Food · "Gusu Food Talk"
Suzhou is good, Fengshui breed chicken head.
Yingrun every doubt bead ten Huo, soft fragrance prefers milk Yingou.
Peel off the small courtyard.
——Shen Chaochu, "Remembering Jiangnan"
Su Lake is ripe, the world is full. Suzhou Wuhua Tianbao, rich in products, Suzhou people can not be the most, afraid is to eat and drink the word; we northerners to Suzhou, the most can not be sluggish, only eat and drink the word.
Some time ago, I went to the Qingpu Cultural Pavilion in Mudu Ancient Town, Suzhou, to talk about the food here.
Two days before leaving, the pavilion set up a WeChat group dedicated to serving us, so that the housekeeper could ask us about our dietary preferences and taboos in the group, and finalize the menu in advance.
My little sister and I are foodies who are used to making plans in advance, and this arrangement of the house really can't be more used, and the favorability is up.
After discussion, we set the menu for dinner, is it possible to feel the fragrance of lips and teeth just by looking at these names? The abundance and softness of Jiangnan are all on the tip of the tongue:
Main course | Clear snail shrimp,
Steamed Taihu lake white fish, crab powder tofu,
Shredded white meat, stir-fried amaranth
Soup | Osmanthus chicken head rice
Staple food | Date paste cake
Fruit | Shenfu Koka
Wine | Mudu Umi wine
Tea | Rose rose rose tea
This is such an excellent gourmet menu, not only with famous dishes such as biluo shrimp, but also the classic Taihu Lake white fish support field, and there is also a local special brew of Umi wine, but the first thing I want to say is osmanthus chicken head rice.
Chicken head rice, I have always loved, first, because of its soft white and lubricated form, secondly because of the influence of the excessive poetry of the literati rioters, and also because of its seasonal nature.
Last year, I ate waka in Beijing, and I ate a dish of "Splendid Rejuvenation Fengsan Fresh" that wrapped chicken head rice in a whole fennel head, which I liked very much, and I was excited to evaluate:
Spring fennel head, smell of the scent;
Summer chicken head rice, white and tender.
And wood chicken head rice
In fact, chicken head rice is what we often call mustard, but as soon as you enter the mouth, you will know that where is the dried mustard that can compare to the taste of fresh chicken head rice?
However, fresh chicken head rice is the most difficult to peel, "Wuzhong daughter is delicate and lovely, pick chicken beads and ling to sell", in the past, every time the chicken head rice season, the daughters of ordinary families in Jiangnan were busy peeling chicken head rice to supplement the family. Nowadays, in the Suzhou market, you can still find Wu Zhong's daughter selling freshly peeled chicken head rice, but the price is naturally rising with the market economy, and the price is up for 100 yuan.
Merchants peeling chicken head rice in the market
Wu Zhong's daughter is delicate and cute, and she picks chicken beads and sells them
During the Kangxi Dynasty, there was a Shen Dynasty who wrote more than thirty poems "Remembering Jiangnan", one of my favorite ones is about chicken head rice:
Yingrun every doubt bead ten Hu,
Soft fragrance prefers milky urn.
"Soft fragrance prefers milky urn" - how ambiguous. Indeed, the tender white chicken head rice is always reminiscent of beauty and jade muscle, and when the book describes the jade ring out of the bath and slightly exposing the crispy chest, Xuanzong sighed: "Soft and warm new peeled chicken head meat."
Wuzhong chicken head rice in late summer and early autumn, such as white jade pearls, sweet and elegant fragrance, with autumn golden laurel, this sweet soup that can be found everywhere in the city, is the most unmissable period in Suzhou.
Osmanthus chicken head rice
When it comes to eating in Jiangnan, I can't help but invite my favorite old master Yuan Mei, who said that Zibai "stir-fried meat, fried chicken can be ... In the degree of inches, the first too fine is tasteless. ”
This dish of "Silky White Meat" is a recipe that follows the classic way of eating.
The ancients called Zibai "菰", and previously mentioned the word "Thoughts of The Perch" in the article:
Zhang Han, a Jin dynasty official in Luoyang, saw the autumn wind rising, "Naisi Wuzhong lettuce, lettuce soup, perch ("Zhang Han Biography")," said:
"Life is too expensive to be true, how can you be bound for thousands of miles to be a knight?"
Just like the leader said that he really missed the lettuce, lettuce soup, and sea bass in his hometown of Wuzhong (now Suzhou), he resigned and returned to his hometown.
The cabbage mentioned here is the whiteness.
Let Zhang Han give up the official Zibai, growing in the water around August and September, white and tender, like bamboo shoots, and meat is the most compatible.
Stir-fried shredded meat
After eating the two seasonal delicacies of chicken head rice and white, let's talk about the two top streams of Sioux City, white shrimp and white fish.
Mr. Wang Jiagu's "Gusu Food Talk" is very well written. It mentions the white fish of Taihu Lake:
The head and tail are high, very delicate and beautiful,
Towards the love of food.
Mr. Yuan Mei also said white fish:
The meat is the finest, steamed with wine, and the beauty is indescribable.
The tenderness and wonder of steamed white fish has been "indescribably beautiful" by the aforementioned grandfathers, and it seems that there is no need for me, a post-raw foodie, to add more to the description.
Steamed white fish
Suzhou people call white fish, silver fish and white shrimp the Three Treasures of Taihu Lake, which are all rich aquatic products after the rain. White shrimp shell soft meat white, shrimp meat is easy to squeeze out, in June and July to Suzhou, you can also eat the famous three shrimp noodles.
Although I have missed the season of three shrimp noodles, I still have the shrimp.
Li Yu, a Qing Dynasty life artist I like very much, believes that shrimp cannot be cooked by itself, and it is necessary to borrow the taste of other things, otherwise it will be very tasteless:
The shrimp cannot be autonomous, but will borrow other things as kings.
("Casual Occasional Mail")
Thinking about it carefully, everyone seems to be following the principle of "borrowing other things" to cook shrimp: you can borrow the salty and fresh soy sauce, such as the soy sauce of Guangfu's baked Roche shrimp, you can also borrow the sweetness of sugar oil, such as the Beijing-style puff pastry lychee shrimp;
But the Suzhou people borrowed the most wonderful - they borrowed the mellow tea aroma of Biluochun Qing Tea.
"Smile at the little poet, never look like a good person" - the flavor of Suzhou is always in harmony with the beauty of the literati.
Spring shrimp
Qingpu's room is generally inclusive of breakfast and dinner, I have always attached importance to breakfast, but the general type of hotel buffet breakfast makes me feel that it is better to go out to eat street stalls.
But in Mudu, the exquisite nine-palace breakfast made me marvel, and sure enough, in Suzhou, even the snacks were so exquisite. There are not only nine square grids, but also Su-style noodles and mustard ravioli.
Information
Name:Qingpu Cultural Pavilion (Royal Inn)
Address: Suzhou Mudu Shantang Street
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