A bowl of Taiping swallow. This newspaper reporter Wang Kunxin took a photo
In the early morning, walking into the Nanhou Street of Sanfang Seven Lanes in Fuzhou City, the sound of wooden mallets rose and fell. Following the sound, I saw seven or eight strong men surrounded a cutting board in pairs, taking lunges, waving the mallet in their hands, and hitting the meat ball in front of them with a mallet. The sound is like a drum, attracting many people to watch.
Chen Junfan, the leader of this family, is the fourth generation leader of Tongli Meat Yan. According to him, he and the workers hammered "swallow skin", which is an important raw material for making Fujian's special cuisine- meat swallow. After thousands of hammers, the pork was sprinkled with the best sweet potato powder, and it was patted, kneaded, rolled and shaken over and over again, and a piece of meat swallow skin as thin as rice paper was produced in the hands of Chen Junfan and others.
Walking into the shop, a bowl of steaming meat swallows was served, which at first glance looked a bit like ravioli. "Meat swallow is 'meat wrapped meat', wonton is 'bread meat', the difference is not small." Chen Junfan said.
Qiu Denghui, consultant of the Fuzhou Folk Culture Research Institute, introduced, "Every New Year, there can be no chicken and duck on the table of Fuzhou people, but there must be a bowl of meat swallows. The round head and tail of the meat swallow are shaped like flying swallows, which means reunion and auspiciousness. ”
After inheritance, meat swallow has been given more connotations in Fuzhou. In a bowl of meat swallow, if you add a few duck eggs, it becomes a treasure on the dinner table of every household Chinese New Year's Eve, known as "Taiping Yan".
Taiping Yan is the Taiping Feast. The Taiping Swallow with a few more duck eggs has more meanings of "pressing chaos" and "pressing the waves" than the meat swallow, which means peace. Therefore, the people of Fuzhou are their good wishes for peace and reunion into such a dish, and there is also a folk saying that "no swallow is no feast, no swallow is not a year". "Only when this bowl of Taiping Yan is brought up, can a table of Chinese New Year's Eve rice be considered complete." Fang Xiaofeng, a retired elderly man who lives in Yangxia Community, Tea Garden Street, Jin'an District, Fuzhou City, said.
The sound of mallets, traveling through time and space. A bowl of Taiping Swallow is also filled with wisps of nostalgia for wanderers.
Chen Junfan recalled that the first time he went on a tour with the Fuzhou Snack Troupe, he went to Japan. Chen Junfan went from beating the swallow skin with a mallet, to cooking meat swallows and duck eggs, to presenting a bowl of hot Taiping swallows, several old people stepped forward to hold his hand, tears in their eyes, "For many years, I have not returned to my hometown." In the past 20 years, Chen Junfan has been overseas more than 10 times, and each time he has brought this Taiping Yan to the local Fuzhou villagers. Chen Junfan said: "For the People of Fuzhou who are overseas, what they eat into their mouths is vegetables, but the warmth is a heart full of nostalgia. ”
In 2007, Chen Junfan's daughter Chen Yanjun took over the shop and not only built a factory, but also relied on the Internet to send meat swallows to the world. Nowadays, in New York's Chinatown and Yokohama's Chinatown, you can find bags of small meat swallows, and the nostalgia of overseas Fuzhou villagers has since added a sustenance on the tip of the tongue.
Author: Wang Kunxin, a reporter of this newspaper
Source: People's Daily