Steamed deer tail
Original text / Qin Yusen
Since the "Deyun Society" was on fire, from time to time I could hear the "name of the dish" in the mouths of the cross-talk actors on the stage: "Steamed lamb, steamed bear paw, steamed deer tail, roasted duck, roasted chicks, roasted goose, stove pig, stove duck, sauce chicken, bacon, pine blossom belly..."
This "guankou" was compiled by the veteran artist Li Dezhuo in the 1920s, and it is said that the newspaper is full of dish names of "Manchu Han Quanxi".
There are many versions that have been handed down now, and more than 300 dishes can be reported, in fact, the most standard should be 196 dishes, and 124 are various dim sums, which are not strictly calculated as dishes. Why did it come to "applying for the name of the dish" in the 1920s? Because the Great Qing Dynasty has fallen! If the Great Qing Dynasty does not fall, who dares to talk about the affairs in the palace?
Steamed lamb, I don't know if it is steamed lamb, or a lamb pulled out of the belly of the ewe? Listen to cruelty. "Dream of the Red Chamber" wrote: "When the sisters came together, Bao Yu only cried out that he was hungry, and he even urged for food. It's easy to wait for it to be served, and the first dish is steamed lamb. Jia Mu then said, 'This is the medicine of our old people, and we have not seen the light of day, but unfortunately you little children cannot eat it.' There is also fresh venison today, and you are waiting to eat it. ’”
Steamed bear paws, the fat claws of the black blind man, are now protected animals and cannot be eaten. Is there anything delicious about these things? According to the old man who has eaten bear paws, the bear paws are steamed and slimy, just like a fat meat, the stomach is not empty, it is really not very tasty, or people who lack oil in the stomach think it is delicious.
Rare treasures, treasures are only average, must be strange.
There are some people who like to eat something strange. For example, humps, such as elephant lips, such as shark fins, and even tiger whips. All are not easy to find, usually rare to eat, the people can not afford to eat.
Shark fin soup I've eaten before, and honestly, it's no better than the fans. Cook the vermicelli with good broth, and the taste will not be bad.
Foreign friends sent me some shark fin and flower glue, to Shanghai was collected flower glue, shark fin was not found, brought back. A few pieces were left, and the rest were all given away. Those pieces were still asleep in the corner of the freezer, and I didn't think there was anything remarkable about it.
But some people just value it. Because it's strange. At that time, I wanted to put away the shark fin and leave the flower glue for me, because the flower glue was indeed better than the belly. Flower glue is the name of Cantonese people, and our side is called fish belly.
I am Qingfeng, Qingfeng is illiterate, likes to flip through books, and turned to Qi Rushan's articles.
The Qi Rushan I know is Mei Lanfang's nobleman, and Luo Luogong is Cheng Yanqiu's nobleman, which is the most commendable example of the combination of two cultural people and Peking Opera artists. Literary talents fly through the wings of art, and the power of art fake culture grows. One Mei Pai and one Cheng Pai, these two people have made great contributions.
Qi Rushan's literary style makes many modern masters should be ashamed, and I will copy a paragraph for you to see:
"It is the time to read, and the silence is simple. Lang Lang Yuzhen is in the beauty of reading.
A touch of green mountains, a few points of peach, the flowing water is warm, the grass is fried with fresh leaves, and the smell of tea is accompanied by thin smoke from the bamboo forest. The readers closed the scrolls under the eaves, and through Jiangnan, they read saibei to the letter.
Maple burning South Mountain, Judian pottery house. Pick up dead branches and boil waterfalls. Flower arrangement, incense burning, and small orders. Scattered a few words, where the love began, put down the pen and gently praised to the sky: the ancient road west wind thin horse.
Human things are just cold to the fire sleep. If there is a book as a pillow, it is a blessing. ”
Qi Rushan is not only a theater theorist, but also a historian, a writer, and a gourmet at the same time, and his book "Chinese Delicacies and Delicacies" almost writes about the dishes of the north.
So is "steamed deer tail" really steamed deer tail to eat? Deer, like rabbits, are "unlearned" things, and there should be nothing to eat, just a slightly longer tail vertebrae.
Perhaps, what you want is this pomp and circumstance, there is this name, eating in the second place, and really steaming the tail of the deer. But later, there were also "steamed deer tails" in the restaurants of old Beijing, and Qi Rushan ate it. Where did the deer tail come from.
The "steamed deer tail" in the restaurant is as follows: pork intestine, pork liver, eggs. Method, the pig intestine is washed, the pork liver is boiled and shredded into a sauce, mixed with peanut butter tahini, mixed with egg white and the ingredients of each secret method, mixed well, poured into the pig intestine, basketed and steamed. It's cold, sliced, and served.
Why should the pork liver be torn apart and chopped instead of a knife? This is exquisite, pulling out the wisps in the middle of the liver.
This reminds me of Zhenjiang's "sunflower chopping meat", which pays attention to fine cutting and coarse chopping. Three hundred miles north of Yangzhou, there is a town called "Qingong", where people also do chopping meat, but do not use knives, use iron rods, wooden hammers, its meat is pounded out, but also while pounding, while picking out the wisps of meat.
Original text
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