When I was a child, I always picked "screws" in it— something that grew one by one and was sweet and crunchy. I always thought that plants wouldn't really look like that, but rather "threads" that people twisted out before they were made into pickles. When I grew up, I realized that it was I who thought too much.
The "screw" pickle is called pagoda dish, and the Buddha-figure looks like this
Image from the web
One thing and three sexes, one dish to eat more
Friends who often watch "fruits and vegetables a week" must know that the most troublesome thing for lao xin is to identify plants in ancient texts, which is also a common pit in the entire botanical community. China is too large and rich, and ancient information is blocked, so the phenomenon of multiple things and one thing is very common, and even many plants in ancient books cannot be known exactly.
Take the "Compendium of Materia Medica", which mentions a thing called "grass stone silkworm". Listen, grass, stone, silkworm, a name across the three realms, is it a plant or an animal, or a mineral medicine?
The Tang Dynasty Chen Tibetan vessel has recorded the grass and stone silkworm in the "Materia Medica Collection": "On the raw mountain stone, the roots are like chopsticks, there are hairs on it, and the knots are like silkworms." Leaves like curly cypress". The last sentence, "Leaves like curly cypresses", betrays Lao Chen, and the grass and stone silkworm he refers to should be a fern, not the grass stone silkworm that Li Shizhen refers to. Alas, the headache...
So what exactly is a grass stone silkworm?
Sweet sauce manna
Image from: Liubiju
Hey? Isn't this the "screw" pickle I mentioned earlier? Yes, the grass stone silkworm is this cargo. Some places in the north are called "mannel" and "screw turner", and in the south, it is called "jade ring".
Its Chinese is called "manna" and is a plant of the genus Metamorphophyllaceae in the family Lipaceae. The part we eat is its tubers, not its roots.
Plants of the lip family are rich in volatile oils, so they have become a large family of herbs, even if they are used as ingredients, that is, as side dishes, such as mint, wattle mustard, like manna seeds, which can be pickled and fried, it is really rare.
Excellent food and excellent wine
Some friends will wonder, why do I eat so much bigger pickled pagoda dishes than you picture? This is also possible, because manna seeds have several close relatives, all have similar tubers, such as silkworms of the same genus, ground shoots of the same family, etc., will also be used as pickled pagoda dishes, so if you eat a giant pagoda dish that is four or five inches long, don't be surprised.
Ground shoots
Image source network
This shoot also has a nickname "sweet potato", the "Compendium of Materia Medica" said that manna is also called sweet potato, I don't know if it was the same name at that time or Grandpa Li confused these two things, anyway, now they are a little related, but not the same. There is also a name for the medicine, called "Zeelange". Oh, this is another public case, let me breathe.
In botany, the "Zelan" refers to the genus Zelan of the Asteraceae family, but in the history of Chinese medicine, the ground shoots of the family Lipaceae and the Aconitum lucidum of the Ranunaceae family are also called Zelan. In order to distinguish them, when Chinese the proper name, none of the plants in the genus Zelan of the Asteraceae family were called "Zelan", and the Eupatorium japonicum, which was supposed to be called "Zelan", was called "White-headed Woman". Having a genus and not a species can also be said to be very strange.
Bald Woman
Tell me, is it easy to learn botany!?
Okay, the spit is over, let's go back to the nectar. Although the tuber shape is stupid, the plant of manna is actually not low in appearance, which is quite cute. The lilac flowers are low and full of flowers, and I really can't imagine that it is the famous pickle raw material.
Manna seed plant
Image source: gardenmanage.com
Since the Southern Song Dynasty, there have been books documenting the cultivation and consumption of manna seeds, which has a long history. Even in the Ming and Qing dynasties, manna was still an important national vegetable, and in the era of low living standards, this delicious pickle was of course the main meal of many working people.
In the popular "eating broadcast" now, there are still people who only take it to dinner
Image from: Tencent Video
In the second half of the 19th century, manna spread to the West and was loved by the local people. In 1882, the doctors of the Russian embassy succeeded in sending it to France. Thanks to the efforts of French horticulturists, 300 tubers could be obtained the following year.
After a large number of years of cultivation, he put this delicious vegetable on the Paris market, and as a result, this vegetable, known as "Corosnes", quickly became popular in France. In today's Europe, the pipe nectar is called "Chinese artichoke".
Chinese artichokes
Japan calls manna "artichoke" and is also a popular appetizer. However, as a people who can eat like us, Japan has pickled nectar seeds into many colors such as jade, red, black, etc., and in terms of appearance, it is blue out of blue.
Pickles turn into cordyceps? Don't be fooled
In fact, the taste of manna seeds is sweet, and it is a bit bad to make pickles. If you can buy fresh nectar seeds, it is good to eat them directly or cook them.
It can be called "manna" by the ancients, and its sweetness is not covered
If you make pickles, you should also use the method of "pickling", which means that the time of pickling should be short, one day or a few days. If the time is too long or the salt is too high, the dehydration is too bad, and the nectar is not brittle. This is why manna pickles are usually not very salty.
Among the "Eight Treasure Pickles" in Beijing Liubiju, manna seeds are the most popular among the eight treasures, and they are always the first to be eaten. Yangzhou's "screw dish" is also a famous pickle, with a moderately sweet and salty taste. Further south to Fujian, the manna pickle is purely pickled with sugar, called "silkworm". When I arrived in Chongqing, it is called "Jingzhu Shan Zhen", I have not eaten, welcome friends who have eaten to share the taste with me.
Eight treasure pickles
In addition to cooking, there is also an important place to go, that is, to dry until it is half dry, and to take it to the tourist area to pretend to be a cordyceps. Because it is also a section by section, at first glance it really looks like, so there are many old aunts who are deceived.
The place where I am afraid of taking risks gives it a name called "Cordyceps ginseng", which is actually manna or shoots, which is worth a hundred times in an instant. In fact, cordyceps is the product of fungal parasitic insects or spider larvae, with obvious feet, while manna pretends to have no feet, which is easy to identify.
Netizens bought nectar fake cordyceps
This year, scientists have confirmed that Cordyceps sinensis does not contain "active ingredients" such as cordycepin and pentilstatin at all, and cannot prove any curative effect. Coupled with market hype, the price soars, even if you buy real cordyceps are spent unjustly, not to mention that you may also buy a variety of fake cordyceps. Don't buy it at all, the best! Honestly eat some crunchy nectar!
Written by | Letters float and sink