Zhang Ailing is a famous female writer during the Republic of China, the writing style is interesting, the novel language is pure, and she has a deep knowledge of Chinese traditional culture, but although Zhang Ailing's writing is beautiful, the reality of Zhang Ailing's life is not easy, as she said: "Life is a gorgeous robe, which is crawling with lice." ”
Zhang Ailing's back
Zhang Ailing was born in a wealthy family, contact with a variety of food since childhood, although there are many gluttons in the Republic of China, but without exception they love traditional Chinese food, but Zhang Ailing is different, whether Chinese food or Western food, are frequent customers on her table, and wherever she goes, as long as she can touch the food, almost without exception has been tasted by her, and is not picky, from German jisling bread to the fritters that civilians love to eat, she is simply a food blogger during the Republic of China, using words to record everything eaten for everyone.
Unsatisfactory childhood life, unforgettable Anhui food
Zhang Ailing's grandfather is Zhang Peilun, the governor of Liangguang, and her grandmother is Li Jucouple, the eldest daughter of Li Hongzhang, the minister of Beiyang, although the Qing Dynasty has entered history, and the late Qing aristocracy has no capital to rely on and show off, but the assets they left behind are enough for future generations to eat, and the place where Zhang Ailing was born is Li Hongzhang left to his descendants in the Zhangjia Mansion in Shanghai.
Zhang Ailing and younger brother Zhang Zijing
Because my grandmother is from Anhui, naturally she also brought Anhui food taste, but also let Zhang Ailing, who was born in Shanghai, often eat Anhui food, among which the most favorite is Hefei balls and sticky glue, the so-called Hefei balls are actually glutinous rice balls, the not hard and not rotten sticky rice into a small ball, the minced meat into the rice balls pinched, the egg juice is advanced, and then fried in oil pan, fried until golden brown and crispy.
Prince of Hefei
As for sticky and sticky turning, this is made of green wheat grains, cut the unripe wheat kernels, put them in a stone mill for a grind, flow the turquoise wheat slurry into the preset wooden barrel, and then pour it into piping hot boiling water to make a sticky and moderate new wheat porridge, because the wheat milk is swirled around by boiling water, so it has the title of sticky and sticky, of course, this cannot be called a delicacy, it is just life-saving food during the famine year, but Zhang Ailing and her aunt often want to eat this food.
Zhang Ailing's family is in Tianjin
In 1922, Zhang Ailing's father got an English secretary position on the Jinpu Railway, and the family moved from Shanghai to Tianjin to live, and the diet also began to contact the taste of Beijing and Tianjin, when she was in Tianjin, Zhang Ailing liked to eat some soft, tender, fragrant, sweet food, which is also her future food preferences, that is, sweets, such as Liuyi scatter, mung bean cake, pine nut candy, cloud slice cake, osmanthus steamed, sour plum soup, raw fried steamed buns, sweet and sour steaks, etc. are all foods she liked to eat back then and in the future.
Mung bean cake
When I went to school in the future, because of living in school, there were many small vendors near the school and all kinds of dim sum, in these dim sum, Zhang Ailing was only interested in flatbread fritters, and liked to eat these two foods at the same time, but did not like to stuff fritters in the baked cake to eat, thinking that the fritters were flattened and not delicious, as for the burnt cake must have sesame seeds on it, so that the roasted sesame seeds will be fragrant between the lips and teeth, as for stinky tofu, Zhang Ailing also particularly likes.
Flatbread fritters are a national delicacy
In the more than ten years of living in Tianjin, Zhang Ailing also fell in love with duck tongue radish soup and waist soup, duck tongue radish soup stewed with duck tongue and radish, the duck tongue in the soup is pale white, very clear and tender, is also an unforgettable dish in Zhang Ailing's life, as for the waist soup is cooked with loin, tenderloin, radish together.
Duck tongue radish soup
In the days of living with my mother in Shanghai, I ate all over Shanghai
Although Zhang Ailing was born in a wealthy family, her father was a young man who liked good wine and gambling and smoked, and his mother Huang Suqiong's new dynasty ideas were in opposition to his mother, and later his mother divorced his father in a fit of anger because he couldn't stand his father being like this for many years, and when Zhang Ailing was 14 years old, his father married another famous young lady, Sun Yongfan.
Sheng Aiyi, Sun Yongbo and Yuan Shikai's seventh daughter-in-law
Out of dislike of her stepmother, Zhang Ailing is always malicious in future descriptions, in Zhang Ailing's article, her stepmother always maliciously provokes her father to punish her, so that Zhang Ailing has no feelings for this family, perhaps in order to divert her mood, Zhang Ailing fell in love with literary masterpieces, thinking that her future literary creation laid a solid cultural foundation.
Take a photo with Li Xianglan
Zhang Ailing's relationship with her stepmother became worse and worse when she grew up, and under the new hatred and old hatred, Zhang Ailing fled the house and ran to her biological mother's home in Shanghai, where her mother was financially strapped and far from the style of the previous family, but Zhang Ailing did not mind, in her biological mother, she experienced long-lost friendship and tolerance, and tasted the meals made by her mother for the first time.
When she was young, Zhang Ailing took a group photo with her aunt (left) and her younger cousin (right).
In her days in Shanghai, Zhang Ailing ate many Shanghai local dishes, such as braised paddling, steamed pork, smoked fish, fried amaranth with garlic, steamed oyster soup, etc., braised paddling is actually braised blue fish tail.
Braised paddling
However, life in Shanghai is actually not satisfactory, although living with her biological mother, Zhang Ailing's study life has seriously affected her mother's quality of life, and she was scolded by her mother as a "harmful spirit", in order to save money, Zhang Ailing can only eat the cheapest meals in school and walk to school.
Fortunately, the results were excellent, and in 1938 she was admitted to the University of London in the United Kingdom with the first place in the Far East, but when the Songhu War broke out, Zhang Ailing had to transfer to the literature department of the University of Hong Kong to study, in Hong Kong, she often went to buy Sikong bread, which is a kind of triangular small flat bread to eat, and then the University of Hong Kong was suspended, Zhang Ailing went to Shanghai St. John's University to study and live.
College years
In order to earn tuition, she began to write novels, and the famous "Agarwood Crumbs", "Love in the City", and "The Legend of the Golden Lock" were written during this period, which also made her famous and no longer had to worry about financial problems.
At the same time, she likes desserts and is also looking for all possible delicacies in Shanghai, and Shanghai in the Republic of China is also a food gathering place in the world, with a variety of dim sum, especially Western-style dim sum, Zhang Ailing will not let go, such as German jisling bread, English scone muffin afternoon tea, Russian Laodachang bread, American hot chocolate, sausage rolls in Feida café and so on.
Sausage rolls
And in Shanghai, Zhang Ailing also met the destined person - Hu Lancheng, Hu Lancheng planned to know Zhang Ailing because he saw Zhang Ailing's article, and in slow contact, Zhang Ailing found that Hu Lancheng was the one who read her and completely fell in love with Hu Lancheng, even if Hu Lancheng had a special identity and a family.
Zhang Ailing and Hu Lancheng
From 1943 to 1945, this is the happiest love moment in Zhang Ailing's life, Hu Lancheng knows that Zhang Ailing likes sweets, so he often buys delicious snacks from various countries for her, the two will not cook, naturally they are out to eat, in these years, Zhang Ailing has eaten all the food in Shanghai.
The shattering of love illusions
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, Hu Lan became a candidate to avoid arrest and flee back to his hometown, and before leaving, he and Zhang Ailing said goodbye, originally thinking that they would only be separated for a few months at most, but they did not expect that Hu Lancheng, a merry man, actually stayed with his one-year-old widow Fan Xiumei in his hometown, and Zhang Ailing stayed alone in Shanghai.
A classic photo of Eileen Chang
Because of Hu Lancheng's relationship, Zhang Ailing did not have any newspapers in Shanghai willing to publish her articles and was criticized by all parties, she was ready to leave Shanghai and wanted to return to Hu Lancheng, but after finding Hu Lancheng, it was replaced by a cold reality, after separating again, Zhang Ailing wrote him a farewell letter and attached 300,000 yuan of living expenses, no longer paying attention to Hu Lancheng, and Zhang Ailing also stayed in Shanghai alone, this stay until 1952.
Zhang Ailing and aunt
In 1952, Zhang Ailing left Hong Kong, and the shadow of unsmooth love has been shrouded in the second half of Zhang Ailing's life, and it also made her works in the second half of her life full of depression and desolation, as for what to eat during this time? According to Zhang Ailing's records, every day during the ten-day voyage, she ate slices of rice noodles and stir-fried green vegetables, and in the previous years, she had never recorded anything she ate, which also indicates that she never came out of the disillusionment of love.
In her later years, Zhang Ailing only had an empty shell of her soul, and she ate extremely simply every day
In 1955, Zhang Ailing went to the United States to live and married Lai Ya, an American playwright 29 years older than her, but Lai Ya suffered a stroke and was paralyzed in bed soon after her marriage, and everything at home was pressed on Zhang Ailing's body, and the perennial housework pressure and self-lamentation made her life in this period extremely bleak.
Photo on the green card
In 1967, Lai Ya died, at this time Zhang Ailing was just an empty shell of her soul, she refused to meet anyone, enclosed herself in the room, usually ate and did not want to go out to eat, and unwilling to do it herself, eating canned vegetables, boxed fresh milk, diced chicken pie, walnut pie, Scottish muffins, etc. every day, which only need to be heated in the microwave, fried eggs at most, and occasionally drink strong tea and coffee.
and Raiya
In 1995, this is Zhang Ailing's last year, because of her early love of sweets, Zhang Ailing's teeth in her later years have rotted, she can only eat thin food to live, and her physical condition has deteriorated, and finally on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a person left alone in her apartment in New York, leaving only paper bowls, paper plates and plastic knives and forks full of kitchens, leftover meals, etc., until she was found seven days later.
In her later years, Zhang Ailing
Zhang Ailing, who grew up with a love of food and food all her life, did not expect to leave this world alone in the last moment of her life in the days of no lover, no life and no food, although Zhang Ailing has always had a high manuscript fee in her later years, but she chose a simple life, living a hidden life in the United States, using words to recall the food she used to eat, and also seemed to be remembering the people and things she ate food with.