Guo Yemin
Roast suckling pig (crispy suckling pig) is regarded as a local traditional dish in Guangdong, and Cantonese restaurants around the world often promote it as a "home dish". However, while diners are feasting, I am afraid that they cannot imagine that this Lingnan cuisine has such a long and long history.
The past and present lives of roast suckling pigs
The so-called "roasting" originated from fire, and another word commonly used in ancient times was "burning". Its original meaning is to cook or dry with fire. It is probably also one of the most primitive cooking methods for human beings. For example, the "Peking Man" site in Zhoukoudian has found animal bones after being burned in the fire. In the era of civilization, the Zhou Li records that one of the eight delicacies ("Eight Treasures") that was exclusively for Zhou Tianzi at that time was called "Cannon Dolphin". In short, the suckling pig is roasted and then fried, and finally "stewed in water". Until the pork is crispy, mix with vinegar and meat sauce before eating.
Although "Eight Treasures" has since been praised by posterity as a synonym for "delicious food", from the critical eyes of today's foodies, "Cannon Dolphin" still has "fly in the ointment". The process is cumbersome, it goes without saying, just stewing in the water for three days, the meat quality is too old to know without asking. Coupled with this way of eating, you can only eat meat and cannot eat the skin, which is naturally a regret.
Probably the ancients also gradually realized this problem. In the Period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the outstanding agronomist Jia Sixun summed up the wisdom and creation of successive generations of culinary masters in the famous book "Qi Min Zhi Shu", and recorded the practice of "hot porpoise".
Compared with the "cannon dolphin", the "hot dolphin" is closer to the current "roast suckling pig". First of all, as today, the raw materials for the "hot porpoise" need to be selected from fat piglets that are still feeding, called "suckling pigs". This is also the first time that the name "suckling pig" has appeared in historical records. Next, shave and wash the hair, cut open the belly, remove the five internal organs, and then wash it. Stuffed with thatch in the abdominal cavity and filled with it. Wear it with a hard oak stick, slow down, and grill it at a distance. Bake on one side and rotate constantly on the other side to make it evenly on fire and prevent scorching.
Pig
Compared with the "cannon dolphin" of the Zhou Dynasty, the "hot dolphin" during the Southern and Northern Dynasties has been significantly improved: the process of smearing wine and oil has been increased during the "barbecue", so that the skin and meat can be eaten. From the perspective of modern cooking, suckling pigs can generally be eaten when they are three or four pounds, and about ten pounds is the best time to eat. At this time, the pork fiber is fine and soft, contains more fat, other ways to eat will be greasy, only after grilling, delicious and drunk, fragrant but not greasy, pork skin and meat together to eat, it is said that it can also be good for the skin, play a role in beauty. Such a "hot porpoise" is of course a delicacy. In jia sixun's words, after this dish is served, "the color is the same as amber, and it is like real gold, and the entrance is dissipated, like snow, with pulp and cream, and it is extraordinary." This passage is salivating to read, and it is even more touching that the mastery of the famous chefs at that time on the "heat" of baking is probably already to the point of pure fire.
However, the cooking method of the "hot porpoise" is a bit like today's "Peking duck", which poses a problem. The skin of the pig is much thicker than that of the duck. If the chef cannot grasp the "heat", it is easy to produce the result of "tender inside and outside scorching" because it is grilled from the outside to the inside. As today's diners are familiar with, the focus of "roast suckling pig" is to eat the skin (hence the name "crispy suckling pig"). Therefore, the color and flavor of the skin can be called the key to measuring the success or failure of this dish.
Roast suckling pig
Naturally, some people have thought of this problem. Yuan Ming, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, was also a great foodie, and his "Suiyuan Food List" can be called a "bible" for diners at that time. It records a practice of "burning piglets": take six or seven pounds of piglets, remove the hair from the tongs, burn them with charcoal, and when the four sides turn dark yellow, apply souff oil and apply them repeatedly. At this time, the "roast piglet" is to roast the inner cavity first, and then roast the outer skin, so that the roasted piglet is crisp and delicious, unique. It can be seen that the difference between the "roast piglet" of more than three hundred years and the "roast suckling pig" in today's concept seems to be only the name. It can be said that China's technical aspect of "roasting suckling pig" finally reached a perfect state by the middle of the Qing Dynasty.
There are suckling pigs in the north and south
Li Shizhen, a medical scientist of the Ming Dynasty, once wrote in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Pigs, the animals of the world." From this point of view, since the pig industry is all over Shenzhou, it is expected that the "roast suckling pig" has "blossomed everywhere" and become a national delicacy.
The most eye-catching is, of course, the emperor's table. The Qing Dynasty's Ai xin jueluo royal family was from the Manchus. The Manchus' dietary life is almost inseparable from pigs. The "roasted piglets" mentioned by Yuan Ming were also popular among the Manchus at that time. Its early practice was to slaughter and clean the suckling pig (a pig that had just been born for less than half a month), coat the whole body with thin yellow mud, bury it in a charcoal fire and cook it, and then disassemble the yellow mud, cut it with a knife, dip it in salt noodles or seasonings, and eat it. This is similar to the "pit roast pig" loved by Hawaiian natives today. Later, it developed into washing the suckling pig, using white wine, rice wine, honey water and salt to wipe the pig's body inside and out, and then inserting it into the pig's body with an iron shovel, carrying it on the basin rack containing the charcoal fire, roasting it with charcoal, and smearing oil while roasting until it is cooked. In the section on "Burning Little Pigs", the "Suiyuan Food List" specifically adds a sentence "Qiren has a single wine and autumn oil steamer", indicating that the Manchus' method of making "roast suckling pig" has its own unique features.
Roast pig in a Hawaiian pit
As for the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, although they entered the Forbidden City from the White Mountains and Black Water, they have always retained the Manchu habit of eating pork. According to the "Jisheng in the Age of Emperor Jing", every Mid-Autumn Festival in the Qing Dynasty, "roast suckling pig" is a good product purchased by the imperial court. During the Tongzhi and Guangxu years, Empress Dowager Cixi took the female lead in government. This "Lafayette" also likes to eat roast suckling pig. Yu Deling (Princess Deling), who had served as a former female official of Cixi, recorded in her "Second Year of the Qing Palace" that "things such as smoking seem to be the most suitable for the taste of the empress, such as roast duck, roast suckling pig, smoked chicken, simmered leg of lamb, etc., almost constantly will be presented... The cooking method in the palace is more or less more elaborate than outside. ”
Unfortunately, how to study the law, the book is like a pity. However, as Deling tells the reader, "ordinary people can also enjoy it in the tavern outside." Tang Lusun, a grandnephew of Princess Zhenfei and a famous gourmand in the Republic of China, recalled that at that time, the "box shop" in Beijing was specialized in the roast suckling pig business. Purely with a steel fork to pick the meat on the charcoal fire to turn the roasted suckling pig, "the skin is crisp and crisp, the meat is fine and tender, the best thing is smooth and plump without greasy mouth", widely praised by gourmets.
In the "South of Caiyun", the "Son of Mugong" also hosted Xu Xiake, a famous traveler of the Ming Dynasty. "There are soft pigs in the dish", Xu Xiake tasted and asked about its production method. "A soft pig is a pig of five or six pounds, fed with rice, whose bones are soft and crisp, and all of which are hot, and are sliced and eaten." Its taste is tender and delicious. According to the text description in the "Xu Xiake Travels and Diary of DianYou", this "fire roasted soft pig" is actually a "roast suckling pig".
In the production areas of many "roast suckling pigs", it is naturally impossible to ignore Guangdong. "Roast suckling pig" in Guangdong, can be called a complete "long history". On June 9, 1983, the tomb of the Nanyue king of the Western Han Dynasty with a history of more than 2,000 years was discovered in Xianggang Mountain. Archaeologists who rushed here found a series of precious cultural relics, including the "Emperor Wen Xingxi". But the most interesting thing for foodies is the dazzling cooking utensils in the funerary items. Among them, the oven has its own pulley below, which is convenient for where to eat and move, and the four corners on the top are cocked to prevent the food from slipping. There are also two iron forks next to the oven, 83 cm long, which are likely to be used to fork roast small suckling pigs - because there are 4 small suckling pigs cast on the wall of the excavated small square oven. Next to this small furnace, another copper ding also found the bones of suckling pigs. From this point of view, it seems that the King of South Vietnam who lived in Yangcheng at that time had already enjoyed the "crispy suckling pig" that "ate in Guangzhou".
Ovens and other items in the tomb of the King of Nanyue
Why Cantonese cuisine
Of course, the world of South Vietnam has gone far away (more than two thousand years). It is difficult to say that the "crispy suckling pig" in Cantonese cuisine today has a direct inheritance relationship with the (suspected) roast suckling pig in the tomb of the King of Nanyue. The modern Guangxi scholar Liu Xifan once examined in the "Lingbiao Jiman" that the "roasted fragrant pig" was first from the "specialty of the barbarian region of Gui Province (now Guangxi)", and later its practice spread to Guangdong, and the "roast suckling pig" also came into being.
Whether this statement is a historical truth or not, it has nothing to do with the grand purpose. This is because Cantonese cuisine has always had a good set of references to other cuisines. For example, the famous Cantonese dish "chrysanthemum fish" is borrowed from the "squirrel mandarin fish" in Su cuisine. This is the so-called "pearls are produced in the sea and rise in a noble foreign land, and flowers are planted in the garden and outside the wall of incense.". Even though "roast suckling pig" may have been imported from elsewhere, now "roast suckling pig" is the most popular in Guangdong. Some people even believe that it has become "Guangdong's chief famous dish". How did such a situation come about?
Squirrel cinnamon fish
On the one hand, of course, it is the Cantonese people's "exquisite" attitude towards diet. As Yu Muxia, a famous journalist of the Republic of China, said: "(Cantonese people) are very luxurious and exquisite in their problems of eating." For this reason, Cantonese cuisine values the origin of the ingredients. Wu Zhenfang, a Qing dynasty man, said in the "Lingnan Miscellaneous Records" that there is a kind of dragon pig in northern Guangdong nanxiong, "the skin is thin and tender, and it is not similar to the regular pig". Such a high-grade suckling pig raw material, naturally "Guangcheng is also heavy".
In addition to the selection of materials, the method is equally elaborate. On the selection of ingredients, the suckling pig skin is required to be thin and the body is plump, after slaughtering and washing, the five-spice powder and salt are applied to the abdominal cavity of the suckling pig, after marinating for half an hour, then the sauce, curd milk and other spices are applied to the abdominal cavity, and then marinated for half an hour, and then blanched with boiling water, then coated with sweet and sour vinegar, baked on a low heat for half an hour, until the meat is cooked. After baking, remove the suckling pig, brush its surface with a layer of sesame oil, and finally use a blade to cut the pork skin (no meat) into 32 pieces and serve the whole one. The best Cantonese-style roast suckling pig, bright color, big red skin, crispy skin and tender meat, strange aroma in the mouth.
Crispy suckling pig
On the other hand, it has to do with culture. Considering the intricate and complicated production process of "roast suckling pig", ordinary people can only do it in a very grand festival. In Guangdong marriage customs, on the third day after marriage, the groom accompanies the bride to the in-laws' house to meet her father-in-law and mother-in-law, which is called "returning to the door". That's when a traditional wedding comes to an end. In many parts of Guangdong, the groom's official must-have gift for "returning to the door" is roast suckling pig (also known as "golden pig"). According to Yu Puchen in the "Notes on the Corridor": "At the wedding ceremony in Guangzhou, the bride returned to her parents' house three days after the wedding, and accompanied her with a roast pig, and the number of her pigs depended on the fertility of her husband's family..." Recently, the connotation of "three days back to the door" has changed, but whether it is frugal and frugal, there must still be a "roast pig" to show good luck.
The custom of marriage has always been regarded as one of the most important ceremonies in life. The emphasis on the "roast suckling pig" at the homecoming feast also made the rest of the ceremonies follow suit. Cantonese people will put suckling pigs on the gods every New Year's Festival, and in the old days, major competitions in Guangdong often used roast suckling pigs as prizes. Even at the opening ceremony of the company, it also likes to cut suckling pigs, symbolizing the body and career red and strong, in order to be auspicious.
The deep integration with local culture, in turn, strengthens the status of roast suckling pig in Cantonese cuisine. For example, although Shenzhen today is an immigrant city, there is a local "pot dish " (also called "Wai Cai") in the local area. This traditional diet is a mixed brocade dish served in pots. Its top floor is said to be usually covered with roast suckling pigs (or replaced by white chopped chickens), symbolizing its noble status. In contrast, the literati Hu Pu'an during the Republic of China claimed in the article "The Banquet in Guangzhou" that "the restaurant in Guangdong can be said to be the best at home and abroad" and that "if roasted pigs, steamed nests, etc. are also treasures", of course, it is more straightforward.
In addition to these "internal factors", the name of "roast suckling pig" is now almost exclusive to Guangdong and has a fortuitous relationship. As Tang Lusun said, since the Qing Dynasty, the capital has also been popular "roast suckling pig", why did the daimyo fall next to Lingnan in the end? This is probably because of the existence of "Peking Duck". Chinese food circles have always had the saying "Southern Pig North Duck", "Southern Pig" is the roast suckling pig that is popular in Guangdong, and "North Duck" refers to Beijing roast duck. The production methods of the two are close to twins, and there are some similarities in eating methods (such as the importance of the taste of "skin"). But for Beijingers, roast duck, known as the "delicacy of the world", is obviously higher than that of "roast suckling pig". Even Mr. Tang Lusun seems to have this attitude - "As far as I know, the only real authentic Beijing dish is roast duck!" Since this is the case, it is probably reasonable for the "roast suckling pig" to condescend to the throne in the capital.
Mr. Tang Lusun, who loves roast duck even more
Then again, whether it is a roast suckling pig in Guangdong or other places, there is one thing in common: roast suckling pig must be roasted and eaten. If you wait until the suckling pig becomes cold, the skin is not crispy and the flavor is greatly reduced. Isn't it a pleasure to take a sip of suckling pig and take a sip of wine?
Editor-in-Charge: Shanshan Peng
Proofreader: Yan Zhang