The taste buds of history are discussed in the creation of "Swallow Food"

About 20 years ago, I returned to my hometown of Nanjing, passing by the century-old "Qifang Pavilion" on the Gongyuan Street of the Confucius Temple. The slightly old gatehouse, fluttering, but below it is a huge golden "M" - due to poor management, the first floor of the restaurant was leased out and became a McDonald's store. This "postmodern" scene still feels like an impact to this day. Fortunately, a few years later, the old brand achieved a "counterattack", renovated, and restored its original decency.

This process is undoubtedly a metaphor for the growth of the globalized economy and the cultural game. Years later, I still remember the vehicle that built this metaphor – food – the international chain of fast food and the lonely food tradition. Admittedly, this scene constitutes one of the reasons for my debut novel, Suzaku. Xu Tingmai, a young Chinese from Scotland, was led into the ancient city of Jinling by the young girl Cheng Yuan, in a place called "West Market", where there are "Qinhuai Eight Absolutes". A bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup mobilizes the taste buds of the wanderer and finally connects the cultural roots of his hometown. This is probably what the scholar Mr. Zhang Guangzhi said: the best way to reach the core of a culture is through its stomach. It contains the temptation and absorption of cultures, as well as the awakening of memory. Chinese concept of geography, it is inseparable from food. One side of the water and soil and one side of the people, which already contains the definition of space by food. Lu Jiamu of "Northern Iris" is a businessman from a different place, and in the year of disaster, Shi Ji distributes his hometown food "hearth", which is a virtue, but also does not forget its roots, and the essence is out of the complex of "blood" and "geography". What is involved in this is the penetration of food into time and space. Today, "Yan Shi Ji" is a novel with the theme of "food", and its meaning is to penetrate here: with the experience of a pair of chefs and apprentices, penetrating the vast modern history of Lingnan; It also takes the development process from Guangdong to Hong Kong with a long-established brand, penetrating the changes in geography and people's hearts.

In the first chapter of Reminiscences of a Time Like Water, the statement about food is long, long, and time-dependent. Suddenly, the past came to my eyes. This taste is the taste of madeleine cake. "Sensual and plump, it is the staircase of the edifice of memory that follows. Food can freeze the everyday, but also the history. After doing a lot of desk and fieldwork, I connected "Yan Shi Ji" with the past of a tea house. This is the warmest daily space in Lingnan, and the memories of this novel must carry the aroma of Nanyue dim sum and tea. The oldest tea house in Hong Kong was called Xinghua Lou, and it was in this tea house that Sun Yat-sen and others drafted Guangzhou's offensive strategy and external declaration, and confirmed the establishment of a republican government after the success of the uprising. In this tea scent, I realized that some important moments were defined. The circulation of the food space intersects with the advancement of history, and the daily life and the times are harmonized, and even witnessed by each other. Examining the origins of historical traditions, such as "Hongmen Feast", the three words already include the entanglement of food, place and time, and point to the game of human nature and politics. In the "Yan Food Record", Xiang Taishi said: "At that time, my brother and I followed Kang Nanhai, and in the same year, we lifted the book on the bus with the same name, but the fate was different. The last meal he had with me, only one dish, was this chrysanthemum perch soup. There was only one pot of wine, which was the fenjiu he had brought from Jinzhong. "The entanglement of personal memory and the memory of the home country, condensed in the sense of taste, can be said to be a kind of simplification of complexity, but also a cultural code that can be reproduced by the present." And this code is also because of its daily life and simplicity, it presents a dialectic between "big country" and "small fresh". From "temple" to "folk", just like the source of the novel, it is like a barnyard, not involved in elegance, but full of vitality. Taking food as a metaphor for the times is also from a daily standpoint to see the rise and fall of history, and there are all kinds of laws and regulations. Write "Swallow Food", investigate the times, and also explore the folk. It was one solid moment after another, and buried underneath the cultural traditions and core of the nation. Such as the yellow sand clam in the New Year, "Da Xian" pins on the values of Lingnan through the ages; The "Li Yunzi", which was produced in the countryside before and after the Qingming Dynasty, reflected the solemn elegance and decency of the Chinese with the Analects. Because it's about solar terms, these moments are fleeting. As the scholar Mr. Li Jingze said: "In this grand human world, the taste on the tongue and the sound in the ear are the most easily dissipated, the most difficult to retain, the most rooted, and the most peaceful." "Its root nature comes from the articulation of tradition and the transmission of generations. Because of the common perceptual experience, which is used as a traditional realization and rationality, the awakening of common national genes, also constitutes another community of imagination that crosses the nationality.

Of course, in this long transmission, it is bound to undergo the test of change. Chinese is not afraid of change, "change is general, general is long". "Change" and "constant" are each other's premise and purpose. At this point, I once borrowed the mouth of Zhaoru in "Northern Iris" to say, "Those truths of Chinese are all eaten here." Treat change well, and achieve a lot of food. Only one tofu, edamame tofu, stinky tofu, tofu milk all from a variety of sources. As a result, the "Northern Iris" writes about the transformation of intellectuals after the abolition of the imperial examination. There are some teachings in the accounts, there are some who throw pens from the rong, and there are people who devote themselves to business. And Xiang Taishi in "Yan Food" came from the zhong ding family, Yu family and country righteousness, as a Sun Qing Hanlin saw the trend of the progress of the times, resolutely supported the democratic revolution, set up the banner of the Guangzhou Republic, and then joined his sons and nephews in the anti-Japanese plan, which was for courage. In his personal career, he left the eunuch sea, served as the general agent of the tobacco company, opened a modern farm, and was for knowledge. "Reading is the most important, the second is nongsang, there is a way to take it, and the worker jia is not bad", this is a family training, and it also symbolizes the lingnan culture that has been applied to the world and the weather of the sea and the river. And its travel is also eclectic, and it is brave and heroic. Chinese cuisine is divided into different foods, and because "all the food in the world, There are almost all the food in Guangdong", Cantonese cuisine also naturally has the gene of touching and bypassing. The northern and Lu cuisine are blended, and the Tan family cuisine of the official government cuisine is an example; The Taishi cuisine that flows in the Xiangjiang River in its own unity is also at one end. This is Chinese "reconciling ding nai". To Hong Kong, which was originally the place where East and West meet, the so-called "fusion" cuisine has emerged. Master Rong and the Five Moves of the "Yan Food Record" are floating and sinking in the transmission and change. And Wuju because of the rich sea chefs, but also the Cantonese cuisine and the gang cuisine blended, inventing "crystal raw frying", "yellow fish roast sale" and "char siu crab shell yellow", which is a mild improvement. The impact was that lulu used coconut milk to color the "green fish soup roll", Lulu said: "Our Malay laksa soup, put coconut milk; Thailand's Tom Yin Gong also puts coconut milk. Why can't you put Shanghainese food? "It's about the challenge of eating, and it's the voice of the times. What constitutes orthodoxy and what constitutes a rule is inconclusive. Hair, change, the original is such a word and deafening.

In "Northern Iris", Ke Yu opened a restaurant near the Xiling Printing House, called "Su She". At the beginning of the menu, Su Zizhan's sentence is written: "If you have not become a small hidden chat, you can get a long idle victory over temporary leisure." "It can be said that life is self-metaphorical. Cain, which is about natural, is related to diet. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the diet was great, and it contained the respect for the scholars. From Su Shi and Huang Tingjian to Lu You, he left many poems talking about food, such as "The Prosperity of the Old Man in the West Lake", "The Record of Mengliang", "The Old Story of Wulin" and so on. To this day, the "hidden" intention of using the practice of hiding is still one of the ends of the Chinese cultural tradition. There are several "hermits" written in the "Swallow Food", who are also cooks. The first is Huisheng's "hiding", which is for the peace of mother and son in the chaotic world, thousands of skills can not show the mountains and dew, and there is a heavenly opportunity in a "Bi treasure"; The second is Ye Qi's "seclusion", as the former Leader of hongmen, the anti-Qing curtain is hidden in the folk, such as the fading tangerine skin red bean sand sealing craftsmanship; The third is the "hidden forbearance" of the five moves, in the tide of the changing times and personal destiny, the "eighteen elements" retreat to the industrial area on the edge of the city. They are either Taoguang or obscure, and time is like the covenant of pearl mussels.

What can be deduced is the dialectic of concealment and change, and even the two. In "Yan Food", the young Master Rong discovered the secret to the lotus mooncake, which was to put salt. Han Shijiang, the Emperor of the Ku Dynasty, concluded: "Salt is the sect of hundred flavors, and it can also adjust the freshness of hundred flavors. Lotus paste is sweet, and we always think that we want to put this sweetness on a few points higher. But he often forgets that everything is in order, and those who are opposite can also live together. It's like being a person, and then adding icing on the cake, it's not really good. Pass by the opponent, block you a block, fight a fight, and the upside down bucket is unexpectedly good. Salt is this opponent, fighting you, fulfilling your good, hanging out this good taste. It was hidden, hidden. "It is like a micro-end, but it is also a great achievement, and it can create a general trend of history." From this, it can be seen that the tibetan art of the relevant era is practiced. In the novel, the author focuses on the person named "Aunt Yin". In the 1940s, when the anti-Japanese voice in Lingnan became more and more fierce, some people took it as an order to gather various forces of the people. Resisting the enemy, the cement condensation, such as thousands of grasshoppers shaking the tree; If you win, you will scatter like ants and return to your nest. Not limited to the group, political opinions, only the task as the key. Among them, the hub people are called "sound lines". Its sound is loud and difficult to find. It can be seen from this that under the premise of the great cause of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the people of Guangdong have gathered and dispersed in an orderly manner, such as the development and achievements of the "East River Column", which can be regarded as typical. And the looming appearance of "sound lines" such as Yin Auntie, such as salt, has become the key to knowing in the subtle.

Elephants are invisible, and the dialectic of taste is the same. The most beautiful outline, just like Li Feng's Gongjiao painting, a white Xuan, can suddenly see the snow silver colt. Diet can be seen in the way of looming, although fleeting, but like a glimpse of the shock. Master Han Shizhong's hiding in the mooncake is the depth of the feelings of home and country. When it was announced to the world, it was magnificent in the sky, creating a personal high righteousness, and even more the highlight of history. (Ge Liang)

Source: Xinhua Daily Telegraph