Textu/ Small water droplets
Under the warm winter sun, it is really a fortunate thing to have the opportunity to visit Weihui's non-hereditary heirs.
I have long heard that the powder skin of Tianyao Village in Taigong Town, Weihui City is very famous. Its powder skin making skills were announced by the Xinxiang Municipal People's Government as the Xinxiang Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2019, and the Xinxiang Cultural and Guangdong Tourism Bureau issued a naming brand to it. The intangible cultural heritage refers to the powder skin skills that the Zhang clan of Tianyao Village has been passing down for more than 120 years
The lineage of the Zhang family is clear, from the first generation of heirs Zhang Huaijin in 1882 to the sixth generation of heirs, Zhang Jinhua, who is 21 years old this year, the inheritance has been carried on from generation to generation. Whether it is the technical process or the production process, including the drying program, the evolution of storage methods, etc., the generations of Zhang's inheritors have committed themselves to traditional skills, adhering to the "five reals" concept of "simple (to be a simple villager), real (to use pure raw materials), real (to do solid work procedures), down-to-earth (down-to-earth inheritance), honesty (not to cheat and not to do business), to continue the work skills, evolve the process, and make people a businessman.
The best quality ingredients are derived from its suitable and unique growth area, especially the flour skin of the field kiln. Located three kilometers north of Taigong Town, Weihui City, Tianyao Village, surrounded by mountains and beautiful mountains, is the place where Zhisheng Jiang Taigong, recorded in the "Notes on water classics", was fishing in the past, known as "Lingxi".
Weihui is also located in the northeast of Xinxiang City, the eastern foothills of Taihang Mountain, the north bank of the Ancient Yellow River, and the shore of Weishui. There are seven major rivers in the territory, namely the Wei River, the Communist Canal, the East Mengjiangnu River, the Canghe River, the Xiangquan River, the Shili River, and the Dasha River, and most of the areas are agricultural production areas. In particular, in the mountainous and hilly areas of weihui area, the main food crops are wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, etc., and the cash crops are cotton, mung beans, peanuts, sesame seeds, soybeans, and more planting. Thick culture, fertile soil, rich water sources, industrious and wise people, large-scale planting of mung beans, sweet potatoes, the yield is quite abundant. Of course, this also provides a unique advantage for the inheritance and development of Weihui's powder skin making skills in Weihui City for thousands of years.
How many generations of Weihui people know that planting sweet potatoes and mung bean sweet potatoes is easy to rot, mung beans are easy to insect moth, the shelf life is short, it is difficult to store for a long time, so there are able people in Weihui Mountain who continue to use the spirit of craftsmanship to figure out the powder skin processing technology, and the technology is becoming more and more mature in the Ming Dynasty.
Zhang Huaijin (born in 1882), the first generation of powder skin inheritors in Tianyao Village, began in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, on the basis of the production of powder skin by previous generations, gradually refined and standardized a complete set of powder skin production techniques, which made the deep processing and storage of sweet potato and mung bean agricultural products of local and surrounding villagers take an important step forward. At the beginning of the start, Zhang Huaijin mainly tried to do it in his own small courtyard, and constantly explored the procedures, explored the process, and explored the standardization of techniques. After that, the street doors were wide opened, the neighbors were neighbors, the surrounding villages, and for a time the villagers learned to emulate the crowd. Because the procedures, venues, techniques, control ability, and even the stability of the fire are quite exquisite, in the end, it is still the Zhang clan people who have adhered to this technique from the first, second and third generations. After the inheritance and development of great-grandfather Zhang Yan (born in 1904), grandfather Zhang Taolin (born in 1930) and his father's generations, the skill was passed on to Zhang Youhua, and through the fifth generation of heir Zhang Youhua's craft innovation, product packaging, etc., the traditional powder skin technique was gradually carried forward, making Tianyao powder skin a famous native product of Weihui, a good gift for relatives and friends, and also a main ingredient on the table of the people in the Yellow River Basin.
Walking into the Zhangjia Powder Room in Tianyao Village, as long as you briefly browse the mung bean powder skin production process, you will know the meaning of the phrase "if you want to be busy, open a powder shop" said by the generations of Zhang's powder skin skills. Soaking, washing, crushing, pulping, purifying, spinning, drying, storage, this is the process of making mung bean flour skin. Many gourmets evaluate the finished mung bean powder skin as follows: crystal clear, thin as a cicada wing, uniform texture, strong and sharp, pleasant fragrance, long-boiled shape; the finished sweet potato powder skin of Zhang's in Tianyao Village is mostly dark flaky, thick in texture, not rotten for a long time, slippery in taste, and authentic in taste. Its process flow is also complex and orderly. Cleaning, sorting, mashing, passing, precipitation, sizing, steaming, air drying, mixing paste, steaming paste, cooling and separation, rinsing, drying, bundling, storage, etc., are indispensable. The tools used must also be complete, otherwise it will not be able to be made. Commonly used spinning powder leather tools are: stone grinding, coarse grate, fine grate, pin, grate, copper spin, quick cooling cylinder, curtain and so on.
The most admirable and praised is the tradition, regulation and rigor of the production process of the flour skin of the field kiln. For example, the spinier must be a copper spinel, in order to ensure that the nutrients of the powder skin are not lost, not mixed; the firewood used for fire must be hard and split, so that the fire is stable and the water temperature is basically maintained normal. Generally, wheat straw fires or unstable firewood are not used, otherwise the water temperature will fluctuate up and down, so that the quality of the powder skin produced will be greatly reduced; the cold peel must be the water of the field kiln. Because the water quality of the field kiln is rich in the nutrient trace elements of wheat stone. The "three musts" are destined to be the unique personality characteristics of the field kiln powder skin generation and have been passed down to this day. The most exciting process of making flour skin in the tian kiln is the exclusive skill of the Zhang family's inheritance. That is, the inheritor can according to the size of the spinner, when each piece of powder skin is about to spin, the powder skin is rotated in the center of the rotor, due to the role of centrifugal force, a tiny hole will appear in the center of the rotor, impartial, and it is in it. After drying, the owner can use the hand-rubbed string through the hole, knotted into bundles, stored flat, ventilated, persistent, and preserved flavor. This skill, at present, many people have not been able to use it well, only the tianyao Zhang clan inheritors can easily hand it, but they generally no longer perform live, after all, such a technique needs to be protected and kept secret. This is also doomed to the mystery, uniqueness, uniqueness and inheritance of the field kiln powder skin making technology.
Coming to the fifth generation of heirs Zhang Youhua, the process of flour skin in the field kiln has been upgraded and evolved in drying. Traditional drying is to place the swirling powder skin on a curtain of sorghum stalks. In this way, it is easy to crack in the sun, the appearance of the powder skin is easy to go out of shape, the bundle tube is not convenient for storage, and the drying time is long. Zhang Youhua on the basis of the original, in the curtain to add a layer of black tubular bottom, so that because the black heat absorption is fast, the powder skin drying shortens the time, the powder skin after air drying is as regular as ever, the original, the powder skin is basically flat, and the swirling powder skin is on the curtain, and it can be dried without churning. When it is put away and bundled, each bundle of powder skin is cylindrical, and it is much simpler and more beautiful to lie flat and put the storage box. Tian kiln powder skin was also once an indispensable main ingredient for the Weihui people to celebrate the New Year's Festival, and now it is a delicious ingredient that is essential for the daily life of the local people, such as cold mixing, hot stir-frying, stewing, frying, hot pot slow stewing, and ground pot boiling. The most characteristic local dishes such as: beef stewed powder skin, mountain egg fried powder skin, powder skin pimple soup, ground pot powder skin large stew, etc., are closely related to the powder skin. At the same time, the nutritional value of tianyao powder skin is rich, mung bean because of its sweet taste, coolness, heat clearing, detoxification, fire removal ability, is a Chinese medicine commonly used in Chinese medicine to solve a variety of food or drug poisoning. In summer and autumn, eat mung bean powder skin, which has the effect of detoxifying and nourishing the face, relieving heat, and drinking and eating various poisons.
Cultivate character first, then make food. Tian Yao Zhang's loyal pink skin is also more than 120 years old today, famous in Makino, and well-known in the Central Plains. There is another reason worthy of conviction, that is, each generation of the Zhang family is benevolent to others, good neighbors, altruistic and public. This is true of the ancestors, and so are the inheritors. Let's say that Zhang Zhongfu, the fourth generation of inheritors, has eaten a hundred meals and helped hundreds of families in Tianyao Village. Because he still has a good cooking skill. The red and white happy events came, and there was a busy figure of him. He himself said that he had eaten all the rice of the whole village before he was thirty years old; other peasant households in the village wanted to process the sweet potato flour they had grown to make flour skins, and he would process it for the villagers in the flour mill; Zhang Zhongfu also led the masses in the village to form a convoy of thirty horses to pull feet from the Chen Zhao coal mine to the fertilizer factory to earn money together; zhang Youhua, the fifth generation of inheritors, and his son (the sixth generation of inheritors) Zhang Jinwei, in the face of Wei Hui's flood disaster this year, did not evade, did not retreat, did not show off, did not leave a name. When picking up a comrade surnamed Hai in Shangle Village, when he learned on the car that the resettlement site was in urgent need of ingredients, he sent powder skins to the resettlement sites for the evacuated people to eat; during the epidemic prevention and control last year, there was a temporary prevention and control card point not far from his store, and he sent instant food such as instant noodles, ham, and biscuits in time; in the early poverty alleviation period, the poor households in the village Came and Pan were recruited by him to earn money, learn crafts, and help them get rid of poverty.
At present, Tianyao powder skin is being promoted as a municipal intangible cultural heritage protection project in Xinxiang. The basic traditional skills of intangible cultural heritage are still well passed on in the Zhang family in Tianyao Village, Taigong Town, Weihui City. Zhang Youhua, the fifth generation of heirs, said that the third uncle Zhang Zhongchen, the fifth uncle Zhang Zhongsheng and him, a total of three families are now carrying out the implementation of the project. Under normal circumstances, farmers work when they are busy, and their families start processing and production when they are idle. The technique is still the pure handicraft workshop production mode handed down by the elders, and the annual output of powder skin is about 30,000 catties. The best-selling range covers Yunnan, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Henan. The skills and reputation of flour skin making in the field kiln are being inherited and expanded by a new generation of inheritors.