drink tea, can not be a day without tea, many places simply call breakfast "morning tea". After the tea was spread to Europe, it was also worshipped as a sacred product, and only the princes and nobles deserved to enjoy it. Therefore, in Chinese and Western cultures, the "tea" in the refreshment is a pivotal role, in Chinese, there are "morning tea", "afternoon tea", in English, there are "afternoon tea", "high tea" - all are called "tea".
Although it is set as "tea", dim sum is also indispensable, otherwise it cannot be said to be "refreshment". If someone asks you to drink coffee, maybe it's really just a cup of coffee, and if someone invites you to drink tea, then nine times out of ten there is something else to eat, otherwise the tea will be very uninteresting.
I also like to drink such tea, although I rarely eat in the morning, but if there are three or five friends to drink morning tea, it is absolutely not to be missed. Order a pot of Pu'er or Tieguanyin, put on a dozen pieces of dim sum, char siu buns, durian crisp and shrimp dumplings are indispensable, plus a bowl of skinned egg lean porridge, it is very satisfied.
In the afternoon, I will go to a friend's house to drink tea, brew a pot of Wuyi rock tea in the core production area, burn a bucket of tobacco, and the friend will take out one or two small foods that are rarely seen in the weekday, whether it is chatting about small things or talking about work, the time is very comfortable. The refreshments that friends take out are truffle cake, almond ejiao cake, small bread biscuits with cheese and caviar, whether it is properly matched or not, in short, everyone likes the taste.
The British later invented bone china, which reduced the cost of importing porcelain
When Chinese porcelain appeared in the living rooms of European aristocrats, it received far greater praise than the lion's head specimens brought back by the owner's hunting trip to Africa, or the Damascus saber given to the Ottoman emperor. A fine piece of porcelain is priceless in Europe, and one can only estimate its value with vague concepts, such as "this thin tire porcelain is worth a guard" and so on. Therefore, Chinese tea sets are a great highlight in European afternoon tea, if it were not for the British copying black tea in their Own South Asian colonies, I am afraid that half of the European afternoon tea culture would be occupied by China.
Chinese is still inseparable from Kung Fu Tea
With the advancement of colonial footsteps, Western afternoon tea also began to impact chinese traditions, to the end of the Qing Dynasty, the coastal big cities began to appear in the refreshments of black tea and cake, but the acceptance of coffee has not been high, Chinese drink thousands of years of Traditional Chinese medicine, this black thing is repelled, still drink their own kung fu tea.
The tide of egg tarts has never stopped
In the subsequent Period of World War II, egg tarts appeared in Hong Kong, which was most influenced by Western culture, and in the late 1980s, the Portuguese egg tart trend in Macau was fully blown.
In Hong Kong, there is an unwritten rule in office buildings that at 3:15 p.m. every day (commonly known as "three o'clock"), employees will be allowed to rest, eat something, and replenish their physical strength, which in turn has contributed to the popularization of afternoon tea customs. After lunch, many people look forward to the arrival of "three points and three points" in their hearts, so that they can eat something and sneak around.
Semi-rounded char siu puff pastry, which is now common
Because of the influence of afternoon tea culture, some traditional Chinese dim sum has also changed its form. The earliest appearance of the char siu puff pastry is square, the block is solid, into the afternoon tea field, it becomes triangular or semi-circular, the weight is reduced by nearly half (after all, the afternoon can not be too full, Chinese dinner time is relatively early), the appearance is much better. Over time, the char siu puff pastry slowly becomes a triangle or semi-circle, and it has lost the original stunned look.
Chinese's imagination of milk tea has long surpassed that of the West
In terms of drinks, milk tea was transmitted from India to the British, and the British took milk tea on warships and merchant ships and sent it to China. Today, China's milk tea has begun to be sought after by foreigners with rich taste and high value.
Westernized Chinese refreshments
In today's China, the older generation is still keen on traditional refreshments, and the new generation loves Western-style refreshments, and the coexistence of the two also makes Chinese and Western refreshments continue to progress and blend in the competition. The only constant is the communicative function of refreshments - the taste itself is not the most important, drinking tea, more is to interact with people, with tea aroma and delicious to regulate relationships and affairs.