Spring Fancy Life Rambling Beijing Taste Pea Yellow

In the traditional snacks of Beijing, ladies like to eat pea yellow, which is actually a yellow pastry ground with peas.

01 Pea yellow from the folk into the court

When I go to a Beijing-style restaurant, after eating, I always like to order a pea yellow as an after-dinner dessert. Pea yellow cut into small pieces, placed on the plate, appear small and delicate, yellow brilliant color, texture similar to jelly, tempting people to want to eat at a glance, bite a cool mouth, soft taste, sweet taste, a faint pea fragrance.

It is said that this simple pea yellow is a court snack. At first, pea cake was a Han folk snack, generally made of small dates, commonly known as rough pea yellow, and sold on a wheelbarrow covered with a wet blue cloth at temple fairs and other occasions.

One day, Empress Dowager Cixi was sitting in Beihai meditating and resting, when she overheard the sound of beating gongs and shouting from the street, wondering in her heart, and asking what she was doing. Cixi was momentarily pleased, and summoned the man into the garden. The visitor saw Lafayette hurriedly kneeling down, and holding the kidney bean roll and pea yellow in both hands, and asked Lafayette to appreciate the light. Cixi tasted it and praised it.

Because Empress Dowager Cixi liked to eat, pea yellow entered the palace, and later the imperial kitchen further improved, using high-grade peas, and grinding them more finely, making them into a palace snack. Its fine craftsmanship has been passed down to the present, so the pea yellow eaten now, although it is a traditional snack in Beijing, is also called a court snack.

02 How green peas turn yellow

Before eating pea yellow, I would think, see the peas are green, when the green seedlings of the peas grow, we eat pea tips, there are fried pea tips, with pea tips to make soup, pea tips are very tender to eat, and there is a sweet taste, is the original ecology of peas. When the peas grow pods and the pods are tender and green, we eat sweet peas, that is, peel off the pods and eat round green pods.

The peas are green, the pea cakes are yellow, what spices are added to them?

It turns out that the pods of peas are from tender green to green, and when they are old, they become yellow peas, which is a natural process of change and does not require the addition of any color seasoning. Some varieties of peas are still green even if they are old and dry, which is different from the variety.

So why don't people make pea green or pea green, but pea yellow? I did not find the information, according to my experience, the green variety contains less starch, the taste is relatively crisp and tender, and it is not suitable for making pea cake. Only old and dry yellow peas, with more starch, suitable for making pastries, have achieved pea yellow bar.

03 Pea Flower with Pea Princess

Have you ever seen a pea blossom? Pea blossoms have a faint fragrance that is relaxing to smell. The color of the pea flower is white and purple, the shape of the pea flower is particularly beautiful, from a distance it looks like a butterfly flying in the green grass, but there is a unique delicacy and elegance, especially the purple pea flower, which is more delicate in the elegance.

The delicate image of the pea flower reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Princess Pea", the story is like this:

In ancient times, there was a prince who wanted to marry a real princess. One night late at night. A woman who claimed to be a princess came to spend the night on a rainy night. To find out if the woman was a real princess, the queen placed a pea on her bed board and then laid on a twenty-layer mattress and a twenty-layer duck down quilt. The next morning, the princess said that she had not slept well all night, and that there was something in the bed that hurt. The prince finally found his true princess. Because a real princess will have such delicate skin, she can pass the test of peas.

This story illustrates the delicate body of the princess, but also the hardness of the pea, which I guess is a dry and hard old pea, perhaps yellow.

"Princess Pea" was written in 1835, Andersen was Danish, and in Denmark at that time, eating peas was already common.

04 Where do peas come from

Peas, which originate in the Mediterranean and Central Asia, are today's Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and other countries or regions. China is one of the places of origin.

The earliest record of wild peas is the "Book of Poetry - Cevi": "Cevi Cevi, Wei also stopped." It is said that it is returned to the end of the year and that it is not (mù). The "wei" here refers to wild peas.

In the Tang Dynasty, wild peas were a well-known dish for the public, and it was also a favorite of Bai Juyi," and his "Continuing Ancient Poems" Yun: "Early picking of the mountain Wei, twilight picking of the wei on the mountain; the age of Yan Wei is also exhausted, what is the hunger to do?" The "Wei" in the poem also refers to wild peas.

Today we have a rich variety of vegetables and vegetables, but we still love to eat peas. Peas are rich in lysine compared to other foods, which is not found in other foods. Lysine is an indispensable nutrient for the human body, which can promote human development, enhance immune function, improve the function of central nervous system tissue, and also regulate the metabolic balance of the human body.

To absorb the nutrition of peas, in addition to eating pea tips and the original ecology of peas, people can also eat pea processed pastries - pea yellow, and can also taste Beijing-style court snacks.

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