Brother Thorn is finally going to talk to you about Chaoshan cuisine today, and whether the foodies have been waiting for a long time.
Yes, the foodies who see the title already know that the food we are going to talk about is the traditional Snack of Chaoshan - Koji Koji.
First of all, we must first talk about the word "horseshoe". Pronounced "Hou" in Mandarin, it is an ancient marine prehistoric creature that is older than a dinosaur, and the 25 mm-wide Lunataspis aurora discovered in 2008 climbed on the bottom of Lake Manitoba 445 million years ago. This makes it the oldest known horseshoe crab in the world.
It's unbelievable to see that I've eaten creatures older than dinosaurs!
Judging from today's aesthetics of animals, the appearance of the horseshoe crab is indeed a bit of a prehistoric animal, and even the ancient Han Yu did not want to see him.
It is said that the first meal in Chaozhou, when Han Yu was relegated, was a seafood feast composed of horseshoe crab, oysters, puma, octopus, and Jiang Yaozhu.
However, Han Yu did not move his index finger because of this, but in a poem entitled "The Eighteenth Harmony of the Chu nan Food Yiyuan", he complained that "the horseshoe is as solid as Huiwen, and the bones and eyes are negative", which means that the shape of the horseshoe carp resembles the crown of the King Huiwen of the Qin Dynasty, their eyes grow on the hard shell, and the females often carry the male horseshoe crabs on their backs.
Looking like this, Han Yu probably felt that he had encountered an alien creature. In fact, it is no wonder that even in 2005, the Shandong channel of Xinhua Network forwarded an article in the "Qingdao Morning Post" entitled "Qingdao Found An Unknown "Monster" Living like a Gourd Scoop And No One Recognized", this "Unknown Monster" refers to the strange-looking horseshoe.
If the horseshoe crab just looks strange, it will be enough, but what is even more amazing is that because the blood of the horseshoe crab contains copper ions, the blood of the horseshoe crab is actually blue! This reminds Brother Thorn of the Wesley novel "The Blue-Blooded Man" that he read when he was a child.
Blue blood that is drawn
However, the horseshoe crab is much greater than the blue-blooded man, because in the body of the horseshoe crab there are special cells called deformed cells that attack pathogens, sealing them in a physical barrier of viscose, which can prevent the spread of the disease.
Scientists have created the "horseshoe reagent" through this property of the horseshoe crab, which can quickly detect the virus. Without this property of horseshoe crab blood, thousands, if not millions, of people over the past four decades could have died from unhygienic injections.
Seeing this, you now finally know that you are eating not only a "living fossil", but also such a great creature.
Beauty and horseshoe
Brother Thorn has said so much that he has not yet talked about the point of food, and the foodies are probably impatient, so let's quickly talk about how the horseshoe crab became a Chaoshan snack and developed into the famous Chaoshan cuisine today.
It is said that the koji is from Chaoyang Cotton City, because The Cotton City is the old Chaoyang County, and there are famous fishing ports such as Dahao and Haimen in the territory, and these fishing ports are rich in horseshoe, so it brings possibilities for the locals to make horseshoe.
The traditional practice of koji is to mix the sauce made of cold squash (porridge), potato flour, fresh crab eggs and crab meat, mix well, inject into a peach-shaped koji mold, steam it and release it. The most important thing is the heat, you must not use the fierce fire to fry the puff pastry, just soak in the warm oil of the simmering heat, and then drizzle the sauce.
Biting into a bite of the freshly out of the pot of koji, is the soft and sticky taste of rice milk, the strong taste of rice milk is vaguely mixed with a hint of fishy smell of horseshoe, followed by pork, shrimp, salted egg yolk and other meat fillings, coupled with the mobilization of thick special sauces, suddenly the taste buds on the tip of the tongue are like dancing hot samba dancers, to put it bluntly-
This delicious, can't stop!
As a Huilai person, the most common way to eat koji is to add sweet soy sauce or chili sauce. Brother Thorn usually eats koji, often going to the street from the old market to Ximentou, where in addition to the koji, there are other kinds of Huilai snacks.
I don't know where the majority of thorn friends also know where to sell koji, I hope to play your magic and share the message.
Although today's koji has become a homesickness delicacy in the hearts of every Chaoshan wanderer, at that time it was only a food for poor people, and because they could not eat fresh food at sea, they used the horseshoe sauce to bring a little fishy taste and chat for comfort.
The crab grill also looks delicious
In fact, in addition to the way of eating horseshoe, Chaoshan people also have the habit of eating horseshoe crab (horseshoe eggs). Some people say that hipsters treat horseshoe, just like Westerners treat caviar, and think that it is the most delicious in the world. But Hong Kong gourmand Cai Lan believes that "the horseshoe has a fishy smell, and the lovers are good, but they can't get close to the delicious caviar and black caviar." ”
It's hard to reconcile.
Although we love the crab so much, we now have to face the cruel fact that the resources of the horseshoe crab have become increasingly scarce, and now many horseshoe shops have abandoned the crab sauce and switched to fresh shrimp, it may be more and more difficult for us to eat the real horseshoe, and even in the future, our children and grandchildren may have to learn about this former Chaoshan cuisine from our articles.
However, it is undeniable that the koji has indeed become one of the gastronomic memories of our generations of Chaoshan people, and the horseshoe crab has even become a symbol of chaoshi cuisine.
As Zhang Xinmin, the author of "Chao Cai Tianxia", said at the beginning: "If I opened a restaurant myself one day, I would hang a horseshoe shell or a scorpionfish specimen in the most conspicuous place in the store." Because in my opinion, although Chao cuisine is broad and profound, there are many dishes, but only the crab can deserve to become the symbol of Chao Cuisine. ”
Source: Stinging