From June to August, the selection activities of "Top Ten Famous Dishes, Famous Points" and "Gold Medal Cantonese Cuisine and Cantonese Chefs" in Panyu District in 2022 herald the arrival of the annual Guangzhou International Food Festival. Nearly 200 catering enterprises in the district applied for the selection, 78 dishes and 59 dim sum participated in the preliminary review, and 52 dishes and 39 dim sum participated in the final review. Chinese culinary master, Guangdong Top Ten Diamond Chef Chen Zhixiong and other national expert database judges participated in the preliminary evaluation, and finally selected the "Top Ten Famous Dishes" and "Top Ten Famous Spots" in Panyu District in 2022 by people at multiple levels.
Panyu famous dish - fried eel flakes with lemon shredded by Lin Xiaosheng
"Famous Dishes" highlights Panyu's food culture. It is not only the history of the flow of Panyu cuisine, but also the way of life of Panyu people, and the concrete embodiment of Chinese culture in Lingnan.
Panyu famous point - salty pancake by Huang Guohong
From the three links of food raw material development and utilization, food production and food consumption, we will briefly tell the history of the flow of Panyu's "famous dishes", and glimpse the innovation of Panyu food culture in integration.
Raw material utilization: The famous dish named after the birth of the mud carp
Shiqiao River is known as the "mother river" of the Panyu people, and the average annual water temperature is between 14-22ºC. Since ancient times, mud carp have been growing from generation to generation.
Aerial photo of Shiqiao River by Huang Guohong
Mud carp is mainly produced in China, and is more common in the Pearl River Delta, Hainan, southern Fujian, Taiwan, Lancang River and Yuan River. In Lingnan, especially in the Guangfu area, mud carp was selected as the "Four Big Fish".
Carp is the first fish in the world to be farmed. As early as the Yin Shang era, the mainland began to raise carp in ponds, and carp has been regarded as a treasure of food since ancient times. After Confucius's wife gave birth to a son, Lu Zhaogong sent someone to send a large carp. Confucius felt a great honor and named his son "Kong Li", the word Boyu. However, in the Tang Dynasty, because the emperor's surname was Li, which was homophonous with "carp", the law strictly prohibited eating carp, otherwise it would be 60 large plates.
Carp belongs to the family Cyprinidae, like carp but not carp. Panyu people eat mud carp not only gives people the feeling of "eating plum", but also exempts 60 large plates from beating.
The annoying thing about mud carp is that it has many spines and is small and easy to get stuck in the throat when eaten. The Lingnan people then deboned the mud carp, cut the fish into thin slices, beat it into fish glue, and then processed it into various delicacies.
Fish glue existing rollers. However, before the reform and opening up, it was completely dependent on manpower, often by the big waist of the man who threw the beating, the floor was shaken, and the fish glue was smooth enough to play the teeth.
Climb the Golden Mountain
Using mud carp fish glue (also known as "fish slippery") to beat the side stove (hot pot) is a fairly common way to eat in Nanfanshun families and restaurants. In the hot pot basin filled with water, the fish glue piled into a mountain, after the water boiled, the diner will put the fish glue into the boiling water, after boiling will surface the water, fished up, dipped in pepper, soy sauce and other condiments to eat, umami delicious.
When did this eating begin? Who invented it? It is impossible to verify, only that it was first known as a folk dish. In Shunde it is called "climbing stalk column". In the past, when the Shunde people burned firewood, they piled the wheat straw into a pile, and when needed, they drew a few from below, which is the source of the "climbing straw pillar".
Nanfanshun has been a family since ancient times, formerly known as "Three Townships", which belongs to the cultural center of Guangfu. In December 1958, Panyu and Shunde merged to form Fanshun County. It was also at this time that the "Chengji" food stalls next to the Shawan Qingluo Market introduced the "climbing straw pillar" eating method, called "straw pile turning", which has now been passed down to the third generation. In the 1990s, the leaders of Shawan Town heard people introduce Chengji to this dish, and after tasting it, they unanimously applauded, but they felt that the name of the dish was not easy for the public to accept, and suggested that it be renamed "climbing the golden mountain". Since then, "climbing the golden mountain" has been pushed out in many places in Panyu, not only food stalls, but also high-end restaurants have also imitated.
Since the beginning of this century, the chefs of Panyu Hotel have continuously improved the folk "grilled golden mountain", concocted the most suitable proportion of fish and meat, and launched a 1.8-meter-diameter bowl of 50 kilograms (accumulated 500 kilograms) of pure handmade mud carp glue at the 2016 Guangzhou International Food Festival to add lean meat, fish bones, chicken feet and other boiled milky white paste soup in clear water to lock in the fresh sweetness of mud carp.
Fried stuffed mud carp
In 1607, Huang Shijun, a native of Ganzhu Youtan, Shunde, Guangdong, became the first ruler of Shunde. It is said that he has 3 brothers, and both brothers and brothers like to eat beef and mutton, but he likes to eat mud carp. As a result, the saying "eating mud carp is smart" has not gone away, and "fried and stuffed mud carp" has become a home-cooked dish in this area and in Shaoguan, Meizhou and other regions in northern Guangdong. "Fried mud carp" is the fresh mud carp deboned to take the meat, with shrimp, bacon, horseshoe, shiitake mushrooms, tangerine peel and other mashed into a glue, rebuild the shape of the fish, fried and eaten.
Ichihashi's "fried stuffed mud carp" was selected as one of the "Top Ten Famous Dishes of Panyu" in 2012 and 2022.
Ichibashi white sale
The Xie surname is the same as the Wu, Li, Han, Li and Zhang surnames of the Shiqiao Wang. The Wang family must have its own food culture.
It is said that in the winter of the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, a chef surnamed Xie in Shiqiao wanted to feast on a group of friends. At that time, when the north wind was rising and the mud carp in the Shiqiao River was fat, Master Xie tarts the mud carp meat to a gelatinous thickness, and then added ingredients such as hair vegetables, bacon grains, coriander stalks to the tart, and made fish balls for friends to play hot pot. After tasting it, everyone felt that the entrance was crisp, sweet and tender. A friend suddenly thought and said, "Such a delicious fish ball, why not make a snack?" ”
Master Xie tried many times, and finally made the mud carp glue into a roasted sale, but the white sold slightly inferior. One day, a young girl with red lips and white teeth walked by, and Master Xie had a clever move to put a small piece of red sausage on the roast, and the color, aroma and taste were all together. This is the "Ichibashi White Sale".
Due to environmental pollution and other reasons, there are no mud fish in the Ichibashi River, and Ichibashi White Sale has disappeared.
With the improvement of the ecological environment, especially the large number of artificial breeding of mud carp, Shiqiao Pinhualou decided to revitalize the "Shiqiao White Sale". Their chefs asked old tea customers for advice, and finally mastered the practice of "Ichibashi White Sale". In 2012, "Shiqiao White Sale" was selected as "Panyu Top Ten Famous Spots"; In 2014, it was selected as "Guangdong 100 Traditional Specialty Snacks". He Shihuang, a master of Nanyue dim sum, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Chinese Culinary Masters and one of the first Chinese culinary masters, said that the Guangzhou food industry is currently working hard to restore Shiqiao white sales and let it return to the table in the neighborhood.
Fish pond slice by Huang Guohong
In 2016, the Panyu District Food and Beverage Industry Chamber of Commerce initiated the formulation of the "Shiqiao White Sale" product standard, which was released by the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Quality Supervision on September 8, 2017, becoming the first local standard for Cantonese-style dim sum craft in the province.
Purple fish skin horn
At the sister restaurant of Zixiaoliang Huanyi in Panyu Shawan, Yupijiao is a specialty snack that many people love to eat.
Fish skin horn is a kind of snack with skin and filling, which resembles a dumpling but is much smaller than a dumpling. It will freshly remove the mud carp, scrape the meat off layer by layer with a blunt knife, remove the fishy with raw oil, salt and other spices, and then use the hand to shake on the board to increase the stickiness; The filling is ground with pork belly and served with cooked sesame seeds, shiitake mushrooms, wax flavor and other condiments, or according to the season or the guest's preference. The leather is kneaded into strips, cut into segments, and then flattened into pieces with a knife, and the skin the size of a coin is wrapped in a finger-sized dumpling. The fish skin horn can be boiled, fried and stir-fried, and can be used as a staple food or as a dish.
The skin horn of the purple fish is derived from the skin horn of the Shunde fish, but it is smaller. Across the river from Shunde.
Wonton is a transliteration of "wontons" by Lingnan people during the Tang and Song dynasties. The skin of wonton is made of eggs and flour, and the filling is made of pork, fresh shrimp, ground fish and egg yolks, shiitake mushrooms, horseshoe, seasoning, boiled water can be eaten, but because the skin is thin, it is easy to boil. In the Qing Dynasty, Shunde Daliang's "Feng Buji" used the minced meat and flour of fresh mud carp to knead well into a skin, and then wrapped in meat filling, shrimp, fresh bamboo shoots and other fillings to make wonton, which is not only smooth, fragrant, good taste, and cookable. Thus was the fish skin horn. In 1997, Shunde Yupijiao won the title of "Chinese Famous Snack".
Liao Xixiang, a folk scholar in Shunde, said that Panyu and Shunde are dressed in water and have the same roots, and both belong to the Cantonese cuisine family, so they have many things in common in terms of eating habits, tastes and cooking methods.
Food preparation: the technique is diverse and delicate
Panyu cuisine belongs to Cantonese cuisine in Cantonese cuisine, for thousands of years, especially the Qin and Southern Song Dynasties, the Ming Dynasty population migration and Guangzhou foreign trade, chefs eclectic, gradually explored the use of steaming, frying, frying, baking, stewing, frying, boiling, boiling, buckle and other cooking techniques to pursue color, aroma, taste, shape, through knife work, cooking, fire, seasoning, condiments, platters, dish names and eating environment and other mutual cooperation to achieve the integration of food and art into one realm. For example, there are 12 kinds of knife methods: chopping, splitting, cutting, slicing, knocking, scraping, shooting, chopping, batching, cutting, prying, and carving.
Lotus root three treasures
In 219 BC, Qin Shi Huang ordered the "Five Ridges of Shu" and sent Tu Sui and Zhao Tuo to lead an army of 500,000 to Lingnan. Central Plains soldiers did not adapt to the hot and humid climate of the south and fell ill. Zhao Tuo, who was in charge of logistics, studied with the military doctor and used lotus seeds, lilies, sand ginseng, cishi, jade bamboo, Huaishan, barley and other raw materials to make a porridge with both medicinal and food uses, which is "Qing Tonic Cool". After the fall of the Qin Dynasty, Zhao Tuo established the Nanyue Kingdom in the Lingnan region, and he often entertained high-ranking officials and distinguished guests with the dish of "mung bean stuffed lotus root" in the capital city of Panyu.
The "Three Treasures of Lotus Root" in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty was developed on the basis of "Mung Bean Stuffed Lotus Root".
Panyu Shatou a large family surnamed a new wife, the aunt took a whole lotus root to let her make 3 delicious and smooth and powdery dishes. The new daughter-in-law made 3 dishes according to the characteristics of lotus tip, lotus melon and lotus tail, which is the "Lotus Root Three Treasures", also known as "Lotus Root Three Styles". In modern times, Panyu chefs use sand pots to hand-grind lotus root into lotus powder to steam into lotus cups, wrap lotus root in flour and knead lotus root into lotus root shapes and fry them into "lotus strips", mung beans and mud carp glue stuffed lotus slices are fried on the outside and soft on the inside, and finally the cooked lotus root three-way plate is put together into a "moon lotus pond map".
Tea fragrant chicken
Zhou Guisheng, a native of Wujin, Jiangsu, went to Xinhui, Guangdong in the first year of Xuanun (1909) to serve as a county magistrate, and then transferred to Huaxian (present-day Huadu District, Guangzhou) County, equivalent to the current deputy county magistrate. On the fourth day after the victory of the Wuchang Uprising of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, he was deposed as a "former bureaucrat". Zhou Guisheng moved his family to Guangzhou Bailing Road to settle down, selling smoked chicken on the street to make a living. He combined Guangdong white-cut chicken with the popular Anhui Wuwei smoked duck practice in his hometown, and made the smoked chicken red, translucent, meaty and crisp, which not only retained the smooth texture of the white-cut chicken, but also gave a unique aroma through smoking. As soon as "Guangdong Smoked Chicken" was listed, it was welcomed by customers. Later, someone learned that Zhou Guisheng had been a county grandfather, so he called "Guangdong smoked chicken" "Taiye chicken".
"Zhou Sheng Ji Taiye Chicken" was later spread to the Six Kingdoms Hotel and the Great Sanyuan Restaurant, and then widely spread in the Lingnan area, becoming one of the "Four Famous Chickens" in Guangzhou. However, because the brine formula and smoking process of "Zhou Shengji" are never leaked, the chickens made in the society are called "tea fragrant chickens".
Whether it is Guangzhou Taiye chicken, tea fragrant chicken or Anhui Wuwei smoked duck, all originated from the Qing Guangxu period of the palace secret recipe of China's "four famous chickens", the first of the ditch gang smoked chicken.
Panyu Tea Fragrant Chicken is made of Qingyuan rooster boy, soaked and smoked by ingredients, producing golden and shiny, rich teeth and cheeks, soft and refreshing.
Big stone crispy horseshoe cake
The current Big Stone Street and Lop Street were originally called "Big Rock". Because of the three perfume channels, there is fertile alluvial soil, which is very suitable for planting hydroponic cash crops, and the horseshoe of one of the "Three Treasures of Dashi" is a kind, with Daxing and Dongxiang being the most. Planting begins in July of the lunar calendar every year and is harvested from the winter solstice to before the Spring Festival. The horseshoe produced here is much smaller than the one on the market, and it is not sweet but salty, but it is made with more horseshoe powder. In Daxing Village, 1 mu can harvest 1,000 pounds of horseshoes, and can process more than 100 pounds of horseshoe powder.
In the old days, Daxing people would make horseshoe cakes when they married women. They first mash the horseshoe powder into a paste and then steam it. Steamed 1 kg of horseshoe flour cake, at least 8 bowls of water, 1 pound 2 two rock sugar, but also to buy liquid sauce, boiling sugar water, open powder, hook syrup, to steam layer by layer, a layer of liquid sauce, a layer of liquid sauce, a layer of non-liquid sauce, so repeatedly, steamed for more than 1 hour, out of the horseshoe cake a layer of white and yellow, plus red beans or horseshoe grains, other people's horseshoe cake is only soft, Daxing people are smooth and elastic, folding without cracking, plucking and continuous, soft, smooth, cool, tough. After steaming, take out, cool, add glutinous rice flour, sugar, put in the refrigerator to cool, then cut into strips, sprinkle sesame seeds, and finally fry in the pan to a golden brown, out of the pan ready to eat. The large stone crispy horseshoe cake is crispy and delicious, fried but not greasy, and is filled with the unique sweetness and crispness of the horse's hoof.
In fact, not only in Panyu and Guangzhou, but also in Suzhou, Fuzhou, Nanning, Guilin and other places, horseshoe cakes are traditional desserts, which are said to originate from the Tang Dynasty.
Oatmeal thin brace
Glutinous rice flour, sticky rice flour, white sugar and fresh milk are fried into pancakes, covered with a thin layer of oatmeal, and then the pancakes are rolled up and cut into segments, which is called "oat thin brace".
Chan Chung-yiu is a famous chef in Hong Kong and has been in the industry for more than 40 years. He is a national culinary master, a director of the World Chinese Celebrity Chefs Exchange Association, and joined the Panyu food industry after retirement, serving as a chef at Fu Lin Men Restaurant and Fu Lin Jin Ge. The oat thin braces he cooked, sweet but not greasy, sticky and refreshing, brought a new wind to Panyu thin braces.
Legend has it that Bo Bao is a masterpiece of Nuwa to make up for the heavens. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, children in the Pearl River Delta often went to "Bu Bu Zhai" (that is, private schools) to study. The father took the child to the place arranged by the husband, put a piece of pancake made of glutinous rice flour on the chair, and ordered the son to sit down. The pancake sticks to the child's buttocks, which means "sit still, walk away, and concentrate on reading." This opening ceremony has now been omitted, but Bo Bao has become a favorite snack of Cantonese people.
Food and beverage consumption: strong ability and wide range of dishes
According to the figures released by the Panyu District Government website, at the end of 2021, there will be a permanent population of 2.8183 million in Panyu District, including 1.1282 million registered people and 1.6481 million registered people. According to the seventh national census, Panyu increased its permanent population by 893,500 in 2020 compared with 2010, an increase of 50.6%, making Panyu the second largest population area in Guangzhou after Baiyun. According to a sample survey, the annual per capita disposable income of urban residents in Panyu District in 2021 will reach 70,292 yuan, an increase of 1.21 times over 10 years ago; the annual per capita disposable income of rural residents will be 46,421 yuan, an increase of 1.66 times.
Weekend Tea House Morning Tea Wang Panyu Hotel offers
People with more money will definitely drive food consumption. According to the Communiqué of the Fourth National Economic Census (No. 5), at the end of 2018, there were 1,655 legal person units of catering enterprises in Panyu District, with 15,407 employees. Among them, there are 1224 catering service enterprises and 13309 employees; The operating income of the catering industry was 2.547 billion yuan, of which the catering service was 2.036 billion yuan. According to the statistics of Panyu District Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, the accommodation and catering industry in the district will achieve retail sales of 25.096 billion yuan, an increase of 19.2% over the previous year; From January to August 2022, the retail sales of accommodation and catering units above designated size reached 2.483 billion yuan, an increase of 4.5% over the same period of the previous year.
Bring it in
As early as May 1995, there were more than 1,600 licensed restaurants in Panyu, Japanese cuisine, Thai cuisine, Korean barbecue, hamburgers, Italian noodles, Chongqing hot pot, Chaozhou flavor, etc. can be found in Panyu, abalone, sea cucumber, shark fin, lobster, elephant mussels and so on. Qu Zhuoguang, a researcher on the "three rural" problems in Panyu, published in the article "Talking about Food and Drinking and Talking Panyu" in the "Panyu Bao" on June 16, 1995, used a series of data to explain that "thanks to the blessing of reform and opening up, the Panyu people who have begun to enter a well-off life have bid farewell to the subsistence diet mode and begun to pay attention to diet."
Chefs interact with diners at the Guangzhou International Food Festival by Huang Guohong
In 1999, in order to open the "Food Through the World", the CEO and employees also spent several years running around the world, even Dubai and Bahrain in the Middle East, tried local cuisine, and finally selected Chinese favorite dishes, presented in the "Food Through the World", Davina Italian Restaurant also specially invited Italian celebrity chefs to manage.
On the evening of November 17, 2007, Zhou Xionglie, executive vice president of the German Chinese Entrepreneurs Federation and international judge of the World Chinese Cuisine Federation, held the opening ceremony of "Honglu Restaurant" in the Zhoujia Building in Xinqiao Village, Shiqi Town, Panyu, his hometown, and entertained his father and fellow villagers with authentic hometown dishes such as tofu, small stir-fried and crispy sweet potatoes. He has seven "Chinese restaurants" in the Baltic coastal city north of Hamburg, Germany, but opened his eighth branch in his hometown. Zhou Xionglie hopes to introduce the management model that has been gradually formed in Germany for decades and make a new brand.
Get out
On May 5, 2005, Panyu Yongcheng Industrial Co., Ltd., which has been a seafood restaurant in Panyu for 13 years, opened Beijing Chengji Seafood Restaurant at the Yinggu Building on North Fourth Ring West Road, Zhongguancun, Beijing; Two months later, Changchun Chengji Seafood Restaurant Wanghuolou Hotel was opened on Changchun Street, Nanguan District, Changchun City, Jilin Province. Unfortunately, not long after, due to "water and soil disobedience", Yongcheng collected troops.
However, after the establishment of Wanbo in Panyu South Village in 2005, the four seas of the world have gathered star Chinese and Western chefs to meet the world food trend and produce more than 20 series and more than 800 international cuisines, which are widely popular and popular. As of July 2022, Sihai has set up 40 stores across the country. Huang Shucheng, director of national development of a group in Sihai, said: "I dare not say that we are first-class, but we are always based on doing culture and doing our own characteristics. Some of us do fine, others do not have us, we must take the characteristic route. The corporate culture of Sihai has always been relatively leading, more innovation, and solving the problem of homogenization through innovation. ”
Vegetable hybridization
Chen Ji, executive vice president of the Guangdong Culinary Association, who was born in Panyu Stone Building, said at the Panyu Exchange Meeting of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Celebrity Chef Club on the evening of September 7, 2005 that Panyu cuisine embodies the deepest heritage of Cantonese food culture. However, Panyu catering practitioners should have the courage to innovate and continue to develop, and "sticking to the rules will be the end of the road."
Gao Rongxin, one of the "Four Chef Gods of Hong Kong", returned to his hometown of Gaozhuang, Shiqi Town, Panyu, in 2006 to open a private restaurant, and has been doing it for 12 years. He said that Panyu's cooking technology has not yet reached the requirements of internationalization, most catering enterprises are still stuck in ordinary materials, and the selection of ingredients, seasoning boards, soup materials and other aspects also need to be improved. Panyu's chefs should eat more other dishes, such as Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Chao cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, etc., to absorb the essence of others and make Panyu's dishes more connotative.
There are already people experimenting.
Lu Weiguo, chairman of Guangzhou Yuyi Drunken Catering Management Service Co., Ltd., has 16 affiliated enterprises under his name and serves as the legal representative of 14 enterprises. Born and raised by Dongting Lake, the second largest freshwater lake in mainland China, this Hunan Yiyang Nan County man resigned from teaching in 1996 and went south to Guangzhou to learn cooking, began to open his own restaurant in 1999, opened a branch store in 2006, and began to build a Hunan cuisine chain brand "Fisherman's Fish Drunk" with the theme of wild fish in Dongting Lake in 2011, and currently has direct sales stores throughout Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai and other places. In recent years, Lu Weiguo has been exploring a new way of "Cantonese Xiang Made": using ingredients such as Cantonese seafood, using Cantonese kitchen knife work, using Hunan cuisine seasoning and cooking methods. He said that through many trials, he has basically achieved the effect he wants, and he will use a "fisherman's drunk" to promote this Cantonese-Hunan hybrid dish.
Source: Lin Xiao, a reporter from Panyu Rong Media