Bacon is a very magical food, cut two pieces of garlic seedlings and stir-fry a plate, and the fairy who does not eat meat also has to sandwich two pieces, looking at the perfect pattern of fat and thin and drooling.
However, as a delicacy eaten by the north and the south, where the bacon is more delicious is also an inexplicable grudge.
Sichuan people look down on putting sugar in bacon, Hunan people can even make fish into wax, Cantonese people think that bacon stew is the soul...
The old artist believes that in all the traditional food making processes that have been handed down, bacon is definitely a existence that can be established and independent.
As a steamed and stir-fried food raw material, it also has all the excellent qualities of solo flying: with a hot blockbuster work, bacon fried garlic seedlings; different flavor factions, Xiangchuan Yuewan, just infighting is enough to attract attention; super high national passerby, ask who has not eaten a few pieces of bacon during the New Year?
Lake South Bacon
Can we take "wax" at all, can you?
In the eyes of the Xiangxi people, a piece of excellent bacon should look like amber, look crystal clear, and have a crunchy feeling in the mouth.
In western Hunan Province, almost every house in Tujiazhai has a fire house, piled high with pre-prepared cypress branches, tea leaves and tea fruit shells. Cypress branches contain water that cannot be burned, and the bacon that has been smoked by it is often not easy to mold, and it can also prevent mosquitoes from approaching, becoming the best tool for smoking bacon. After lighting, slowly add the ingredients, let the marinated raw meat smoke in the fire room for several months, so that every texture of the bacon is contaminated with the smell of human fireworks.
But in the memory of most Xiangxi people, more emotional than bacon is the Phoenix Society meal.
Stir-fry the rice and glutinous rice together, then add the diced bacon and vegetables together and stir-fry, then simmer for a while with the lid. The Phoenix Society rice stewed in this way not only has the sweet aroma of sticky rice, but also retains the smoked taste of bacon, and at the same time contains the fragrance of vegetables.
Among the many factions, Hunan bacon is unique among many factions of bacon with its rich bacon product line and thick history and culture. In addition to pigs, there are chickens, ducks, geese and fish, and all the small aquatic products of poultry and wild animals are pickled by Hunan people.
In these bacon families, the bacon is far less famous than bacon, probably because the taste of the bacon is copied into a dried fish snack after the mass production, the taste of the bacon is far less than the hard-won bacon. But the wax fish made by Hunan people absolutely kills all dried fish snacks in a second.
If you have Hunan people around you, please let him bring you back a fish specialty. Especially after the End of the Year, after carrying a few wax fish to a thousand kilometers, the condiments of the wax fish and the surface oil that seeped out of it were completely integrated, and the distance of a thousand kilometers was no less than a simple secondary smoking.
▲ Steamed wax fish picture / Chinese on the tip of the tongue
When the oil paper wrapped in the fish is opened, even the dried condiments such as onion, ginger, garlic and spicy on the oil paper are affected by the salty taste of the fish smoked, and after eating the fish, I hate to lick the oil paper wrapped in the fish again.
Guangdong bacon
Bacon and rice stew are the soul
Unlike other factions of bacon, Cantonese bacon is generally made in the autumn, probably because cantonese themselves do not know when to spend the winter, so simply arrange it in the autumn to avoid the embarrassment of forgetting to marinate the bacon until the New Year.
As the saying goes, the autumn wind rises, eating wax flavor, in Guangdong is just right. In the local life data released by Ali, the frequency of Eating Roasted Rice in Guangzhou is 4 times the national average, which can be called the city of Wax Flavor. No matter what season it is, Lawei will not be absent from the meals of Guangzhou people.
In the eyes of Cantonese people, the two best ways to handle bacon are to mix it with stir-fried bright vegetables or steamed pot rice. For most Cantonese people, the latter is the way to eat directly into the depths of the soul.
In the production process, Cantonese bacon is less smoky, but it also has a more fragrant, mellow, sweet and refreshing taste. Depending on personal preference or sweetness, or wine, Cantonese bacon looks extremely casual, but the finished product is more delicate than Xiangxi bacon. The lean meat is firm and shiny, elastic and tough; the fat is crystal clear and the taste is crisp and tender, even those who are not sensitive to fat meat can clip two chopsticks.
Entry-level pot rice doesn't even need anything, just a bowl of rice and a sausage to throw in, fifteen minutes later to open the steamer, just the sweet mist of Cantonese sausage can stir up all kinds of imagination. You don't even need other supporting roles to dance with rice alone.
The advanced version of Cantonese sausage casserole rice is also not complicated. However, it is to apply layers of oil at the bottom of the sand pot, soak in the pot in a 1:1.5 ratio of rice water for 1 hour, boil on high heat and reduce the heat to cook the rice until it is eight ripe, then add the sausage ginger shreds and simmer for a few minutes, wait for the rice to bake well, sprinkle the sauce and spread the scalded greens.
The most ritualistic part of eating Cantonese-style pork pot rice is that the moment you knock the egg in, you must knock out the feeling of Schubert's serenade and feel the jumping sensation of the egg flowing yellow on the boiling hot pot rice.
Sichuan Bacon
Chanel 5 of the Bacon Edition
In Sichuan, the standard for a large household is to see that the sausages on their balconies can circle the anti-theft net several times.
The biggest difference between Sichuan bacon and Hunan and Guizhou bacon is that there is no obvious difference. Except for spices.
In addition to Cantonese bacon, the bacon smoking process in other places is basically the same, and Xiangxi bacon is more grand and has its own separate fire room.
In contrast, Sichuan bacon is extremely homely, on the basis of absorbing the smoking techniques of Hunan and other places, it chooses the cedar branches and eucommia trees that are rich in long and rich aroma as the fuel for smoking bacon, which aggravates the adhesion effect of the aroma on the bacon, and aspires to become the Chanel No. 5 of the bacon class, forcing Sichuan bacon to be slightly different from other regions in terms of taste.
▲Sichuan smoked bacon
The advantage of this ancient method of smoking is that even after baptism of fire and smoke, the protein in the meat remains. While preserving freshness, it creates a mellow taste that is incomparable to fresh ingredients. When eating, scrape off the outer layer, half fine and half fat, thin slice, lean flesh ruddy, fat and transparent.
▲ Lean and ruddy, fat and transparent
The poet Yang Wanli once described bacon in this way, the box knife cut the yellow water essence, and the jade axe cut out the red pine ming. Of all the bacon factions, Sichuan bacon is definitely the most suitable for stir-frying garlic sprouts. Slice the rosy and translucent sausage, casually cut two pieces of garlic seedlings and throw them in, and then add them with the unique Sichuan peppercorn seasoning, stir-fry out of the pan, and even the oil that bursts out has the mysterious temperament of Chanel No. 5.
▲Garlic sprout bacon
An Hui Bacon
Genuinely exquisite ham
Throughout the history of infighting in the bacon industry, Anhui bacon can almost be called a existence that everyone can't think of. Anhui bacon can be called a wonderful flower of the bacon industry, not engaged in homogeneous competition, from the pickling method to the specialized parts, do not take the usual road.
Most people only know that Jinhua ham is in Dongyang, but they don't know that Dongyang ham is in Huizhou. For Huizhou people, ham pickling is a popular family basic skill.
▲Drying ham Photo/Flavor of the human world
From the beginning of pig raising, to cutting, pickling, drying, until after a full year of exposure, it will be solemnly served on the table of Chinese New Year's Eve rice. The dripping oil of the ham can be used to hang the soup to enhance the taste; the chinese side of the ham can be sliced and sliced to enhance freshness; the upper salt of the meat of the heel is low, and can be directly cut into pieces and stewed; and the top of the ham, as the most essential part of the ham, can be made into a separate dish.
▲Large boiled dried silk picture / flavor of the human world
In addition to the difference between the parts of the cured bacon, Anhui bacon has another unique technique in the steaming process, the knife plate aroma.
Its essence lies in the fact that the bacon is placed on the camphor board for steaming, so that the greasy of the bacon itself is sucked away by the wooden board, while ensuring that the meat is oily and the knife board remains fragrant. The longer the camphor board is used, the fresher the effect of adsorption and retention, the better. At this time, it is accompanied by a pot of home-made rice wine, a chopstick board incense and a piece of bamboo shoots, and here, a New Year's drink of Anhui people can be regarded as a really perfect ending.
▲ Knife plate incense picture / emblem dish legend
Bacon is a very magical food, Guizhou people use it as a hot pot base to boil, Xiangxi people use it to make festival sacrifices, Hakka people use it as a cold plate to entertain guests... Bacon stands at the top of almost all food chains in terms of ritual status. When we see bacon, we automatically associate a string of related symbols in our minds, which contain countless symbolic meanings, but all meanings point to the same focus, that is, to go home.
Author of the Day
Early summer
The original article was first published in the public account "Jiuxing-neweekly" under the "New Weekly"
Edit | Zhang Jiaming
Typography | Dongnan