Spring is really good, after watching the small yellow flowers and small pink flowers, after eating artemisia, green dough, Amy dumplings, Yu qian wo tou, thorn dragon teeth scrambled eggs... Isn't it time to eat toon!
Toon is on the market
Image source: Changsha Evening News
We can see toon in the market every spring, but people's attitudes towards it are very polarized, and people who love it are eager to eat it every day, and people who hate it are too late to escape.
I would like to say to people who do not eat toon: after reading the pattern of toon, you will know, you have no mouth blessing!
Chop the toon, there is an inner taste
The taste of toon, only Chinese know
Chinese and the fate of toon can be said to have a long history. This is the hometown of toon, in addition to the northeast, northwest and Qinghai-Tibet region, wild toon is widely distributed in the mountains and forests, the ancients saw more tall and luxuriant Tsubaki trees, regarded it as a symbol of longevity.
At the same time, we are also the only country in the world to eat toon, and the earliest record of consumption is found in the Tang Dynasty. Europeans did not eat toon, and they bred an ornamental breed of toon, the "flamingo".
Nowadays, thousands of households in China have toon in front of and behind their houses, and the purpose of people planting it is very clear, that is, to eat...
Every year, around the time of the Qingming Dynasty, the young buds of the toon tree emerge from the water spirit, and the hungry insects are also stirred: this is the first taste from spring after a long winter.
"Before the rain, the tsubaki buds are tender as silk, and after the rain, the tsubaki buds are woody." This is a famous folk proverb. Toon buds are "seasonally limited" ingredients, and during the year, the time to taste it is very short, and before the valley rain festival, the first tsubaki buds have not yet been lignified and are the most tender.
Toon buds
Image source: China on the Tip of the Tongue
Spring in central Yunnan came early, and the Yi mountain dolls carried their backs to the mountain before the New Year, and the song resounded throughout the mountains: "Dry toon, dry toon, dry incense to welcome the good year."
Holding a long pole with a hook, the tsubaki picker hooks a cluster of tree buds with a little force, and with a crisp sound, the young buds fall off, leaving a diamond-shaped mark on the branches.
Pick toon
Image source: "Taste of Yunnan"
When picking toon buds, the petiole will leave traces where it falls off, so the ancients called it "tiger eye tree", saying that it "has marks where the leaves fall off, like the eyes of the tiger".
The toon trees used to pick buds and cook vegetables are usually small trees, and the bundles of toon buds we see in the market today are mostly grown after cutting toon branches.
What the taste of toon is
The smell emitted by the toon buds is very rich and special, with a spicy taste similar to garlic, mixed with an indescribable sulfur smell, and a delicate smell but a little floral. Of course, don't pick Ailanthus, the taste is different.
This complex and peculiar smell makes the toon like coriander and durian, and the reputation is polarized.
People who like it think it has a spring breath, fresh and exciting; those who hate it think that it is not fragrant and anti-smelly, pungent and poisonous, and it is a bit "heart-burning" to eat...
Whether they like it or not, no one can deny the uniqueness of the smell of toon, which is both unforgettable and difficult to accurately describe.
This is because the flavor composition of toon is quite complex, bringing together more than 50 volatile sulfur-containing compounds and terpenes. The former mostly emits a strong smell similar to garlic, onion, and sulfur, which determines the original taste of toon. The latter provides a little floral and grassy fragrance for the toon, which plays a neutralizing role.
How to eat toon? You can eat anything!
As a uniquely smelling vanilla, toon has a variety of tricks, whether it is used as a dish or as a seasoning. From the royal banquet of the court to the home-cooked stir-fry, everything is appropriate.
Tips：
Fresh toon contains more nitrates and nitrites, so it should not be consumed in large quantities. Before using it for cooking, it is blanched with boiling water, which can reduce the risk of food poisoning and cancer. The scalded toon also maintains a brighter color.
Sauté
When it comes to eating toon, many people's first reaction is: scrambled eggs and omelettes! Toon and eggs are indeed a pair of golden partners, and the egg fragrance can neutralize the pungent smell of toon, smell no longer pungent, and make people more acceptable. And when the mouth chews open the fluffy egg skin, the toon incense gushes out on the tip of the tongue. At the same time, after hot frying, the glutamic acid in the toon is fully volatile, which will also add "umami" flavor.
Pro test is very fragrant!
In addition to eggs, toon fried meat is also good, such as the southwest region with tsubaki sprouts fried chicken shredded, fried bacon. There are also some places that are paired with river fresh, such as "toon spicy fish" in Anhui and "toon fried loach" in Hengdong, Hunan.
Blanch the water and mix cold
If you prefer a stronger toon flavor, you should eat cold mix. The homely practice is to mix chopped toon with soy beans or tofu chunks. Yunnan Dai's "toon mixed tofu" is richer than the general seasoning, adding soy sauce, coriander, fresh millet pepper, water pickles or kimchi water.
Tofu mixed with tofu
At Chinese state banquets, there is often a seasonal appetizer "toon fish fillet": live mandarin fish take the clean meat, cut thin slices, sprinkle salt into the flavor, and then use egg white and starch to make a pulp, the surface of the fish fillet is hung with a thin layer of pulp, water, and finally mixed with the blanched and chopped toon leaves, the finished product is white and green, smooth and fragrant.
Toon fillets
Courtesy photo: Xu Long
In recent years, it is also popular "toon seedlings", which are two young leaves (botanically called "cotyledons") that grow after the germination of toon seeds, and the aroma is not lost to the tsubaki buds, which can be eaten in all seasons, and are often used to cold mix walnuts, dried incense and so on.
Fried food
Beijing has "fried toon fish", with flour, eggs to mix paste, dip the young stems of toon into oil, fried and colored, like a small golden fish, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, full of raw fragrance.
Toon fish
Steamed
Toon can also be eaten like yu money, steamed with a little flour. The "pink skin toon roll" of the Naxi people in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, is more complicated.
The skin is made of chickpeas (locally known as "chicken beans") ground powder filter, chopped toon, added to the pounded fish puree, seasoned with onion ginger water, egg whites and pepper salt, evenly spread on the flat skin, rolled up and steamed, cooled, sliced and eaten, bean flavor, fish fresh, toon into a ball.
Pickled
Although the season for eating Tsubaki sprouts is short, some methods of long-term preservation have also been invented. In the Leling area of Shandong Province, the toon will be chopped and dried for preservation, and before eating, it will be soaked in water and mixed with hot noodles, and the aroma will be overflowing. The Bai people of Dali, Yunnan Province, drie the whole young stem of toon, fry it and save it.
Toon noodles
Image source: Xinhua Net
The people of Jiangnan prefer the practice of salting and oil soaking. In the xianxiaguan area of Zhejiang, the folk use salt to pickle toon, dry it and seal it in the altar together with plum vegetables, take it out and blanch it when eating, no matter whether it is cold mixed and stir-fried, it does not reduce the flavor. The most distinctive is the "toon dried vegetables out of the tank meat", with toon plum dried vegetables and salted meat marinated in the tank together with stir-fry, soft sticky aroma, fat but not greasy.
Pickled toon
In the matter of eating wild vegetables in the spring, the northerners did not lose!
Without eating a few bites of weeds, the Qingming holiday will be in vain
Written by | Xu Long
Image | Part of the picture is from 123rf
WeChat Editor | Xie Shuang
This article was originally published in the April 2021 issue of Naturalist magazine