Breaking the impression of traditional emblem dishes, now pay more attention to the original taste, to eat and nourish the body

Taste the taste of Huizhou

Mild corruption, "strict" heavy lust

The traditional Huizhou diet carries a strong regional attribute.

"Eight mountains, half water, half field, one road and manor", the geographical location of the mountains on all sides, the warm and humid climate conditions, have bred a wealth of mountain treasures and freshness. Wild vegetables and mountain fowl such as bamboo shoots, bracken, stone ear, and stone chicken make up for the lack of local self-cultivated agriculture, and also add flavor to Huizhou people's three meals a day.

For diners, there are three most profound flavors of traditional emblem cuisine.

[ Salty ]

For a long time, Hui cuisine has been criticized for being "too salty". The reason is that the "saltiness" of Hui cuisine is not only a pursuit of taste, but also comes from the eating habits of local mountain people.

Salty taste is "the foundation of a hundred flavors, the general of a hundred dishes", which can best retain and highlight the original taste of raw materials. With less salt, the flavor of the dish is thin and tasteless, and only with the help of saltiness can the natural tonality of the ingredients be flavored.

For Huizhou cuisine, highlighting the original taste of ingredients is the primary pursuit. No matter how many kinds of spices there are, they can't match the fresh ingredients obtained on the spot. If the main ingredient and the condiment contradict each other, it can only take away the limelight of seasonal products. As a result, salt has become the first choice for flavoring and flavoring in Hui cuisine.

Secondly, for the Hui people who settled in the mountains and mountains, climbing and cutting trees, planting and logging, and field labor all consumed a lot of physical energy, and the demand for supplementary salt in diet was higher than that of residents in plain areas.

In addition, the barren huizhou has become scarce in winter, and the food supply is very limited due to the closed terrain. Every year at the time of summer and autumn, it becomes a time for Huimin to reserve meals. Every household in Huizhou has the habit of pickling food, from vegetables to poultry to sauces can be pickled, and all kinds of picklings have also created the habit of Huimin's salty diet.

Therefore, on weekdays, Jiangnan diners with light tastes, when the first chopsticks of Huizhou dishes are imported, have not had time to savor them, and they shout "salty throat is about to smoke".

[ Oil ]

Traditional emblem dishes have "triple" characteristics: heavy oil, heavy color, heavy fire, which refers to the heavy oil, the ingredients do not lose color, and the heat is grasped.

The characteristics of heavy oil are still derived from the hunger-tolerant needs of the hui people in ancient times, and a little saltier and more oil can make them more energetic. Another theory is that the tea drunk by the locals in Huizhou is easy to dissolve greasy, and the rich minerals in the drinking water in mountainous areas can also break down fat.

Therefore, Huizhou dishes are cooked with more oil. Whether it is a vegan dish that is quickly stir-fried, or a meat dish that is fried and stewed, or a rice cake from a street shop, huizhou people's meals are always shiny and oozing with grease, and the mellow and spicy oil lined the leaves, cooked meat firmly, and moistened the dough.

[ Stink ]

A stinky mandarin fish, a plate of tiger skin hair tofu, make the emblem dish "infamous".

As a folk saying in Anhui: "Huizhou's first monster, tofu long hairy high-grade dishes." The "mild corruption" of hui cuisine is often used as a gimmick in the present, but in ancient times it was a method of preserving food.

Fishmongers lay fish in barrels layer by layer of salt to prevent the fish from spoiling and rotting during transportation. Zhu Yuanzhang had no choice but to use fermented long-haired tofu as food on the way to defeat Huizhou, but it was unexpectedly delicious.

Although some historical allusions need to be examined, they add interesting connotations to the "smell" of Huizhou, and also make pickled food a feature of Huizhou's food culture.

If your impression of Hui cuisine is still stuck in salty, oily and smelly, it is wrong, Anhui people inherit the tradition of classic Hui cuisine, improve the cooking techniques of Hui cuisine, dig deep into folk local dishes, pay more attention to the original taste, hundreds of dishes, food to nourish the body, from the countryside, taste in nature.