After lap 8, the taste of the year is getting stronger and stronger. The people take food as the sky, in order to make the reunion time more flavorful, in order to soothe the endless lovesickness of the wanderer's heart, in order to let the days be smeared with more happy elements, people with skillful hearts are busy before the Spring Festival.
Intangible cultural heritage is a form of expression of various traditional cultures that people have inherited from generation to generation and are closely related to their lives, and gastronomy is undoubtedly one of them. Longmen has 41 intangible cultural heritage items at or above the county level, most of which point to food. Longmen bearded chicken, Xixi bamboo shoots, Long Beach rice noodles, Tiegang rice wine... Excellent landscape, providing excellent ingredients, brewing excellent delicacies, Spring Festival cuisine is more solidified with the warmth of home, the taste of the year.
Near the Spring Festival, many Longmen people play rice cakes, and children can't wait to taste them.
Rice crackers
Old Spring Festival gifts Are now well-known souvenirs
Longmen rice cake, also known as Longmen New Year Cake, is a gift for the Longmen people to celebrate the Spring Festival in the old days. At the end of each year, The Longmen people take the family as a unit, stir-fry rice, stuffing, and cakes, and greet the New Year in a lively atmosphere.
Longmen rice cake is made of high-quality rice and local peanuts as the main raw materials, with salt and sugar as the condiments, refined, thin skin filling, crisp and delicious, salty and moderate, pleasant fragrance, widely welcomed by people.
Longmen rice cake is like a miniature version of the moon cake, pinning people's pursuit of a better life; occasionally there is a little fish shape, which means that there is more than one year. The molds used by the Longmen people to make rice cakes are usually engraved with peony flowers or some auspicious words, such as "fu" and "double happiness", which mean good wishes for relatives and friends.
Rice cakes have become a good product for entertaining and giving away relatives and friends during the Spring Festival. Compared with the current commercial pastries, the shape of rice cakes is relatively rough and the production is relatively simple, but it carries the beautiful Spring Festival memories of generations of Longmen people.
Nowadays, the tradition of making rice cakes during the Spring Festival in Longmen only exists in a few villages, and the scene of making rice cakes is more often seen in workshops and processing plants, and can be seen all year round. In Longmen County, Yonghan, Pingling, Lantian and other places, you can see the figure of Longmen rice cake, whether it is a family workshop in a deep alley, or a spacious and bright processing plant, often wafting out the aroma of rice cake.
Handmade pastries that used to be eaten only during the Chinese New Year are now readily available and can be tasted, making it one of The Dragon Gate's most famous snacks.
After soaking in the hot springs, swimming, eating a few pieces of Longmen rice cake pads to pad the stomach and replenish physical strength, it has become one of the experiences of countless tourists when they play in Longmen. Entering the Longmen souvenir shop, Longmen rice cakes can also be seen everywhere, and they become souvenirs, carrying sweetness into the luggage of tourists.
Before the reform and opening up, the varieties of Longmen rice cakes were relatively single, mainly peanut white sugar cakes. Nowadays, Longmen people keep up with the pace of the times, according to the tastes of modern people, develop and produce more nutritious and more varied rice cakes, barley cakes, mung bean cakes and so on. Longmen rice cake, from a New Year food to a daily snack, is undoubtedly affected by the improvement of people's living standards and the development of tourism. Longmen rice cake is mainly sold to the pearl river delta cities and exported overseas. In February 2015, the longmen rice cake making technology was selected into the list of intangible cultural heritage of Huizhou City.
Despite the changes of the times, the Longmen rice cake is still a good gift, and it always carries a good meaning.
Delicious large cage fins.
Large cage fin
Sweet and soft, it holds new hope
In addition to rice cakes, DaLong Fin is also the Spring Festival food of longmen people, which can be used as a "souvenir" for visiting relatives and friends, and can also be used as a snack to entertain guests, which means "reunion and happiness".
The production of Dalong fin in Longjiang Town, Longmen County, began in the early Ming Dynasty, and it is a kind of rice cake that people used for sacrifice or gift during the Spring Festival. The three days of December 27, 28 and 29 of the lunar calendar every year are the traditional days of making large cages. The opening of the cage is generally on the second day of the first lunar month. In February 2015, DaLong Fin was included in the list of municipal intangible cultural heritage.
Sunrise and sunset. In the past, rural families who worked in the mountain fields for a whole year, when the cold wind and cold waxing moon, they could sit next to the neighbors, bask in the sun and chat, reminisce about those times that were far or near, and also had leisure to tinker with Spring Festival food.
Every year on the twenty-seventh day of the lunar month, the footsteps of the Spring Festival are approaching, relatives are on the way home for reunion, and the busy day of rural women in Longjiang Town begins: washing cages, collecting rice, picking banana leaves... Giving their families a steaming piece of large cage is the first task for them as mothers and wives to complete during the Spring Festival.
The huge cage carries not only nature's gifts to farmers, but also precipitates the villagers' joy of harvest and reunion. Because of this, in the process of making the big cage fin, every step pays attention to personal efforts and concerted efforts, the production is very time-consuming and labor-consuming, and the whole family is a often seen picture.
The main ingredient of the large cage fin is glutinous rice flour. Longjiang Town, located in the limestone region, is rich in rice, and in the eyes of the locals, the glutinous rice grown by hand is not only fragrant and mellow, but also contains the villagers' love for the land.
After the glutinous rice has been soaked and dried and ground into flour, kneading the glutinous rice flour is the most critical step in the production process of the large cage fin. During the rubbing of powder, the method of "rubbing, pumping, pulling, and patting" is adopted, and the technique should be skilled and the strength should be moderate. According to the standards of "self-collapse of the pile" and "slow continuous self-falling", the process is completed to detect whether the powder mass is well rubbed. Due to the long duration of the entire process of kneading, it takes considerable physical effort to produce a large cage fin with moderate toughness, strong aroma and unique taste.
There are two main ways to eat the traditional rice dumplings: one is to slice the big cage fins, steamed, dipped in sugar water to enjoy, sweet and soft sticky; the other is sliced, fried in a pot until golden brown, dipped in syrup or salt to eat, the taste is smooth, very chewy.
The big cage reflects people's affirmation of the fruits of labor in the past year, and also pins on people's good wishes for better harvests next year. Harvestable families will make their cages bigger and thicker to show off their impressive achievements from last year.
Dragon Gate three-yellow bearded chicken.
Three-yellow bearded chicken
Living in the jungle, a good "body"
"No chicken, no banquet", refers to the Cantonese people's chicken eating culture, whether it is a guest to eat or a reunion at home, there will be chicken as the protagonist. The Spring Festival's Tuan Nian dinner is naturally indispensable to chickens.
Longmen three yellow bearded chicken, also known as longmen chicken, has a chest width, horizontal body, short feet and "yellow hair, yellow feet, yellow mouth, jaw has a handful of whiskers" characteristics, each chicken weighs about 1 kg for the upper product. In the 1950s, wangping, Longhua, Shapi, Pingling and several townships in the north raised more longmen chickens, and in the mid-1960s, the Ministry of Foreign Trade designated Longmen as a chicken base county. According to records, in 1967, 61,800 gantry chickens were exported and exported to all over the world. By the 1980s, the three-yellow bearded chicken and Xixi bamboo shoots, honey, and grass mushrooms were called the four major export specialties of Longmen County.
Nowadays, Longmen Three Yellow Beard Chicken is one of the four famous chickens in Guangdong, and in recent years, it has been selected as one of the "Top Ten Tourist Souvenirs of Longmen" and the National Agricultural Product Geographical Indication Certification Product. The folk literature "The Legend of the Longmen Bearded Chicken" tells the origin of the Longmen bearded chicken, and the Longmen Three Yellow Bearded Chicken was also included in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Longmen County in April 2019.
Why is the Dragon Gate Bearded Chicken so famous? First of all, Longmen Mountain has good water and good air, and good ecology provides a superior environment for the growth of Longmen bearded chicken, so that Longmen bearded chicken wins on the "starting line". Secondly, the authentic Longmen bearded chicken, living in the deep mountains and dense forests, mainly eats chaff and often pecks at insects and termites in the mountains and forests or gardens. Except for bedtime, they are almost all active outside. Every day, we drink mountain spring water and walk in the mountains. Due to the large amount of exercise, everyone has trained a good "body board". Therefore, compared with other three yellow chickens, the meat of the Longmen bearded chicken is more tender, the skin is smooth, there is no excess fat, and the taste is delicious.
White cut chicken, salt baked chicken, kiln chicken, bamboo roast chicken... Tourists who came to Longmen to travel to Longmen tasted the Longmen Three Yellow Bearded Chicken and praised: "Beautiful! Delicious! Not fatty! Tender and smooth! ”
And the Spring Festival table of the Longmen people is also indispensable to this delicacy. In particular, the white cut chicken, the skin is yellow and the meat is white, refreshing, the chicken flavor is strong, and it is particularly tempting with a special dipping sauce. Or castrated chicken, its sex is warm but not dry, the meat is tender and delicious.
Dipai wax flavor.
Wax flavor
Absorb the Heaven and Earth Reiki Fat and thin penetrate each other
The beautiful environment, the mountains and rivers are fresh, making the Dragon Gate like the ancient county chronicle described - it is a Persian ship, pitched treasure, absolutely satisfying the discerning desires of every diner. The skillful Longmen people have produced many local delicacies according to local conditions, and the taste of wax in winter has also become a delicacy during the Spring Festival.
The dragon's meat flavor of wax duck, pork belly, sausage, fish and so on are well-known. In ancient times, the towns and villages of Longmen, due to the distance from the market and the inconvenience of shopping, before the arrival of the winter solstice, people slaughtered and waxed their own ducks and pigs for storage and hospitality, with unique flavor and fat.
According to the field survey data of the Longmen County Cultural Center, the dragon's meat flavor adopts a unique seasoning recipe and traditional production process, which needs to go through the process of material selection, pickling, drying and so on. Ganmelava flavor selection of ingredients pay attention to three points of fat, seven points of lean is better; in addition to rock sugar, salt, 60 degrees of liquor, there are star anise, cinnamon, orange peel, cloves and other spices; when marinating, first apply sugar, salt, 60 degree wine evenly on the pickled products, and then put into a crock pot to marinate overnight. From 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. water, dry, use brine to color, and finally hang in a dry and ventilated drying field to dry naturally, until the meat becomes dark red, the fat meat is milky white, emitting a faint wax aroma, you can determine the completion of drying.
The master who is well versed in the way of wax taste knows that whether the wax flavor is successful or not depends on the face of the heavens, and the sunshine and the north wind are the key. In the right environment, pieces of bacon, pieces of sausage, slowly absorb the aura of heaven and earth, fat and lean meat penetrate each other, biological enzymes and proteins undergo a wonderful chemical reaction, and finally become delicious.
The gantry flavor is sliced, very chewy, the wax aroma is fragrant, one solid and one soft, mellow and moist, and the aftertaste is endless. For example, the longmen poet Deng Zhixiong said in the "Taste of Longmen Wax": "The wax is fresh and skillfully sunburned before winter, and the wind of the pole tail pen head is natural." Wait until the dried meat is bright and clear, and the people in the feast chant the psalms. ”
In April 2019, the production technique of Ganmon flavor was included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of Longmen County. After years of inheritance, gantry flavor has become a green food with local characteristics. New Year's Day to Longmen, whether in the city or in the countryside, people can always smell the smell of bacon, the taste buds in the mouth are like electricity, can't wait to taste it.
Longmen peasant painter Wang Hanchi's work "Winemaking" (partial) depicts the process of brewing rice wine.
rice wine
Full of maternal love, it emits a strong sense of nostalgia
The CCTV documentary "China on the Tip of the Tongue" has swept the north and south of the river, evoking Chinese's memories and enthusiasm for traditional cuisine. The film describes the taste of Chinese rice wine as follows: "Rice wine is long and thick, and Chinese can taste both soft and rigid realms from this drink." ”
Jiangnan water town Shaoxing, famous for yellow wine. In contrast, the rice wine brewed by Longmen people has a deep color and strong taste, sweet and mellow, which can better represent the tenacity of Lingnan people.
Longmen yellow wine, a kind of rice wine specially made of glutinous rice, is also often called "Niangjiu", which is a popular folk drink in the Hakka area. In April 2019, the production technology of Longmen rice wine was included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of Longmen County.
The Longmen Hakka family is accustomed to brewing yellow wine before the Spring Festival and giving it to relatives and friends, and for the wandering wanderers, the yellow wine brewed by the mother-in-law is full of the taste of maternal love, and it is the most beautiful and fragrant wine in the world.
Longmen Hakka like to drink yellow wine, because "the wine is fragrant, its price is cheap, and it is not needed from time to time", their life is inseparable from "niangjiu", and yellow wine has become an important part of Hakka life. Hakka wine culture has rich connotations. Yellow wine, in addition to being a fine wine, also reflects the cultural characteristics of Hakka. Confucianism emphasizes "filial piety". "Filial piety, good deeds to parents, from the old province, from the son, the son inherits the old man." In the Hakka wine culture, "filial piety" is its prominent feature, and at the Feast of the Spring Festival, young people must take the initiative to pour wine for their parents and elders first.
Chinese taste yellow wine, like to drink warmly, feel that the heat of the fire can make the enzymes in the wine produce a rice aroma, the entrance is more smooth. Longmen men drink yellow wine, prefer to drink directly, poured out of the wine tank, put in a bowl, the aroma of wine drifted in the air, with a hint of glutinous rice sweetness, the entrance is more natural and smooth, just as Dongpo Shiyun: "The dawn is red and dizzy, and the spring breeze is silent." ”
The wonderful use of rice wine is also reflected in the diet of pregnant women in Longmen. For a long time, Hakka women have a tradition of confinement, "Rice wine pot chicken eat for a full month, barefoot planting seedlings to carry water is no problem." A pot of "niangjiu" boiled chicken, slow boiling, without adding a drop of water, the wine taste slowly seeped into the chicken, the water gradually converged, ginger and red dates accompanied, removed the fishy smell of chicken, prompting the sweetness of the wine. From ancient times to the present, it is the best tonic for pregnant women. The Hakka ancestors deeply experienced the importance of prosperity from the hard life of reclamation, whether it is to resist aggression externally or to develop production internally, the number of people is the first advantage. They offer the best wine to hard-working women. Therefore, the Hakka people like to call it "niangjiu". Today, the dishes made by Hakka women eating yellow wine during confinement have penetrated into the ordinary lives of local people, and rice wine is regarded as a tonic.
Longmen rice wine not only has the unique flavor and health care effect of Hakka, but also becomes a kind of gift to show Hakka etiquette and contact feelings, and it is also a product for tourism development and promotion. Today, Longmen souvenir shops are full of various liquor brands, but the pure and not strong yellow wine is the favorite of many people, and the yellow wine chicken soup in the Spring Festival has comforted the nostalgia of many people.
Source: Huizhou Daily
Written by: Hou Xianjun