Chen Wenjie
He is a member of the Guizhou Provincial Writers Association and the vice chairman of the Anshun Writers Association.
In 1381, Zhu Yuanzhang sent an expedition of 300,000 troops to Yungui, bringing the southwest into a unified unification. After the war, the local military cantonment system was implemented, and the soldiers garrisoned the frontier, and Anshun Province became the military command center at that time. With the passage of time, a large number of people from the Central Plains and Jianghuai successively migrated to the Qianzhong region, and multiplied for generations to form today's Tunbao people. Over the long years, people from different cultural backgrounds have immersed and slowly integrated with each other in the exchange, and under the influence of this beautiful mountain and river and pleasant climate, a unique Tunpu culture has finally been formed.
In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, Anshun, with its location advantages of "the belly of Qian, the throat of Yunnan, and the lips and teeth of Shu and Guangdong", gradually became an important commercial town and was known as the "dry wharf" in the southwest region. Merchants from all provinces gathered in Anshun and lived here in the form of merchant gang halls, and also brought skilled cooks from all provinces to serve them. The arrival of new cooking methods and tastes after the economic boom has stimulated the development of Anshun catering industry, and Tunpu cuisine has once again improved its stereotype in this context, forming a complete cuisine that conforms to the season and borrows flavors.
Tunpu cuisine is characterized by both north and south flavor and has its own style. It is based on Huaiyang cuisine, but it also absorbs the cooking methods of Sichuan, Xiang, Yunnan and other regions, as well as the influence of ethnic minority dishes in Guizhou. Tunpu cuisine is light oil, salt, heavy sour and spicy, pays attention to the original taste, and pays attention to the freshness and quality of the ingredients. It is prepared in a variety of ways, from banquet dishes to home-cooked dishes with small pots and stoves, to unique pots of aroma and a wide variety of snacks. After more than 600 years of carving, Tunpu cuisine has become a typical and prominent representative of Qian cuisine.
Prepared Tunpu Eight Treasures Rice. Cheng Hongkai/Photo
Tunpu home cooking
To truly understand a place, we must start with food, and home-cooked food fully reflects the background color of a local terroir and the background taste of human feelings. Tunpu's home-cooked cooking adopts seasonal vegetables and wild side dishes, which are cooked according to the ingredients, and the operation is simple and easy, and at the same time, it makes the most of it: a lettuce, bamboo shoots, bamboo leaves, bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots, and bamboo shoots are all processed into different dishes; A piece of meat, net lean, fat lean, fat meat, skin, are also made of different processes ... The spirit of saving things is reflected in the complex and perfect processing technology of each ingredient in Tunpu cuisine.
Guizhou has heavy humidity, and eating spicy can resist rheumatism. If you go back in time, eating spicy is a wisdom of the Tunpu people to cope with the lack of salt in the old days. Guizhou does not produce salt, and successive dynasties have "routinely eaten Sichuan salt", relying on land and water transportation. The salt ship first arrived at Zunyi Renhuai Wharf, and then the salt workers carried the bricks and salt to all parts of the province, which was extremely difficult. The Tunpu area thus "replaced salt with spicy" to find a little solace in ordinary life.
Villagers display the made Tunpu gourmet chicken spicy seeds. Photo by Chen Xi/Photo courtesy of Guizhou Photo Gallery
Guizhou likes sour and spicy food, which is the most different from Sichuan cuisine heavy and spicy. Every year around the Zhongyuan Festival, every family must choose fresh red peppers with thick meat and not too heavy spiciness, wash and dry and chop, add fresh ginger, garlic, white wine, salt and seal pot fermentation, fast if it can be eaten in more than ten days, slow if it takes several months, in order to ferment the sour taste. "Replace salt with spicy and fresh with acid", this is the most characteristic taste of Tunpu's home-cooked cuisine.
Tunpu is rich in ingredients, including wild vegetables and mountain dishes, field vegetables and vegetables, and the ingredients are subject to change at any time. Tunbao people pay attention to the seasonality of ingredients, and pay attention to spring buds, summer leaves, autumn fruits, and winter roots. In spring, there are bamboo shoots, bracken, and tsubaki; In summer, there are fungus, chicken fir fungus, etc.; In autumn, there are yam fruits, peanuts, leeks; Winter radish, yam root, etc. are the best products of Tunpu's home cooking, every time the seasons change, Tunpu people to taste the seasonal ingredients as the priority, the family does not hesitate to buy at a high price or personally go to the mountains to pick, in short, seasonal vegetables on the table, only herald the grand arrival and quiet departure of the four seasons of the year in the fireworks of life.
Tunpu home-cooked food is not obsessed with the shape of the plate and the brilliance of the surface of the dish, but also cares about the convenience of eating, as long as it is suitable for accompaniment, regardless of the price of the dish. Although Tunpu's home-cooked food may not be better than the banquet dish in shape and color, behind the fireworks of its small pot and stove there is a housewife's virtuous gentleness and kindness, and this unpretentious atmosphere stretches the nostalgia that makes people eat for a long time.
Tunpu banquet. Wu Zhongxian/Photo
Tunpu banquet dishes
The best expression of Tunpu cuisine and the style of the north and south is the traditional banquet cuisine.
During the Guangxu period, Mr. Li Lanting, a famous chef in Anshun, recorded several old banquets in his "Qian Recipes", among which "bird's nest mats", "barbecue mats" and "hoof tendon mats" can also be eaten in the Tunpu area. The name of these three old banquets is named after the first dish (starter) of the eight main dishes. If the starter is "chowder pigeon egg", this table is "pigeon egg mat"; If the starter is "brush hoof tendon", then this table is "hoof tendon mat", and so on.
The order and taste matching of the Tunpu banquet are very exquisite, the first four plates are the appetizers, the second is the eight dishes, the third is the last four plates (seat dishes) that is, the next meal, then the fourth is the soup dish, and finally the snack after the meal. The first dish among the eight major dishes must be salty and white soup dishes, which has the effect of moisturizing the throat of guests, similar to the aperitif in Western food and the sausage soup in Cantonese cuisine; The second of the eight dishes must be a spicy dish used to enhance the taste, such as "Kung Pao Chicken" and "Phoenix Tail Waist Flower"; In the future, the rest of the dishes can be served according to the specifications set by the host until the next four plates are served. Soups and small snacks after meals, must pay attention to sweet soup on dessert and salty soup on salty soup, such as three fresh soup for salty soup, with broken crispy buns, fried chicken cake, crispy meatloaf and so on; Silver fungus soup is a sweet soup, which is suitable with bird's nest pastry, brow crisp, bergamot pastry, small peach crisp, small hemp cake and so on. According to the old custom of wine banquets, each guest can take home the brown paper prepared on the table after the meal and bring it to the children at home, called "zha bag".
The process of making Tunpu cuisine. Wu Zhongxian/Photo
These three banquets are high-end old banquets, generally only in a small area, and this banquet is mostly used by children in high schools, official promotions, businessmen buying property, or when investment is successful. "Bird's nest seat" means to spread your wings and fly high, traveling thousands of miles; "BBQ mat" means prosperous business.
Tunpu "eight big bowls" is a common banquet among the people, in fact, the "eight big bowls" do not have a fixed dish, but the three starters must have "chicken, duck, fish", the lack of one is a lack of courtesy for snubbing guests, and then the other dishes are mainly seasonal dishes are different. There is also a small banquet dish "one-pot aroma" that combines the flavor of Anshun into one pot, which belongs to assorted chowder. In the first layer, stir-fry the greens and cabbage, then spread the stir-fried yams, tofu fruit, chives, and finally spread the dishes such as back pot meat, spicy meat slices and spicy chicken, etc., which are heated and eaten on a simmer. All kinds of dishes are chowdered in one pot, borrowing each other's flavors to make a pot fragrant. Generally, family dinners and drinks with acquaintances and friends, and "one pot of fragrant" is the first choice for gluttons.
There is a folk saying in Guizhou "Guiyang's dress, Anshun eats and drinks", and Anshun's eating and drinking refers to Tunpu cuisine. With the passage of time, Tunpu cuisine with the taste of the Ming Dynasty food culture of 600 years has gradually influenced the cooking methods of other parts of Guizhou and has become an important part of Guizhou's food culture.
Source | Rural Geography magazine
Text | Chen Wenjie
Edit | Xu Jieyu
Second Instance | Zhang Fen
Third Instance | Zhao Lin