[ Fish Bone ]
A thorn in one's flesh
Woman
are good at picking thorns,
Look at the thorns of the fish, shrimp and crabs,
You know how high or low.
When I discuss the subtle pushing and shoving of the old-fashioned women of the family, I always talk about the mahjong bridge section in Ang Lee's "Color Ring", the table that cannot be disclosed to the inner and outer chambers, the concubines of Qingqing, while competing for favors and helping each other, which is also a kind of chivalry. Whoever talks to me about the harem of the ancient royal family, I usually shut up because I have no interest in "men" with long breasts. That kind of high-powered physical relationship network, colder and bloodier than a dagger, is all a matter of your life and death, and women become disgusted. I do appreciate the more liberating female concept in "Jin Ping Mei", everyone's mate selection criterion is the man's ability to love, which is actually much wiser than the "marital transaction" that only requires a long-term meal ticket. If "slut" has a positive meaning, this is the case. The man was not there, and his women quickly reached a united front in eating, with the momentum of "flying snow pile plate squid belly, pearl on boiling chicken head". I love women, tenderly, and hot in case of trouble.
Eat Huaiyang vegetables, fireworks in March, there is a kind of romance is "lower Yangzhou". The "Twenty-Four Joes" of the Twenty-Four Bridges have never been seen, but the wind and moon and delicious taste of "Hirayamado" are still reverie. After all, Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi were both here because of the public soul. I went to Yangzhou on a business trip, and I couldn't help but ask the driver master, here is the thin West Lake, the girl is thin, right? The driver smiled, where the girl is thin, all take food to talk about things, fat more. Originally, the girl from the fat West Lake did not believe it, remembering that in "Golden Bottle Plum", Li Bottle'er scolded Jiang Zhushan, "You are a shrimp eel, and you are weak in your waist: Pingbai buys this line of goods to tease the old woman's family!" Treat you like a piece of meat, it turns out to be a middle-of-the-road, wax gun head, dead king eight! "It is said that Li Zhen'er recruited the Tai doctor Jiang Zhushan during Ximen Qing's evasion of official feuds. The doctor bought a "toy" for flirting, and as a result, Li Bottle'er scolded a bunch of "eating" with his head covered, shrimp, eel, meat, and Wang Ba, and this anger was all mixed with pot gas when it spewed out. It seems that I was bluffed by the allusion of "Yangzhou Skinny Horse".
When I was young, I liked to watch the beautiful Shanghai aunt pick crab meat, and the master did not need "eight pieces of crab", a small pair of scissors, a small brazing knife. The aunt's hand is white sticky, next to a pile of crab meat is high, like the back of the snow pile's hand like a rice cake, but it is delicate, with the crisp soft cavity up and down like a white pigeon flying, and crab meat glue, looking more hungry. This reminds me of the crab feast in the Ming Court recorded in Liu Ruoyu's "History of the Ming Palace", "(In August) new wine was made, and crabs began to be fattened." The courtiers of the palace ate crabs, washed them alive, steamed them in pu color, and gathered in groups of five or six, sat down to eat together, and laughed and laughed. Remove the umbilical cap, finely use your fingernails to pick, and dip vinegar and garlic to serve wine. Or remove the crab sternum, the eight ways are complete like a butterfly, to show ingenuity. After eating, drink Suye soup, wash your hands with Suye and other pieces, and also for the grand event. This is all the "trick" learned by Huaiyang, after eating the crab, neatly arranged, and then put out a crab shell "butterfly".
"Crab Butterflies" seen in Master Hou Xinqing's Huaiyang Cuisine Class
Crab powder is picked out, of course, for the sake of eating freely. Master Zhou Xiaoyan, the grandmaster of Huaiyang cuisine, said that stir-fried crab powder, pot roasted crab, crab powder tofu, snowflake crab bucket, hibiscus set crab and so on are Huaiyang dishes. Ximen's "crab fresh" of eating crabs is a bit like a crab bucket, but there are also differences, which are fried and stuffed into the shell, not the traditional fried puff pastry. I think the speed of eating has created the word "fun", like a romantic idol drama like spring flowers and autumn moon, what to eat is no longer important.
Sometimes I eat knife fish and like to play "Yangzhou Slow", dividing the steamed knife fish into three parts, two pieces of fish meat and one fish bone. A piece of fish meat is rolled up with chopsticks and spoons and put into the mouth, and with the power of the tip of the tongue and the power of the palate, it pushes and sticks fine thorns, and finally like a cat spitting hair balls. This fish meat peeling has a skill, to the fish steamed just right, I can clip the head of the fish to lift, so that half of the body of the whole fish gradually separated from the other half, vertical hanging after the other half of the fish meat, it is not easy. This has to be coordinated by the chef and steamed just right. What I have encountered, if it is not transparent enough, it will be sticky to the flesh; if it is too transparent, it will be old. Instead of adding drama to the chef, I usually take a chopstick, start with the meat under the gills of the fish, and push the meat against the bone to the tail of the fish until the whole piece is peeled off. Then use chopsticks to press against the meat in the opposite direction from bottom to top, and slide down the spine of the knife fish to the tail, which is refreshing again. If the middle fish bone is Yaxing, who has a snack at home, he asks the chef to go to the crisp and fry it, and then eat it. Who eats, there is no minced meat on the plate, faint shallow chicken fat broth, two "hair balls" on the side. The neighbor is usually a "Wow! ”
Women go out to get war robes, show one or two hands on the table, although it is not to say that it is showing off and educating, but occasionally playing "arrogant and squeamish", it is also a kind of spicy. Just like the 35th time of "Golden Bottle Plum", it is written that Li Bottler and the eldest sister came, and everyone gathered around to eat crabs. Yue Niang instructed Xiao Yu: "There is still some wine in the house, sift it to eat with your wives." Jin Lian quickly said, "To eat crabs, you need some Jinhua wine to eat." He added, "I just ate crabs." The book boy begged Li Bottler to say human kindness and earn extra money for him in front of Ximen Qing, and took one or two or five pieces of silver, "bought a pot of Jinhua wine, two roast ducks, two chickens, one silver fresh fish, one elbow hoof, two gold top skin crispy fruit pie, one silver roll", and rectified a table of wine to honor Li Bottler. Ximen Qing also ate some of this wine, and everyone followed suit, but the little squatter who guarded the door did not eat it. So Ping An complained to Pan Jinlian, which deepened the contradiction between Pan Jinlian and Li Zhen'er. All of this is caused by diet.
I think it's delicious and enjoys skin-cutting, just like Gentle Township. I watched "Jin Ping Mei", Ximen Qing ate a lot of Huaiyang dishes, he was living in XimenLi in Qinghe City, Shandong Province, or West Street, not far from the birthplace of Huaiyang cuisine. These dishes that existed 2500 years ago, such as the gentle and delicate beauty, began in the Spring and Autumn, flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and Huaiyang mainly refers to the cuisine of Huai'an and Yangzhou. At that time, Huaiyang cuisine, which was mainly stewed, stewed, burned and boiled, could already evolve into several kinds of tastes such as crisp, tender, sticky, fine and rotten, and the essence of dingzhong fire control could be seen. During the Ming Dynasty, the "Chronicle of Huai'an Province" recorded: "Huai'an food and luxury, exquisite system, the city of hundreds of products, exaggerated river watch." ”
The word "boastful" shows that Huaiyang cuisine has stabilized as the main form of official cuisine. Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang has a special love for Huaiyang cuisine, and the core of the imperial kitchen is Yangzhou people. The Zhengde Emperor also loved to tour Yangzhou in the south, mainly a feast of Yanfu and Koufu, and the special products of the river in Yangzhou were "anchovies, knife fish, and catfish", known as the three fresh foods of the Yangtze River.
I went to Yangzhou and ate a three-headed feast, fish heads, lion heads, and pig heads. Pig heads and fish heads are boneless, and I thought to myself that it was necessary to serve people into toothless people to be considered "gentle heart". My favorite writer is also a good friend Li Shu, who wrote a book "Pan Jinlian's Dumplings", Pan Jinlian is very good at making dumplings, such as Ximen Qing's favorite "stuffed meat horns". This makes me can't help but compare it to Song Huilian's pig's head, which sounds most like a showmanship in "Golden Plum Bottle". Although this Song Huilian is a subordinate, Ximen Qing repeatedly plays with Song Huilian's little feet in the Tibetan Spring Dock, which is full of praise. In addition, she can stew delicious pork head meat with only a stick of firewood, and when swinging, she can fly into the clouds of half a day, revealing her bright underwear. All of this shows that she is better than Pan Jinlian. The people in Huaiyin still call reeds "chai", cut reeds "cut firewood", "a bundle of reeds" called "a bundle of firewood", "reed mats" called "chai mats" and so on. In the past, reeds were abundant on both sides of the Huai River, and there were many varieties, among which there was a reed, which was about two inches long and more than an inch in diameter, which was particularly resistant to burning, and it was possible to burn a pig's head with one such reed.
On the fourth day of the Chinese New Year, Ximen Qing went out to visit the door, wu Yueniang went to her mother's house, Meng Yulou, Pan Jinlian, and Li Zhen'er, three good sisters, played chess and gambled money at home, Li Zhen'er lost five dollars (half two, Xiao Bai knew) silver, bought a pig's head, four pig's trotters, and a pot of wine, so that Song Huilian, who was good at burning pig's head, burned the wine and ate it. So I went to the chef's stove, scooped a pot of water, shaved the pig's first hoof, and only used a long stick of wood to install in the stove, with a large bowl of oil sauce, and fennel material, mixed to stop, up and down the tin guzi buckle. Xiguzi is a kind of tin pot in the Ming and Qing dynasties, with a heavy upper lid, and the lid and pot buckle are tight, just like the pressure cooker today. In one hour, the skin of a pig's head was de-fleshed, and the fragrance was full of five flavors. The large ice plate was filled, even the ginger and garlic plates, and the square box was taken to the front of the Li bottle room, and the Jinhua wine was opened. Cook the meat in a pressure cooker, only add the sauce and mix well, without adding water, and the meat flavor will not be lost. The delicacies were sent to the rooms of the three little wives, and no one dared to move the chopsticks first, and Meng Yulou, who was at the top of the line, "picked up a large plate neatly, and a pot of Jinhua wine, so that the servants sent to the upper room and ate with the moon lady." Then the three of them ate. Halfway through the meal, Chef Song Huilian came and asked: Is the taste OK? Very nice! Hard work, reward you with a big glass of wine, a plate of meat to eat! This kind of harmony shared between women is indeed something that the relationship between men and women cannot give.
Perhaps in accordance with the customs of the Ming Dynasty at that time, when the Huaiyang cuisine in the big restaurant came up, there were still four plates of cold dishes and four plates of hot dishes. I am most interested in the wine dish, always "wine is a color matchmaker", remembering Ximen Qing's first sight of Pan Jinlian "That Ximen Qing saw the woman coming, as if the sky fell, the two sat side by side and folded their strands... The two of them exchanged glasses and drank freely. This Ximen Qing looked at the woman carefully, more iconic than when he first saw her. After eating the wine, the flour noodles revealed red and white... Ping deceived the immortals, raced through Chang'e... Just like Chang'e came down in the moon, it is difficult to buy even if she has not wasted thousands of dollars. It is said that there are only 105 sexual depictions in the novel "Jin Ping Mei", 2025 wine characters appear, and 247 large and small drinking scenes appear! The appetizer in the book is called "case wine", which can appear at a serious banquet or be used to drink with wives and concubines.
In other words, poor Jiang Zhushan was later beaten by Ximen Qing's good friends, and those two people were named Zhang Sheng and Lu Hua, who framed Jiang for not paying off his debts, and Jiang of course did not admit it, and Zhang said to Jiang Zhushan: "You have eaten morning wine again!" "Then start punching and kicking. The exchange of power and money, the matter of black protection is not the focus in "Golden Plum Bottle", the focus is on "morning wine". Saying that the raw morning drink in Jingzhou, Hubei Province, is morning wine, I think it is understandable. But Wuxi, a place where even the sauce ribs are sweet out of the dimples, makes me feel far away.
The croppers took advantage of the cool morning to work in the fields early in the morning. It is common to eat breakfast until 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning. Therefore, in the countryside breakfast to prepare a few stir-fried vegetables, eat a few large bowls of rice, but also drink a few or two wines to live blood, relieve fatigue, over time, the countryside has to drink "morning wine". But this morning alcohol, a plate of crisp eels, a plate of small ribs, a drawer of small dumplings, a bowl of silver noodles, a stack of ginger shreds. The best way to eat Yangzhou crab powder soup bun is to put it in a small dish, gently open a small mouth, and suck the soup in it. Combine with shredded ginger and put it in your mouth. The spicy taste of fresh ginger just suppresses the sweetness of the meat filling.
Anchovy is a common appetizer in Ximen Qing's home, usually in the form of "carp", in the twenty-seventh time of the golden bottle plum, "Ximen Qing opened the eight grids of delicate dishes saved in the box, one of which was the wooden silver fish fish." 鲊, 古同鮺, said that the text is interpreted in the middle of the word: (鲝) Zang Yu also. Interpretation of the name. Fish, squid also. Stuffed fish with salt rice as a stalk. Eat what you want. According to the ancient method of making fish. Make the fish not bad.
The dish that impressed me the most was the dish that the Earl came to his door and Ximen Qing entertained him: first put four plates of vegetables and fruits, and then put four plates of fresh: Taizhou duck eggs from red Deng Deng, crooked king melon mixed with Liaodong golden shrimp, fragrant and fried roasted bones, bald fat and steamed steamed chicken. In the second course, there are four bowls of rice (that is, accompanying dishes): one Ou'er filtered steamed roast duck, one Ou'er crystal hooves, one Ou'er white fried pork, and one Ou'er stir-fried loin. Backward is the inside and outside of the blue and white disk, holding a plate of red rich willow steamed rotten anchovy, sweet and delicious, melting in the mouth, bone spurs are fragrant. Ximen Qing poured the lotus wine into the small golden chrysanthemum cup and ate it with the earl."
Ximen Qing once sent the earl two tails of anchovies, he was reluctant to eat one or two, one tail to his brother, the other tail cut off the middle section to give to his daughter, the rest of which was beaten into narrow pieces, placed in the jar, and only when there were guests were willing to steam one or two pieces. It seems that Count Ying does not know how to eat and drink, and it also shows that he attaches great importance to Ximen Qing.
On the twentieth time, Ximen Qing and Li Zhen'er had a night of clouds and rain, and when they got up the next day, Ya Gui brought some wine and dishes to the spring, and the two continued to drink wine. This meal is a brunch in today's terms, richer than earlier, and slightly simpler than lunch, the five dishes are: rotten pigeon chicks, yellow leek milk cake, vinegar roast cabbage, fire bacon, red rotten anchovy. Except for the vinegar-roasted cabbage, the presumably practice is the reprocessing of ready-made cold vegetables, pigeon chicks, i.e. pickled pigeons, and fire bacon, which is today's bacon or ham. Red anchovy appears again, that is, the anchovy is cooked, and then marinated with red residue, and now this cooking method is most used by Fujian people.
Anchovy drunken fragrance @ InterContinental Wuxi Junlai
But also can not be generalized, ancient traffic is not as developed as it is now, carp is associated with the preservation of fish, to make carp need to add rice, before the Ming Dynasty, carp was very popular, until the late Qing Dynasty, gradually lost. A delicious fish, like fresh anchovies, steaming is certainly wise, but if there are many different ways of cooking interpretation, although it looks like "wasted", but after giving enough stage and respect, there may be surprises. Once, I almost misunderstood the shallot anchovy. The tender, crispy and fragrant flesh made me fall in love with the scales of the anchovy.
Su Shi, a great literary scholar of the Song Dynasty, called it "the best fish in the southern country" and "the best of the southern country", and made a poem to praise: "There are still peach blossoms in the spring, and the flavor is better than the sea bass." "Eating alone naturally does not have steamed scales with fat aroma, but the wine is the former more soulful." Ximen Daguan treated these kinds of goods with pity, and ordered the fishermen to "cover the fish with ice baskets and transport them by ice boats" to escort them all the way to Yanggu.
The anchovies shipped from Jiangyin are sticky like crispy @ Qiu Yuetai
As soon as the appetizer is spread out, it becomes a serious feast. We can find a lot of Qianying of Huaiyang cuisine from "Golden Bottle Plum", Yangzhou eats geese, Nanjing eats duck, and the way to eat fruit after drinking is still retained. The forty-ninth time in the novel, it is written that Ximen Qing's eating decorations for entertaining Hu monks are particularly classic, after all, it is a banquet set up at home. "At that time, it was Li Jiao'er's birthday, and there were dishes under the kitchen. Set up the table and just bring it up. First, four plates of fruit, four plates of side dishes, and four plates of case wine were placed: a plate of head fish, a plate of bad duck, a plate of wupi chicken, and a plate of dancing perch. Then he took four kinds of rice: a plate of walnut meat fried with horns and shallots, a plate of finely cut pork, a plate of fatty lamb intestines, and a plate of slippery loach. The next time, he took out a soup and rice: two meat balls in a bowl, sandwiched with a piece of flower intestine roller meat, called a dragon play two pearl soup; a large dish of cracked head high-loaded meat buns. ... Then two more things were added: a plate of riding intestines and a plate of pickled goose necks. Again, two beautiful things and the monk drank wine: a plate of leprosy grapes and a plate of flowing red plums. Behind was a large bowl of eel noodles and vegetable rolls, which were brought up together and scattered with the monk. ”
Whenever the Ximen officials drank and feasted, I saw that my saliva was drenched, and even the porridge side dishes were salty and crispy. Yangzhou tube eel is called long fish, and there are long fish noodle restaurants in the streets and alleys. Huaiyang cuisine not only pays attention to color and shape, but also pays attention to the name of the dish, such as braised saddle bridge, which is actually a bone-bearing eel section like a saddle, if it is a boneless eel back, it is called "soft pocket".
"A soup rice comes out: two meat balls in a bowl, sandwiched between a piece of flower intestine roller meat, called a dragon play two pearl soup." Now there is a dish in Huaiyang cuisine called "Oolong Play Pearl", which is the same as "One Dragon Play Two Pearl Soup", which is actually a quail egg in the middle of the fried sea cucumber. The "One Dragon Play Two Pearl Soup" of "Jin Ping Mei" looks like a male surgical laboratory specimen. The second beads are two lion heads, made with yam and minced meat.
Master Zhou Xiaoyan said that the traditional lion's head is actually added to the horseshoe, because it is still crisp after heating for two hours, but the horseshoe has seasonality, so sometimes it cannot be added. "Adding yam is not the way to do Huaiyang cuisine, and after adding it for two hours, the taste is soft and rotten, and it is greasy." I was thinking maybe I also considered the kidney effect of yam? Otherwise, it is not sincere to complement the form.
The ardent expectations of the Ximen officials were actually on the meat of the flower intestines. The sea cucumber is covered with flesh thorns and resembles the roller weapon of the cylinder used in ancient castle guards. There is nothing wrong with the "flower intestine" referring to the flower intestine, but the "flower" actually refers to the sea cucumber flower. Female sea cucumbers contain a large number of sea cucumber eggs, which are also called sea cucumber flowers. Sea cucumbers, a strange thing, never take the initiative to attack other animals, but when they escape, they have a strange trick to "remove dirt". Sea cucumbers drain their own entrails to confuse their enemies, provide a full meal, and after months of recuperation, they will grow a new set of entrails (similar to the function of the male sea cucumber's disposable chicken that I mentioned in my previous book). Sea cucumber flowers contain sea cucumber gonadal pigment, yellow, it is said to have antioxidant, scavenge too many free radical effects, delay aging. Speaking of which, it's all about three inches below the navel.
Although it is enviable to say that "grace is like lacquer, and the heart is like glue", it is better to be happy in bed than at the table.
The godmother asked
What Huaiyang cuisine do you like?
"Living with what you love,
Thus the break is reached. ”
- "Breaking Away"
Food Bless You！
Consultant of China International Food Expo
Producer of "The Table of Gods"