100 years ago, how did Shanghainese eat East Seafood?

Zou Zhaotao

Fast forward to September, the East China Sea is about to fully open fishing, Shanghai gourmets may only need to click the mobile phone, you can be at home to eat the first net "through the bone fresh".

Looking back on the past, 100 years ago, how did seafood foodies without the Internet taste the delicious taste of the East China Sea?

For this question, Shiren gave a clear answer: "Most of the people who open fish shops in general are Ningbo people, and regardless of their locality, just like the fish shops (including fresh and salty) in the area of Xiaodongmen 16 Shops in Shanghai, which one is not an 'Allah' person?!" ”

In 1933, statistics from the Shanghai Municipal Fishery Guidance Institute showed that the public consumed a total of 82,150 quintals of fresh striped fish and 9,934 quintals of salted striped fish that year. The demand for huge striped fish is fully supported by fisheries such as Ningbo, and Shanghai's "fishing boat catchers in the city account for only one percent of the six percent". The phenomenon of the Shanghai seafood surname "Ala" runs through modern times. In 1950, the data witnessed by Xinhua News Agency was that "the Shanghai Fish Market usually trades more than 120 million catties of fish goods per year, of which seafood accounts for more than 80 million catties, most of which come from the Zhoushan Islands."

Shanghainese not only love to eat Ningbo fish, but also pay attention to the dynamics of Ningbo's fishery. As early as 1901, Shanghai's "Integration Daily" had reported the news that "the fish on the surface of the ocean under the jurisdiction of Ning County flooded the ocean", praising Ningbo's "many people in the same township who are engaged in fishing, with a total of 10,000 and dozens of boats". It can be said that seafood is another "kinship bond" connecting Modern Shanghai with Ningbo.

In 1935, the shenjiamen fishing port panorama, which was praised by the people at the time as the "first fishing base area" in the modern East China Sea

Natural fish flood is the "food and clothing parent" of fishermen in the East China Sea in modern times. In 1935, the "Newcomer Weekly" described the distribution of fish floods in modern Yongzhou fisheries: "The first period is called the fish flood in late winter and early spring; the second period is in mid-spring, which is the cuttlefish (squid) flood; the third period is the late spring to early summer, which is the yellow croaker (small yellow fish) flood." "In the modern East China Sea, there are also fish species named after fish. According to the 1942 "Bulletin of Current Affairs", the Yellow Ocean area of Qushan Ispty Is rich in large yellow croaker, and in most years there will be three waves of yellow fish floods ("three waters") that are related to each other before and after "Flower Water" (mid-April of the lunar calendar), "Zhengshui" (Dragon Boat Festival), "May Half Water" (middle of the may of the lunar calendar).

Most of the seafood in modern Shanghai comes from Ningbo, so how can seafood be "made in Ningbo"?

Photographed in Zhejiang in 1936, the masters are working intensively to build an iced fishing boat

In modern times, the groups of fishermen who rely on the fish floods in the East China Sea to eat are very diverse, and the Yongzhou fishing farm can be described as "a thousand sails racing". In 1931, the "Current Affairs Bulletin" recorded that in the modern Ningbo sea, the "fishing gangs" in various places were divided into zoning operations, and most of the time they were orderly. The local Fenghua Gang, Dongmen Gang and Dinghai Gang generally start from the Qingming fish flood and fish until around the autumn, which is obviously different from the habit of the foreign Taiwan Gang to collect the net and return to their hometown around the Dragon Boat Festival. The Wenzhou Gang, which shares fishing boats in the East China Sea, is more special, based on shrimp brains and Kiyabain areas, "specializing in catching cuttlefish, hanging on the surface of the sea or hanging fishing nets around the coast, touching the eye", and is a special household that "thrives".

"Jun look at a leaf boat, haunted in the storm." Regardless of the harsh sea conditions and high-risk operating procedures, the chaotic marine order alone has made the fishermen of the modern East China Sea miserable. In the 1920s, pirates outside Wusongkou harassed Zhejiang chilled ships transporting seafood to Shanghai. Although the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Fisheries Bureau and other competent units have also sent guard ships to escort the ship, but with little effect. Similarly, pirates threaten ships that go out to sea to fish. In 1933 alone, 40 to 50 fishing boats in Ningbo were hijacked by pirates, and at least 70 fishermen died at the hands of pirates. After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance, Japanese militarism extended its claws to the East China Sea, and fishermen fell into the depths of the water. In 1938, the Japanese and puppets slaughtered and expelled fishermen in the Zhoushan Islands, and then introduced Japanese fishing boats into monopoly fishing grounds to "erode fishing profits". It is worth mentioning that in the face of the atrocities committed by the Japanese army, the fish merchants in Shanghai and Ningbo abided by the national righteousness, "on the day of the establishment of the pseudo-Shanghai fish market, more than 600 boxes of enemy fish goods were sent, fortunately the fishmongers knew the great righteousness, did not sell, and the situation was depressed."

In 1934, stills from the movie "Fisherman's Light Song", which was filmed in Shandongmen Village, Xiangshan, Ningbo, "China's first film to win international honors", vividly interpreted the hardships of fishermen in the modern East China Sea.

Ningbo chilled boats moored at the head of the Yongjiang River in the 1930s

In addition to conventional fishing boats, there are also a large number of "special fishing boats" sailing on the surface of the modern East Ocean. For example, for squid, sea crabs and other "light-loving" aquatic products, fishermen will drive "fire boats" at night to attract targets "see the light and set up", see the machine to get off the net. At that time, the catch in the Zhoushan Islands was mainly yellow croaker, pomfret, crucian carp and crab, and all seafood had special channels directly connected to the urban markets of Shanghai and Ningbo: "Fishing boats return to port, that is, they are sold to chilled boats for resale to Shanghai and Ningbo.".

Where does the East China Sea seafood destined for Shanghai land? In 1936, the "Life Star Journal" pointed out: "In the past, the fish eaten by Shanghai people was concentrated in the area of 16 shops." In November 1933, the Shanghai Ningbo Daily wrote about the heyday of the Sixteen Fish Market: Before dawn, retail fishmongers would gather at the docks to compete for fresh seafood brought from Ningbo to Shanghai. These fresh goods caught in the water the day before were put into a special "fresh fish bucket head" by the Ningbo shipwright yard, and can still remain relatively fresh after an overnight voyage to Shanghai. Just after filling the load, the small fishmongers must hurry to the market, otherwise "after this time, not only will it be difficult to sell, but the fresh fish will be corrupted." The "fresh fish bucket heads" stacked on the Shanghai wharf will be loaded on the ship around 3 p.m. on the same day and transported back by the Shanghai-Ningbo passenger ship for reuse the next day.

1937 Shanghai Fish Market "Seafood Auction"

Exterior view of the Shanghai Fish Market taken in 1936

In May 1936, the newly opened Shanghai Fish Market near Yangshupu Dinghai Bridge was completed and put into use, and the scattered marine fish, freshwater fish and other seafood trade in Shanghai was concentrated here. Yangshupu Shanghai Fish Market covers an area of about 47 acres, supporting offices, auction houses, temporary warehouses, cold storage, shore walls, pontoon docks, broker offices. A review in New Junior magazine pointed out that the biggest advantage of the new market over the 16 shop piers is that "there are cold storage warehouses to maintain the umami taste, so as to avoid fishermen from suffering more losses".

The crowded Shanghai Fish Market in 1936

Due to the high cost of fresh fish preservation, but also because of the flavor hobbies brought by the large number of people in Ningbo, Shanghai in modern Times, the consumption of fish and fish in modern Shanghai is also very strong, cuttlefish, yellow croaker, shellfish "everything", the dinner table "no fish is not fragrant". How are fish mackerel made? The craftsmanship seems to be far more refined than most people think.

Take the yellow croaker carp, for example. In 1933, an aquatic processing internship left a valuable "record of the process of making fish". The first step of making a yellow fish fish, ya called "three knife heads", in detail, is in the carp maker sitting on a long bench, the other end with a line to pull out a square frame, the fish head to the person, the dorsal fin to the right embedded in the frame fixed, and then draw the "three knives": the first knife, from the back of the dorsal side of the head to the tail, to achieve "deep through the abdomen". Subsequently, the maker of the fish should turn the body of the fish upside down, and then follow the line of front of the pectoral fin and the posterior fin, from the back to the abdomen, and make up the second and third knives. Next, the carp maker uses his wrist to extract the yellow fish glue intact, and then through the knife hole, the salt is stuffed into the fish body, and then a large amount of salt is evenly applied to the surface of the fish. The salted yellow croaker is stacked in a salt bucket and pressed with heavy stones, like pickles pickled in the snow. After three or four days, it is necessary to enter the drying link, the sunbathing field is covered with mats or straw, and the carp maker arranges the salted yellow fish neatly, and at the same time, the upward-facing gills are uncovered and turned over every half a day. After three or four days of such exposure, the yellow fish fish is complete.

A scene of sunbathing on Zhoushan Island in the 1930s

In modern times, the fishing grounds of the East China Sea have been frequently eroded by foreign fishing vessels such as Japan, and the local fisheries must overcome the market chaos caused by the turbulence of the times, and strive to cope with the fluctuations in the price of the Shanghai fish market, which is worsened by the dumping of foreign fish. From this association, the seafood in the rice bowl of Shanghainese is not a witness to the development of China's sea power and the rise of a maritime power?

In October 1939, the Japanese trawler "Arashiyama Maru" dumped goods at the Shanghai Fish Market

In 1947, the shanghai fish market scene, the impact of overseas fish imports on the local fishery can be imagined

bibliography:

[1] Sun Shangen, Bai Bin, Ding Longhua, History of Ningbo Marine Fisheries, Zhejiang University Press, 2015

[2] Li Aili and Luo Jiahui, "Modern Ningbo Fisheries from a Global Perspective: Ningbo Exhibits at the 1880 Berlin Fisheries Exposition", National Navigation, No. 26, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2019

Editor-in-charge: Zhu Zhe

Proofreader: Liu Wei