As the saying goes: the people take food as the sky, and food takes taste first. Based on its unique natural and social environment, the Chinese people make the dishes on their dinner tables have their own regional "taste", and strive for excellence, coupled with other factors, so that we have the eight traditional Chinese cuisines we have today. As one of the eight major cuisines, hui cuisine is also produced in this way. Hui cuisine, also known as "Hui Bang" and "Anhui Style", is one of the eight famous cuisines in China.
Due to the limitations of storage conditions and preservation technology, many seasonal raw materials still have obvious restrictions, such as raw materials produced in summer can not be obtained in winter, and bamboo shoots cannot be eaten in non-bamboo shoot seasons.
And the emergence of some Hui cuisine is precisely due to the lack of this storage and preservation technology, such as the popular traditional dish "stinky mandarin fish", mandarin fish produced in the Yangtze River rather than Huizhou, after fishing to Qingyang, Taiping transported to Huizhou takes ten days and a half months, although the use of coarse salt wrapping and other preservation methods, but after arriving in Huizhou has been smelly, after the Hui cuisine masters carefully cooked, mandarin fish is like smelly, tender and delicious, so even in the case of better transportation and preservation technology, People still use the method of shallow pickling and long storage to make fresh mandarin fish stink and make it a "stinky mandarin fish".
Photo: Anhui people's stinky mandarin fish
There is a less conspicuous neutral soup in hui cuisine, which is said to have been around for more than 700 years. Compared with the prominent reputation of stinky mandarin fish and edamame tofu, Zhonghe soup has always been deserted; compared with the humanistic elegance of oxtail beaver and horseshoe turtle, Zhonghe soup is only bland and boring; compared with the joy and worry of a pot and dumplings, Zhonghe soup is very calm and calm. Although Zhonghe soup is not very famous, it is intriguing and profound.
Image: Neutralization soup
Fang Yue, a Qimen man of the Southern Song Dynasty, was an official in Xingzi County on the lakeside, because of his love of tofu, he often boated in the middle of the river, fishing for shrimp and rice in the river boiled tofu as soup, clear and fragrant, fresh and tender, so he named Zhonghe soup. Fang Yue was born in a family of generations of cultivation and reading, and at the age of seven, he was able to write poetry, and was called a prodigy at the time, and later became an official. His life was not smooth, but he could ignore it. This can be seen in the poetic articles he left behind. Fang Yue's poems mostly describe rural life and pastoral scenery, and the poetic style is simple and natural, fresh and simple, and plain as words. Hong Yanzu said that he was "verse 46, without ancient laws, with meaning, words or heaven." "The style of the words is clean, and the articles are smooth and straightforward.
To cite his poems, such as "Feeling Nostalgia":
The eunuch has gone with the flow,
The old color pales up.
Have become accustomed to the mountain dwelling without calendar days,
I don't know if there is a public platform in the world.
There are ten poems in "Feelings of Nostalgia", all of which were composed when he was dismissed from his hometown. The sparse and distant verses in the poem reveal his peaceful and relaxed state of mind. He once said in the poem "The Second Rhyme Farewell Yuanke" that "books are not tired of reading frequently, and poems must be lightened", which may also be the true portrayal of his poetry like life and life like poetry.
Now back to the name of this soup, although the "he" of "he" is homophonous with "river", why did Fang Yue change "river" to "he"? How much is there to be done? Neutralization, literally, is neutral peace. "Li Ji Zhongyong": "The one who is in the middle, the great ben of the world; the one who is also the one who is also the one who is in the world, the one who reaches the tao of the world." "The original is the fundamental, the da is the broadest and most universal, and the da dao is the universal principle." Neutrality, neutrality, taking the middle as the precious, and taking the harmony as the beauty are very important concepts of the Confucian concept of life and the main core of the Confucian way of the middle way.
Life is so long, when you serve a small bowl of soup and taste, perhaps between this light sip and slow chewing, you can understand some of the ways of life.
Not only stinky mandarin fish, neutral soup, but also a pot, knife plate incense and other emblem dishes have their own culture and stories behind it. At the same time, the Anhui people skillfully integrate the story into the dish, and the diners eat not only a dish, but also the culture and story behind the dish.