▲ Grass head circle, the signature delicacy of Spring In Shanghai. Photography/ easonxin, photo/market map
-Fengwujun Language-
Eat wild vegetables in spring
Can you not remember Gangnam?
The Lantern Festival has just ended, and the messengers of early spring have already followed wild vegetables such as cabbage, malantou, chrysanthemum brain, etc., to make a fresh appearance in the vegetable market in Jiangnan.
▲ In February 2021, at the vegetable stalls in the Nanjing Tea South Vegetable Farm, the reed artemisia was freshly listed. Photo/Visual China
Everyone in Jiangnan loves to eat wild vegetables, and if nothing else, even Nanjing, which is always jokingly called "the least Jiangnan" on the Internet, has become the "hometown of the eight wilds" that suppresses all parts of Jiangnan.
From "Four Wilds in Early Spring" to "Seven Heads and One Brain", from vegetarian fried rice cakes to paired with wine and meat, from "Poetry Classic" to "Dream of the Red Chamber"...
▲ Stir-fried rice cake with shredded cabbage meat, a spring food of Ningbo people. Photo/Mr. Recipe, Photo/MarketMap
The wild vegetables of Jiangnan dare to be fresh for the world.
The first field in Jiangnan is actually Nanjing?
In 1995, when the "Vegetable Basket Project" was first built, experts came to Nanjing to investigate, in addition to vegetables, there are various types of wild vegetables on the market, known as the "Eight Wild Wonders", and now, many wild vegetables of "grassy origin" have long entered the greenhouse and become regular green vegetables.
▲ Harvest of reeds in greenhouses. Photo/Visual China
After eating the vegetarian assortment of "ten dishes", the annual taste has not yet dissipated, the early spring jinling, the grass is abundant, a map of wild vegetables has been slowly opened: sandbar polder cabbage green, Baguazhou reed artemisia is the most abundant, Jiangxinzhou Marantou is fresh.
And even wilder than wild vegetables are people with small shovels and scissors and vegetable baskets:
"Nanjing people, do not know well, a mouthful of white rice and a mouthful of grass"
"Three days without eating green, two eyes on Mars"
"Give me a little shovel, I can dig through the Purple Mountain"
To say that Nanjing people eat wild vegetables, can be traced back to the "Southern Dynasty Four Hundred and Eighty Temples" era, when Buddhism prevailed, early to Nanjing laid the foundation of "the hometown of vegetarian dishes", and then Nanjing as a place where soldiers must fight, digging wild vegetables, is also an essential skill for survival in times of war.
▲ Dried marantou is a wild dish that Nanjing people like very much. Photography / Via, Picture / Figureworm Creative
Today's Nanjing people eat grass, that is, the system is complete, there are many names: from the "Jinling Three Grasses" to the "Early Spring Four Wilds", and then to the "Seven Heads and One Brain" (Ma Lan Head, Alfalfa Head, Chinese Cabbage Head, Toon Head, Pea Head, Goji Berry Head, Small Garlic Head and Chrysanthemum Brain), coupled with the fashionable bracken head, together constitute the spring on the Nanjing people's table.
However, whether it is "seven heads and one brain", or the "Jinling Thirteen Dishes" with fresh wild vegetables such as ground vegetables, most of them are popular in Jiangnan and even popular throughout the country, only two wild vegetables are characteristic and proud of Nanjing people.
Reed v chrysanthemum brain 丨Who is the first field in Nanjing?
How delicious is Artemisia reed? In the eyes of Nanjing people, the fried dried incense of reed is the existence of a wrist that can be wrenched with saltwater duck.
▲ Stir-fried dried reed artemisia, the taste is very fresh. Photography / Kong Yan, Photo / MarketMap Network
In fact, reed artemisia is not unique to Nanjing, but a wild vegetable that can be eaten along the Yangtze River. For the Jiangxi people on the shores of Poyang Lake, Quinoa (Reed Artemisia) also represents the arrival of spring. Jiangxi people who love to eat spicy, in the face of fried quinoa artemisia has also become gentle, a piece of quinoa fried bacon, seasoning must be light, pepper and bacon, are supporting roles.
▲ Stir-fried bacon with quinoa. Photo: The second season of "China on the Tip of the Tongue"
Nanjing people eat reeds, want a fine, even the meat is not willing to put, "Dream of the Red Chamber" said, "meat because of the bad to make you fry a gluten", the focus is - less oil.
Wild reeds on the head will have a hint of purple red, the taste is also more fresh, when picking vegetables, cut off the knotted stem, you can smell Mr. Wang Zengqi's so-called "new spring water" smell, a bundle of reeds to remove eight points, only left a section of crisp raw reed stalk tip, with a dry vegetarian stir-fry, in addition to a little oil, salt, almost no other condiments, only for that natural fragrance.
Eating reeds, I have seen spring water, and at the turn of spring and summer, Chrysanthemum nanjingense is just right, and this scientific name can be seen in its relationship with Nanjing. The first time foreigners eat chrysanthemum brain, they often think that it is bitter, and their faces are wrinkled into a chrysanthemum, but the people of Nanjing love its mint-like coolness.
▲ Chrysanthemum brain, with a strange fragrance. Figure/Figureworm Creative
The favorite practice of Nanjing people must be chrysanthemum brain egg soup. The chrysanthemum brainwashed and boiled, the egg liquid floated in the soup, and when I drank it in a bowl, I felt that the whole person had become physically and mentally clear. Another unique way to make Jiangnan flavors come together is to use it with spring shoots and stir-fry with ham from Jinhua, called Juye Jade Plate, just listen to the name, it is enough to see the elegance of Jiangnan.
<h1 style="text-align: center;" > Jiangnan people eat spring, "head" is the Tao! </h1>
Eating wild vegetables all over Jiangnan, on the "head", like the pea that Sichuan people love to eat, when it comes to Nanjing, it becomes an "An Dou Tou" that can bring a year of peace and auspiciousness. Suzhou people pay attention to eating five heads, what cabbage head, maran head, goji berry head, toon head, grave head and so on.
▲ Sautéed pea tips. Photography / Alone in Qingjiang, Photo / Figure Worm · Creativity
However, no matter what kind of wild vegetable "head", it is full of spring breath.
Versatile alfalfa head 丨 wine meat through the intestines
Alfalfa head (alfalfa), some people call it "clover", other wild vegetables, mostly eat a bite of fresh and fresh, alfalfa head can not be biased, it loves to "drink wine and eat meat", can be called a warrior in the weeds, more interestingly, it has many aliases, but also put on different delicious vests.
▲ Grass head circle. Figures/MarketMap
Alfalfa head is known as "grass head" in Shanghai, and in the spring, the bengang restaurants in Shanghai will focus on "grass head circle", that is, grass head fried braised sausage, refreshing grass head adsorbs the fat of the circle, which can be called "door to door".
Nanjing dialect is called alfalfa head "hen head", fried hen head, may be the most ferocious kind of stir-fry, not only to use hot oil fierce fire, but also to add white wine sugar, to a fiery duet, burned out the original sour grass flavor, leaving only as fresh as spring.
▲ Rice grass river shrimp. Photo by qybpyn321, Photo/MarketMap
When it came to Suzhou, it turned into a golden cauliflower, pickled golden cauliflower, sprinkled with a little licorice powder, is the sour and fresh taste that can be eaten in all seasons, if it is called straw, it is more with river fresh appearance, it is really a generalist in wild vegetables.
Maran Head & Toon Head 丨 From everyday to amazing
When I was a child, I went to school to jump the leather band, there was always a song "Malan Blossom Twenty-One", the name of Ma Lan, it sounds like a little girl full of vitality, and when I arrived in Jiangnan, I knew that Ma Lantou was the umami that People in Jiangnan could eat all over a spring.
▲ Dried maran head. Photography / ๑毓ॐ๑ , Photo / Figure worm ・ Creative
Marantou, which was once casually picked and eaten by every household, has now been transformed into a rare taste that is more expensive than meat. Blanch the fresh maran head in hot water, squeeze out the water, chop it into minced pieces with the dried fragrant tofu, mix it with a little sesame oil and sugar, and you're ready to serve. The lingering fragrance of the tip of the tongue also haunts the childhood of many people.
The taste of Malantou, known to jiangnan people, and toon head, make a whole spring "thrilling".
▲ When you choose toon, you can already smell it. Graph/Network
One is the smell of hatred and love, it is difficult to say which one is more impressive, such as toon, folded ear root, durian; second, the price of "toon freedom", which is often dozens of hundreds of pounds of stubble toon, is always the most expensive of the wild vegetables.
▲ Toon is in the south, and the most common combination is eggs. Photography/ easonxin, photo/market map
Toon, best suited to protein. In the north, tofu and fried fish are common, while in the south, a toon scrambled egg is full of green onions and tender yellow, and the color alone is enough to serve.
Cabbage head 丨 to spring than heart
In early spring, the earliest dish can be picked, that is, cabbage, picked cabbage, the most amazing is its heart-shaped silique, can be picked, rubbed with hands, the sound is creepy, as soon as you hear it, you know that spring is coming.
▲ Cabbage, the heart of spring. Figure/Figureworm Creative
It has a strong vitality, grows everywhere in the north and south of the river, and has a long history, starting from the time when "who is bitter, its sweetness is like a thorn" in the "Book of Poetry", and has been eaten for thousands of years.
▲ Fresh and tender cabbage and crispy spring roll skin, is a spring symphony. Photo/Visual China
Today's cabbage, is the best taste of the north and south to eat, the north of the cabbage dumplings, with pork, to a handful of spring onions, the taste is exciting, but in the eyes of Jiangnan people, the cabbage before flowering, can be in a variety of postures, so that the whole spring becomes as delicious as a flower, even if it blooms, you can also "March three, eat the cauliflower boiled eggs", the same is the best supporting role on the table.
▲ Wontons, Shanghainese people's "favorite". Photo/Visual China
Shanghainese people love cabbage wontons, and Nanjing people also love to eat spring rolls with cabbage. Pork is stuffed and mixed with cabbage, mellow and fresh, and each other achieves the beauty of spring. When you arrive in Ningbo, the water mill rice cake is accompanied by cabbage, and it becomes a stir-fried rice cake with cabbage, if it is mixed with dried incense, spring shoots, and tender tofu, it is also a good dish to drink. No wonder it is said that the spring of Jiangnan people is made of cabbage.
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Why is the wild vegetables in spring "the most Jiangnan"? </h1>
The wild vegetables of Jiangnan, not only on the tip of the tongue, but also outside the tip of the tongue, have achieved the background color of Jiangnan.
People always think that the two words of Jiangnan, eight points are hidden in the poetry and song of the apricot rain and spring wind, as everyone knows, "the peach and plum in the city are sad and windy", Jiangnan people love to go out to step on the spring, bite the spring, live in the weather, and go to the grass roots between the mountains and the wilderness to find.
▲ In early spring, the roadsides of Jiangnan Water Town are dried with fresh snow lille, waiting for time to catalyze them. Photography / Luo Jun, from "Wind and Objects of China Zhi Tongli"
Many Jiangnan people have written books and lectures for wild vegetables, which shows the spirit of helping the world. Zhu Xi (sù), a native of Nanjing, wrote "Saving the Wilderness Materia Medica", and most of the wild vegetables we eat today are in this book; Wang Pan, the high-ranking postman who wrote "Trumpet, Na Na, Qu'er Small Cavity is Big", also wrote a "Wild Vegetable Recipe", collected and tasted as many as 52 kinds of wild vegetables, and the old food Wang Zengqi read it and called the insider.
After all, in the era of scarcity, wild vegetables were life-saving grasses, hiding the stoic power of life, until the 1960s and 1970s, wild vegetables were still an important material that could be exported to earn foreign exchange, and now seeing the elders obsessed with wild vegetables, many times is a kind of physical memory of the past.
▲ The encounter between cabbage and mushroom, spring and winter. Photography/ easonxin, photo/market map
If it is the Taiping season, wild vegetables will be transformed, revealing a little bit of Jiangnan people's delicacy of treating all things, the so-called "from time to time do not eat", wild vegetables is the first stop, the spring light cycle repeats, the taste of wild vegetables, it sinks into the fine and dense cultural background of Jiangnan. If a famous artist in Jiangnan does not leave a famous sentence or bridge section with wild vegetables as the protagonist, it seems that something is missing.
Su Shi traveled with the puffer fish with artemisia annua; in "Dream of the Red Chamber", in addition to fried gluten with reed artemisia, there were also fried goji sprouts in oil and salt that Baochao and Tanchun were named to eat; Wang Zengqi and Zhou Zuoren were also obsessed with the wild vegetables in their hometown. In the small wild vegetables, there is a profound sustenance for life, thinking of the "thoughts of the perch" with some wild vegetables, life will have a bit of a retreat, more calm, full of fun.
▲ During the Qingming Dynasty, on the old street of Zhengyi in Suzhou, green dumplings began to be sold. Photography / Tao Yuan, selected from "Authentic Wind Objects • Suzhou"
With the footsteps of spring, there are also milky puddles in the pond, lettuce that is as elegant as spring water, and green dough dyed with mugwort... In Gangnam, a tasting tour has just begun.
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Text | apple
Covered | easonxin, Figures/MarketMap
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Tips:
Please be accompanied by someone with experience to pick and eat wild vegetables