"This is the taste of salt, the taste of the mountains, the taste of the wind, the taste of the sun, the taste of time, the taste of human affection. ”
The best food at home will always decorate the growing childhood.
As soon as I arrived in Layue, my heart began to be haunted by the smell of smoke and fire, and my thoughts drifted back to my distant hometown with this smell, recalling the happy times surrounded by a family. No matter how rich it is on the table, as long as there is a plate of bright and oily bacon there, its flavor is also lingering, and its affection is also long.
When I ate bacon for the first time when I was a child, I always felt that the bacon had a pungent smell of smoke, and the meat was hard and dry. When I grew up, I realized that the aroma of air-dried and sun-dried and the smell of fireworks slowly smoked by time had an endless aftertaste.
Lap-mei, from ancient times to modern times, has been mixed with many factors such as sunshine, hometown and memory, and has long been engraved in our taste memory, satisfying the tip of the tongue and the tip of the heart at the same time.
臘( là),腊( là),腊(xī)
"Layue" is the name given by the ancient Chinese to the end of the year in December, and the weather in this month is the most suitable for making wax flavor. As soon as the wax moon arrived, strings of pink and fat bacon sausages hung on the stoves of every household.
However, the "wax" of the wax moon and the "wax" of bacon are two different things.
In ancient times, "臘" and "La" (xī) were two different ways of writing, and their meanings were very different.
"臘", the name of the sacrifice. "Customs and Customs" said: "The sage, hunting, Yantian hunts birds and beasts to worship their ancestors." "Shuo Wen Jie Zi" said: "After the winter solstice, three times, sacrifice to the gods." Therefore, the ancients used "臘" to indicate time, and called December the month of 臘月.
Wax (xī), the original meaning of "dry meat", Han Liu Xi's "Interpretation of Names, Interpretation of Diet" note: "Wax, dry wax also." "The ancestors would dry or dry the meat of animals and poultry that could not be eaten for a while, and make it into bacon for preservation.
Ancient Chinese knew how to make and eat bacon for a long time, and there are records about bacon in the earlier documents of the mainland, "Zhou Yi" and "Zhou Li". At that time, the imperial court also set up institutions and officials for subjects to pay tribute to bacon: "Laren, four corporals, two fu, two Shi, and twenty disciples." Dried meat. "
This is a sentence in the Analects, and it is said that Confucius asked his students to take ten strips of bacon as tuition fees when they first met. The word "bunch" means ten strips of dried meat.
In addition, the literati of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties were even more fond of bacon, and constantly described and summarized the curing skills of folk bacon, which played an important role in the inheritance and development of bacon customs.
The Southern Song Dynasty poet Yang Wanli once wrote such a poem describing bacon, entitled "Wu Chunqing Lang Pays Pork in the Middle, Plays Ancient Sentences":
"The old man is afraid of hot rice and can't, and the gentleman gives the meat to the city. The frost knife cut off the yellow water essence, and the moon axe cut out the red pine light. The previous work of Jun's pork curd is the foot of Wu Mountain. The son Peng Shengchu was untied, and the bad hill was put on the Lingyan Pavilion. But there will be one belly with two chela, and there are really Yangzhou cranes in the world. ”
Yuan Hanyi's "Yi Ya's Last Will" volume of "bacon strips" said:
"Ten pounds of pork from a fat ape (castrated pig) and cut into twenty pieces. Eight taels of salt, two catties of wine, mix thoroughly, and violently rub (knead, rub) human flesh to make it soft. The boulder is very dry when pressed to remove water marks (moisture in pork). Mix the dregs with the rest of the submerged wine, apply it to the meat, wear it with a grate, and hang it in a ventilated place. ”
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, a large number of literati and writers who had profound knowledge of food culture were produced in the land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River, and they wrote many high-level food works, including records about cured bacon. For example, Gao Lian of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty wrote "Food and Serving Food Notes", and Qianlong Yuan Mei of the Qing Dynasty wrote "Suiyuan Food List and Special Livestock List".
Lap mei, a delicacy conspired by the Chinese and time.
For thousands of years, the wax moon has not changed, and the cured meat is still the same.
Time, fireworks, hometown
Lap-mei interprets the vivid color and fragrance of people in the cold days, and stores the initial imprint of people's taste about their hometown.
In the age of material monotony, people have a natural preference for fatty foods, so they find ways to fight time. Before the Spring Festival, every household slaughters pigs and chickens, because the meat is not easy to store, so people will eat the meat that can not be eaten finely salted, tied to the rope, hung outdoors to dry, and made into cured meat.
The bacon made in this way can not only effectively preserve the preservative, but also produce another fresh flavor - rich salty aroma and glycol. Bacon can generally be eaten until the next winter. I have seen on the news that some bacon can be stored for more than ten years.
Perhaps, in the beginning, time and food were opposites. But through wisdom, people have made time the best friend of food, brewing the taste of old and new.
The more winter it gets, the more I miss the smell of fireworks in my hometown.
After the winter in my hometown, the weather is cold, and the countrymen are accustomed to using firewood to keep warm. Strings of bacon are hung above the firewood and are "edified" by the fireworks. When it's time to eat, take a kitchen knife and chop off a piece and steam it with the rice grains.
Nowadays, there are many kinds of food choices, but the taste memories that have been "educated" by time and fireworks are still profound.
Chen Xiaoqing, who has lived in Beijing for more than 20 years, has recorded many fireworks in the world and eaten a lot of delicious food, but what is hidden in the deepest part of his taste is the bacon he ate at his grandmother's house when he was a child-
"Bacon is fat, barely lean, cured with a lot of coarse salt and hung above the stove. When making rice, cut a few large finger-thick slices of bacon and steam them with the rice grains to satisfy your cravings. The dizzying lingering lingering in the mouth, and the pleasure of fine granular grease bursting between the teeth. ”
Sometimes, what has disappeared in the mind, the sense of taste is difficult to part, and the Chinese call this taste "hometown taste". For many people, "lap-mei" is the most intriguing one in their taste memories of their hometown, especially in the south.
I remember a writer once said, "Lap-mei, in the long years of time, people's hometown, family affection, nostalgia, thrift, perseverance and other emotions and beliefs are mixed together, one bite of the mouthful, it is almost difficult to distinguish which piece is the taste, which is the feelings." ”
川,湘,粤,浙
Sichuan hemp, Hunan spicy, Cantonese sweet, Zhejiang fresh. In the territory of China's lap-mei, Sichuan, Guangdong, Hunan and Zhejiang are like the "four kings" in the lap-mei industry.
Sichuan cured meat
Sichuan is the paradise of cured meat, bacon, sausages, pork ribs, pork trotters, air-dried chicken, air-dried duck, smoked fish.... There are many options, but pork is the most mainstream.
In Sichuan, every year before the wax moon, every household begins to select the best pork and make all kinds of cured meat.
Fresh pork is scraped, salted, and marinated together with a certain proportion of spices such as peppercorns, anise, star anise, cinnamon, and chili peppers, for about a week to two weeks. Once the spices have been flavored, they are hung with palm leaves, smoked or dried.
The firewood of the bacon is also exquisite, which varies from place to place, and Sichuan is mostly smoked with cypress branches and leaves. When smoking, the fire should not be too big or too small, and it is best to smoke slowly. After being smoked, the bacon is red and bright, with its own aroma.
For Sichuan people who don't like smoky flavors, air-drying is the best choice. After the meat is marinated, hang it directly to dry and wait for it to dry.
Spicy, Sichuan flavor essence, people also graft this essence into lap-mei well. For example, the authentic Sichuan spicy sausage, the best Sichuan peppercorns are added when marinated, and the peppercorns produced in Hanyuan inject the soul of numbness.
Hunan cured meat
Hunan, close to Sichuan and Chongqing, has a similar topography and climate to Sichuan, and cured meat is also similar to Sichuan. However, Hunan bacon is famous for smoking, and in terms of taste, unlike Sichuan's numb and spicy, Hunan bacon is more spicy.
In Hunan, the common cured meat includes bacon, sausage, preserved chicken, preserved duck, preserved goose, preserved fish, preserved pigeon, preserved fragrant dry, pig blood balls and so on. Each place has its own characteristics, but the most "hooking" is the bite of Xiangxi bacon.
The fame of Xiangxi bacon is inseparable from the excellence of raw materials, as the so-called "Mayang Eighteen Monsters, pigs run faster than dogs", such pork, strong and powerful, used to smoke, the best.
Xiangxi bacon, bright red color, smoky and salty. The whole process of production strictly follows the three elements of "dry", "cool" and "fragrant". In addition to the branches of pine and cypress, tea leaves, fried yellowed rice, and peeled tea seeds and deep-fried tea husks are added to the smoke. The bacon smoked and roasted in this way has the fragrance of tea fruit.
After the smoked bacon, the meat quality becomes hard, the meat color becomes darker, and the smoke flavor is embedded in the meat, and the aftertaste is long. Smoked dried bacon can be eaten all year round.
Cantonese lap-mei
Although Cantonese people eat everything, they have always had a light taste and are more specific in lap-mei. With sweetness, wine aroma, and sausage, this is the deepest impression of Cantonese cured meat.
"When the autumn wind rises, eat cured meat", when the north wind comes, Cantonese people begin to dry cured meat. The steps of air-drying are similar everywhere, but Cantonese cured meat is very different from Sichuan and Hunan in the seasoning of pickled fresh meat.
Cantonese sausages are often made by mixing fatty meat with lean meat in a certain proportion, and then marinating them with wine, soy sauce, sugar, etc. After the meat is beaten into the casing, it needs to be tied and pricked, and then dried for about 60 days.
Cantonese sausage is sweet with wine, the entrance is hearty, it seems to be drunk but not drunk, and it is the best CP with claypot rice.
It is true that Cantonese people have a soft spot for sausages, but sausages in different regions will also have slight deviations in appearance, taste, and production process.
For example, the sausage in Dongguan has a short interval when tying the knot, and when it is hung up, it becomes a small oval meat ball half a finger long. This kind of sausage has too many sections, and it tastes more strong.
Zhejiang lap-mei
Zhejiang, a hidden province of cured meat. In the cured meat, the pursuit of natural flavor, what you eat is the fresh fragrance, so in the process of pickling, the seasoning often only needs the most basic salt and sugar.
Jinhua ham, the loudest synonym of Zhejiang cured meat. The whole marinated pork leg is very precious in terms of craftsmanship and skill.
Jinhua ham is the use of Jinhua famous pig "two black" hind legs, in the process of pickling, not only dehydration, fermentation, temperature is extremely particular, even the simple salt, to be accurate to every inch of meat.
A high-quality Jinhua ham can be cut into four parts. "Chinese" and "above" meat have a strong sense of fiber, and should be cut into shreds and stir-fried; "dripping oil" has more fat and less lean meat, so it is better to stew soup; "fire heel" (pig's feet) has many bones, and it is best to steam and stew.
In addition to Jinhua ham, Zhejiang cured meat also has classic representatives such as Dingyuan bridge tail, duck foot bun, Suichang bacon, and Hangzhou sauce duck. In addition, Ningbo's seafood cured meat is also eye-catching, such as fish fish, dried cuttlefish, dried shrimp and so on are a must.
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Different places, different preferences, different processes, and different flavors make people have their own memories of lap-mei.
People always say that the moon is the hometown of Ming, and the same is true of lap-mei.
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