"Food is in Guangdong, taste is in Chaoshan." The biggest attraction of the Chaoshan region to foreign tourists is the food.
▲A variety of Chaoshan cuisine. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
As a Chaoshan person, whenever I talk about food with friends from other places, I find that my friends' understanding of Chaoshan cuisine is always limited to beef balls, beef hot pot, and then enriched by brine goose and seafood. Chaoshan people are famous for eating cattle and eating Chaoshan circles, but the Chaoshan cuisine that really occupies the daily life of Chaoshan people is rarely asked, it is kueh.
For outsiders, Chaoshan Kway is not as famous as Chaoshan beef hot pot; for Chaoshan people, it is not surprising that It is a daily table delicacy and dim sum snack. But if you really talk about the food culture of Chaoshan Province, you can't do it without Kueh. In other words, the kway teow occupies half of the Chaoshan cuisine, and if you come for the Chaoshan cuisine, but do not try the Chaoshan kueh, it is no less than a trip in vain.
▲Chaozhou's Arch Street is lined with a variety of Chaoshan snack shops, attracting many tourists, and the Arch Street at night is even more lively. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
Kun, walk off the table from the tribute table
Chaoshan kway in a broad sense, generally refers to the use of rice, wheat and other miscellaneous grains made of side foods, mostly fried, steamed snacks, and later many other Chaoshan snacks are also generally called kway, such as cold powder similar to turtle paste, in the Chaoshan region is called grass kway. In the narrow sense, it originally referred to rice products. In the Kangxi Dictionary, "粿" is interpreted as "net rice also, and rice food also". The Chaoshan people are good at eating kueh, which is inseparable from the environment in which they live.
Chinese eating habits are closely related to the production and development of agriculture. Chaoshan is located on the edge of the southeast hills of China, the terrain slopes from north, northwest to south and southeast, and the Tropic of Cancer runs through its middle. Located in the Hanjiang Delta, the Chaoshan Plain is the second largest plain in Guangdong Province, with an area of more than 4,000 square kilometers. Chaoshan is located in a subtropical monsoon climate zone, the land is fertile, the climate is suitable, the rice yield is abundant, and rice naturally becomes the dominant person on the table of the Chaoshan people.
▲Chaoshan Plain offshore, pleasant climate. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
But how did rice evolve into koeh and become widely popular in the Chaoshan region? This also starts from the history of Chaoshan Province.
Since ancient times, due to wars and economic influences, the population of the Central Plains has undergone many southward migrations. It was in the process of successive southward migrations that the ancestors of Chaoshan came to the rich land of chaoshan plains, and brought many central plains customs to the chaoshan plains. Zhongyuan pays attention to the worship, Zhang Heng said in the "Tokyo Fu": "Xian uses Jizong to save the lord, and the ancestors do not hesitate." The Qing Dynasty thinker Tang Zhen also mentioned in the "Hidden Book of Yougui": "Mo Ma Yu Qi, things die." "Worshipping ancestors with delicacies is a tradition in the Central Plains. The traditional offerings in the Central Plains are mainly pasta, and the Chaoshan region does not produce wheat, so according to local conditions, rice is used instead of wheat, and rice food is used instead of pasta. Rice is ground into sticky rice flour, with different potato flour starch, glutinous rice, can also be like dough, shaped into a variety of sacrifices needed "fruit", because the main ingredient is rice, it is next to "rice", with the word "kun" as the word, describing this type of sacrificial food.
The Chaoshan Plain has a large population, less arable land, and is facing the dilemma of frequent natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes, so most Chaoshan people have to seek development from the sea. In addition to the development of fisheries, the Chaoshan people, with the spirit of hard work, took a red-headed boat to the South China Sea. The sea is difficult and the road is long, and the Chaoshan people who go to Nanyang to make a living often do not know when they will be reunited with their relatives. Rice is easier to preserve when made of rice, and as food, it can not only satisfy the stomach, but also full of chaoshan people's beautiful vision of life and blessings for relatives. When the Chaoshan people leave their homes, they will bring the kueh prepared by the family as dry food. To this day, it is still one of the best gifts given by Chaoshan people, whether it is to pay tribute to the gods, to marry and mourn, to daily life, Chaoshan people can not do without kun.
▲Every New Year's Festival, the table will be filled with various kueh products and affixed with festive paper cuts. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
How many cantons are there in Chaoshan?
It is not an exaggeration to say that most of Chaoshan cuisine is the world of Kway, which is not an exaggeration! How many kinds of kueh there are in Chaoshan may not even be counted by themselves.
The Chaoshan people eat kueh and follow the eight festivals of the year. What are the Eight Festivals of the Year? The Chaoshan region regards the eight most important festivals of the year as the Main Day of sacrifice, the eight festivals are: Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Qingming, Dragon Boat Festival, Zhongyuan, Mid-Autumn Festival, Winter Solstice, Chinese New Year's Eve. In addition to the eight festivals, every month on the first fifteenth day of the first month, it is also necessary to worship the gods, and the kon is an indispensable tribute in the eight festivals. Different festivals, different seasons, have spawned different products. In the past, in the Chaoshan people's homes, every household had to make their own kway teow for sacrifice, so the Chaoshan people ate in almost uninterrupted various types of kway teow every year.
▲ Chaoshan people must eat traditional food during the Spring Festival: rat shell kun, which means the happiness and well-being of the family. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
In the Chaoshan area, what time to eat what kueh, what seasonal to eat what kueh, everything is arranged clearly and orderly.
In the Chaoshan festivals with the highest rate of appearance is the red peach, its shape resembles a shou peach, the color is bright, meaning life and beauty, before and after the Spring Festival can be seen on the dinner table.
When making the kon skin of the red peach kon, the red yeast rice is added to the sticky rice flour, and the kneaded kon skin has a bright pink color. Then wrapped in fried glutinous rice, accompanied by chestnuts, dried shrimp, pork, peanuts, shiitake mushrooms and other ingredients, with a beautiful wood carving mold to shape, gently patted out, a red peach kun is completed. The skin is soft and full of color and flavor, steamed and eaten, the skin is soft and sticky, and you can feel the plump filling with every bite. Chaoshan people eat kway teow, like to add some oil to fry, fry until the two sides of the slightly golden peach kueh, the skin is crisp and tender, oily but not greasy, the flavor is better.
▲Red peach kway, also known as red yeast peach, is a famous snack in Chaoshan Province, named after the shape of peach fruit, which contains the wishes of Chaoshan people for a better life. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
In addition to the beautiful meaning of Chaoshan kun, many kueh were also invented with the seasons of the festival, such as Chaoshan's pu seed kway teow and gardenia kway. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "Qingming eat leaves, May diet medicine". The leaves here refer to the pu seed kun. Historically, the Chaoshan area was widely planted with plain seed trees, and the leaves of the seeds were edible, which helped to reduce inflammation and relieve heat accumulation. Before and after the Qingming Dynasty, the seeds of the tree have just sprouted new shoots, and the leaves of the seeds are mashed out of the juice, mixed with rice milk according to the proportion, poured into a mold and steamed, that is, the seeds are made. Steamed pu seed kway comes with the fragrance of the seeds and leaves, and the taste is softer than the steamed bun, which is deeply loved by the elderly and children.
▲The raw material of pu seed kway is related to a local pu seed tree in Chaoshan Province, and the green color is dyed by the soup made of pu seed leaves. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
At the time of the Dragon Boat Festival, the Chaoshan area is humid and hot, and there is an ancient saying of "evil moon". Huang Gardenia detoxifies the cool blood and helps digestion, so the Chaoshan people put the yellow gardenia water and glutinous rice flour into it and kneaded and steamed it into gardenia. After molding, due to the excessive stickiness, the knife is difficult to cut, and it needs to be wrenched with cotton thread. Eating gardenia can clear the heat and fire, gardenia in the Chaoshan dialect is also called "gardenia dumplings", "dumplings" and "strong" homophony, so in Chaoshan people to eat gardenia is called "eat strong", meaning that eating the body is strong.
▲ The Dragon Boat Festival is also known as the "May Festival" in the Chaoshan region, and the "May Festival" should be "eaten strong" (that is, gardenia), which means that the body is strong. Image source/network
The saying "seasonal do kueh" is the true portrayal of the Chaoshan people making kun and eating kun, the Lantern Festival makes sweet kun and red kun, and looks forward to the sweetness of life in the new year; in the Middle Yuan Festival, do "bride idle" for "shi lonely"; thank God for sending God, do red kun, hair kway and crisp dumplings; Chinese New Year's Eve, make a rat shell kun that means health. It can also be eaten in addition to sacrifice, and when the meaning of kueh is extended from tribute to snack, its types are more diverse. According to the materials, there are vegetable head kun, taro, wheat kun, gardenia, sweet kun, sweet kun, sweet kun; wrapped in stuffing, named according to the filling, there are bamboo shoots, koji, leek, rice dumplings; there are also peach, turtle and so on. In fact, the more well-known kway teow is also a member of the Chaoshan Kway, rice is ground into a pulp with water, steamed into different utensils, cut into strips, that is, the kway teow strips, the dried kon skin cut into pieces is the kon horn, if it is thickly cut into pieces, it is a cake kway...
▲ Rice is ground into a pulp, steamed into koway, taken out to cool, and cut into strips to make it a kway teow strip. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
The above-mentioned cantonese products are only the tip of the iceberg in the Chaoshan multitude of "kun", in short, every New Year's Festival to eat kun, seasonal festivals to eat kun, family happy events to eat kun, idle to eat kun ... The number of Rice dumplings in Chaoshan is too numerous to count.
Nowadays, Chaoshan people no longer have the grand situation of every household making kway teow in the past, and modern people mostly go to the well-known kway teow shop to buy kway teow, and occasionally the family makes kway teow together, which has become a rare family fun. However, the custom of Chaoshan people eating kway teow during the New Year festival has always been passed down, and kway teow has become one of the unique food cultures in Chaoshan area.
The day of the Chaoshan people is spent in the eating of cantonese
The main reason why the Chaoshan people came down from the altar and went to the general public was that it was enough for daily life.
A bowl of salty and moderately mild kway teow soup in the morning can wake up the stomach after staying up all night. Unlike pho, the main ingredient of the rice noodles is rice milk, which is easy to cook and has a thicker taste, and the rice flavor is strong, no matter what soup base it is paired with, it is more flavorful. The steaming hot soup is sprinkled with "garlic head" and "green onion beads", which is to inject the soul into this bowl of soup powder.
▲Jieyang Tongkeng kway teows are almost as fine as rice noodles, maintaining the flavor of the kway teows while having a better taste. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
The kway teow seems to be unremarkable, and the competition within Chaoshan is not small, and the kway teow in Jieyang Tongkeng is famous in the Chaoshan kway teow industry because of its unique characteristics. The shape of the Tongkeng Kway teow is extremely thin, so fine that it is close to the degree of rice line, and compared with the thick Kway Teow strips in other places, the Tongkeng Kway Teow is tough on a fine basis and is not easy to break, and the taste is better. If you want to eat the most delicious kway teow in Chaoshan Province, go straight to Tongkeng!
It is the most powerful competitor of the kway teow in the Chaoshan breakfast industry, and the juice of the kway teow refers to the marinade. Whether a bowl of kway teow juice is delicious or not is roughly determined by the marinade taste, but don't ignore the kway teow in the kway teow juice. Most of today's kway teow shops use kway teows, but in more traditional kway teow shops, the kway teow in the kway teow should be the kon horn. The konko skin is dried and cut into chunks, and although the production process is more complicated than the kway teow, it can be stored for a longer time and is more chewy after cooking. In the Chaoshan area, only Shantou Chaoyang still preserves more traditional kway teow shops.
▲The taste of the kon koi is similar to that of the kway teow, and the traditional Chaoshan kway teow juice is made with kway teow. Photography/Focus
Most of the rice in Chaoshan is a snack, and there are several kinds of starchy snacks that are often served as staple foods.
The red peach kon skin is made of sticky rice flour, and the main ingredient of the filling is also glutinous rice, in addition to the shape and style, it is simply a rice ball, with glutinous rice as the filling, and the feeling of fullness is stronger after eating. The GanTong in Gan Tong Kang is actually a potato, which is transliterated as Gan Tong in Chaoshan dialect. The potatoes are pureed and kneaded into a ball with an appropriate amount of potato flour, dried shrimp and shiitake mushrooms, and can be stored for a long time after steaming out of the pot. When you want to eat, slice the frying pan until golden brown can come out of the pan, according to the thickness of the slices, the taste of eating will be different, thinly cut sweet and sweet, there is a kind of crispy potato chips, cut thick sweet and thick, you can taste a richer filling. The way to eat vegetable head and taro is similar to that of gan tong kang, but due to the different main ingredients, it has a different flavor. Chaoshan people firmly believe that "no frying, no frying, no good kun", the skin of the kon fried in high temperature oil will emit a more attractive aroma, and the crispness on the surface makes the taste of the kun more abundant, which makes people appetize. In addition to the signature products, there are often several other kueh snacks to match, which can meet people's needs for a variety of tastes.
▲The Kway Teen shop has a complete range of exquisite styles of various Kway Teens to satisfy all your imaginations about Kway Teen. Image source/network
Of course, when it comes to Chaoshan kueh, it is still mostly small foods.
The crystal ball is a kon snack enriched on the basis of rice-free rice. No rice kway teow, as the name suggests, there is no ingredient in the kway teow, its kway teow is made of pure potato flour, steamed transparent, you can see the color of the filling, generally for leek filling, also known as leek kway. The leeks out of the pot are like emerald dumplings, and the color is very beautiful. The creative Chaoshan people have tried continuously to replace the leek filling in the kway with purple potato, mung bean, red bean paste, taro paste, etc., so that the rice-free kway teow is a higher level in terms of taste and appearance, and because of the rich color, people call it a crystal ball figuratively.
▲ "No fried, no fried, no good kun", fried rice-free kueh is more fragrant. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
Hanging out with friends in Chaozhou's Paifang Street on weekends, playing in Shantou's small park neighborhood, hungry Chaoshan people may not necessarily go to drink milk tea, but will definitely find a small shop to eat, light a colorful crystal ball, and enjoy a leisurely afternoon.
If you go to Jieyang, you have to try the local "Ping Pong Kang", Jieyang Ping Pong Kon was originally "Betel Rice", because of the similar pronunciation, it was mistakenly recorded as "Ping Pong Gong", which has been inherited to this day. Ping-Pong Kon is "soft on the outside and crispy and sweet on the inside", and this incense comes from betel bran, that is, glutinous rice with shells that are repeatedly roasted in the ding, so that it is burst and pressed into minced bran. The glutinous valley is roasted in a large fire and bursts out with a special grain aroma.
If you go to Chaoyang in Shantou, you must try the local crab, which is a relatively ancient creature that lives in the shallow sea area and is melted into the rice by the Chaoshan people who eat the sea by the sea and served it on the table. As a national second-level protected animal, the horseshoe crab has been unable to eat, Chaoshan people have made slight adjustments in the sauce, replaced the crab with crab, mixed with rice milk, added fresh shrimp, southern milk meat, fresh minced meat, partridge eggs, mushrooms, seasoning, and then soaked in oil at high temperature, drizzled with special sauce can be eaten.
▲Chaoyang koji, after cutting, has a rich filling, and is drizzled with sauce according to personal taste, and the flavor is stronger. Image source/network
Most of the Chaoshan cantonese products will not be very expensive, and there will be hungry Chaoshan people who will go out to buy cantonese after tea and dinner, not far away, perhaps there is a good small shop in front of the door. A small burden at the entrance of the school, a small storefront on the old street, and even a bicycle walking in the streets and alleys have the rice that the Chaoshan people like. These small shops are distributed like cells in various small towns in the Chaoshan area.
The most lively is the small burden at the door of each school, the big aunt who fried the wheat kway, the uncle who picked the salty water kway to prepare for the momentum, and the uncle who fried the cake and the kun can't wait to wait for a school bell to ring. The fried wheat kway teow emits the aroma of oats, if you knock on an egg, the wheat flavor of the egg is complementary; the rice milk is poured into the mold and steamed and cooled, and when eaten, it is drizzled with the dried vegetables on the oil pot, the cold and hot meet, and the aroma bursts; the cake is fried with eggs, and the powdered sugar is sprinkled with flavor after the pan is sprinkled, and the saltiness and sweetness are moderate, making people savor. There are also fried kway teow meat and fried "pig's foot" small shops hidden around the school, each of which is mouth-watering and cannot be abandoned, and the pocket money of Chaoshan children is spent on eating kway teow.
▲ The salty water kway on the street side, the uncle skillfully picked up the salt water kway in the steamer, and drizzled a few spoonfuls of vegetable drizzles on each layer. Courtesy of Photo/Figureworm Creative
The most unattainable snack is grass grits. Grassy kway teem in the Chaoshan region only appears in the summer. The grass is close to the cold powder, but it has a sweet and bitter taste that the cold powder does not have, and sprinkled with fine granulated sugar to neutralize its slight bitterness. On a summer afternoon, if you hear the rhythmic knocking of the bowl "ding-dong" speeding downstairs from your house, don't panic, it is grass. Arbor, who sells grass, rides his bicycle through the streets and alleys, knocking on the pottery bowl to leave a message, and those who have no time to go downstairs rush to the nearest big banyan tree to meet, waiting in line for the grass to cool down and relieve the heat. In the hot summer, it is obviously unrealistic to rely on people to sell grass and rice, tired and thirsty, and the crisp tapping sound makes people feel refreshed, and there is an urge to go out to buy rice.
▲Grass kway teow is similar to cold powder, but the taste is sweet and slightly bitter, and fine granulated sugar can be added according to personal taste. Image source/network
Go to Chaoshan to eat grass and rice, rely on fate, do not remember the storefront, you need to pay attention to whether there is a 26-inch bicycle under the big banyan tree, riding two large baskets, next to the bicycle there is a Chaoshan Abel with a hat fan.
Chaoshan kun, maybe three days and three nights can not finish, maybe rely on words alone can not feel its charm, want to eat authentic Chaoshan kun, please trouble you personally run a trip.
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Written by/Liao Muhong Courtesy photo/Figureworm Creative Network, etc
Editor/Yang Yalin Photo Editor/Zhou Honglei Review/Chen Yi
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