Hot pot in a broad sense, that is, "cooked in a pot to eat", this practice has actually existed since ancient times.
In ancient China, there was the so-called "Ding Ding and Food", and there was an idiom saying that the rich and noble people "Zhong Ming Ding Food", which is almost like this.
The tripod pattern is quite large, and it is often cooked in one tripod, and everyone eats together. Cooking with a tripod is probably similar to a modern super-large hot pot, right?
During the Warring States Period, Lin Xiangru once said to King Qin Zhao, "Please use the Ding Wok to cook me!" Probably the punishment of Ding Cooking in ancient times was a large "human flesh hot pot"
The scene, although it is a little scary when you think about it...... Of course, Xiang Yu doesn't think so.
During the Three Kingdoms, Cao Pi once gave Zhong Xuan a "five-cooked cauldron". Cao Pi wrote to Zhong Xuan that the ancients used tripods, all of which were one and the same; The five-cooked kettle is good, and you can adjust five flavors - it seems to be a gridded pot, which feels similar to a modern mandarin duck hot pot. Chafing dish? Chafing dish!
During the Song and Liao periods, hot pot was already popular in the north and south. In the north, the Liao State used Ding to cook meat, and the technology was very mature. It is said that the people of Liao are very fond of adding ingredients: the yellow squirrel - locally called the picoon - is raised in goat's milk, a pile of meat is put in a ding, and then the meat of a yellow rat is put in, and the meat of the whole ding can be stewed until crispy.
In the south, there is rabbit shabu meat: Lin Hong wrote in "Mountain Family Qing Offering", visited Wuyi Liuqu, caught a rabbit on a snowy day, there was no chef in the mountains to cook, listened to people's ideas, the wind stove was installed on the seat, less than half of the Chozi water was boiled hot, and the rabbit meat was eaten shabu-shabu: probably this is the so-called mountain family eating method, pork and mutton can also be handled in this way. It's not exquisite, but it's wild.
During the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols from outside the Saiwai were very accustomed to eating in a similar way. By the Ming Dynasty, Beijingers were also accustomed to eating cheese and hot pot.
Liu Ruoyu has a book called "Zhi Zhong Zhi", which was written in the court of the late Ming Dynasty, and mentioned that the Emperor of the Apocalypse liked to eat a kind of chowder: boiled clams, fried fresh shrimp, chicken thighs and bamboo shoots and chicken breasts, and sea cucumbers, anchovies, shark tendons, fat chicken, and pig's trotter tendons.
- It still feels like a seafood chowder.
If the Emperor of the Apocalypse had gone to Portugal, Spain, or Greece, he would have been very happy.
In this way, the way to eat hot pot is not mysterious.
Moreover, it is eaten in a hot pot and is available in different cultures.
In more than one place in France, mussels are used to stewed with garlic and white wine, and a pot of mussels is fresh and delicious, and the soup is not bad; Some small shops sell mussel pots, which are heated twice with crispy fries, shredded bread, sliced ham and even sausages. Of course, the jar is not big, so it is equivalent to a small casserole for each person to eat.
Japanese people also love hot pot. The famous one is the Hoyaki Sukiyaki, which is said to be made by roasting meat on a hoe. Nowadays, the usual practice is to use butter as the base, the beef is slightly roasted, seasoned with soy sauce and mirin, and then fried tofu, konjac shreds, enoki mushrooms, etc., and the meat is soaked with egg juice, which is sukiyaki.
Japanese people eat hot pot and seem to look at the base ingredient. For example, the bottom of the crab is called the crab pot; The bottom of the puffer fish is the puffer fish pot; There is also the so-called ball-cooked turtle: soft-shelled turtles, soy sauce, and wine, which are simmered together in an earthen pot.
There are also light, so-called shabu-shabu: use kelp and bonito as the soup base, and you can order anything at will.
As mentioned above, different pots also reflect the food style of different places.
The mainland is rich in resources, and there are more pots.
For example, I have eaten sauerkraut white meat pot in Yingkou in winter. It is pickled in the cabbage, which is sour and delicious. Put sauerkraut and white meat and blood sausage in the pot, that is a must. There are many delicacies and seas in the northeast, mushrooms, pheasants, vermicelli, fungus, white fish, everything can go down.
I've also eaten fish stew in a big pot: large pieces of fatty fish, sliced pork belly, old tofu, and vermicelli boiling slowly in the pot; As I ate, my cold fingertips and face slowly melted, and I felt soreness and pain; Perspire; By the time it was time to eat vermicelli, it had already entered the stage of Lu Zhishen's so-called "eating slippery, where to live".
I love to eat frozen tofu from the Northeast pot: the frozen tofu in other places is not as solid and tough as the Northeast, and it can be hung with a hook.
In Beijing, the pot is not only for eating, but also for the season, and it can tell the season.
For a long time in the court of the Qing Dynasty, the palace ladies had a pot for dinner from October to March of the following year, which sounded like modern heating, meaning "winter is coming".
According to Tang Lusun's statement, the children of the old Beijing Eight Banners eat the pot like this: add water, green onion and ginger to the pot, and serve it on the table. The children of the Eight Banners know how to eat, and they will add tricks:
Call a seven-inch plate of braised chicken jelly, less chicken, more jelly, eat the chicken yourself, and the jelly goes down to the pot, which is the braised chicken soup. With this shabu mutton, his face was full of red light, and he staggered out with his teeth. Here comes the back table: there are ready-made old pots! Keep eating! INTERVIEWER At that time, there were not as strict hygiene practices as they are now.
Probably the old Beijing mutton shabu, the soup base is not so particular, what I care about is the sauce. sesame paste, sesame oil, leek flowers, that have to be particular; If you are afraid of the anger - how can you not have mutton? - Then add hemp noodles, that is, peppercorn powder without salt.
It is said that some mutton chefs in old Beijing only do such a season of work a year, and they all have the kung fu of Ku Ding in their hands, and their hearts are bright. According to the old legend, it is said that mutton is suitable for shabu to eat, said to be on the brain, said to be big three-turned, said to grind crotch, said small three-fork, said cucumber strips.
Of course, the lamb tenderloin is good, but it is too tender, and it is easy to grasp it badly.
The chef brought the lamb to the table, sandwiched a slice of mutton, put it in the pot and cooked it for a meal - many old diners could even save this meal - and then dipped it in the condiments and ate it.
Good mutton is soaked in water, half-cooked and half-raw, does not take off the texture of mutton, fat, thin and crispy, full of condiments, chewed, all melted together, and slid down the stomach, great.
At this time, the sip of liquor, sweet and spicy throat, breathe is the taste of winter.
Eating pots in the north, after eating, it is easy to let loose the wreckage. In the heavy snowfall, wearing a thick coat and squatting to eat shabu-shabu, beckoning the store to "come again ten plates of mutton", take off the coat after eating, the skin is cold and the belly is hot, the top of the head is steaming, and the mutton with ice ballast is still in the pot for a meal, a shabu, a meal, a shake: beautiful!
Eating hot pot in Chaoshan, Guangdong is another style. Guangdong is not cold, you can't eat the feeling of the hearth on a snowy night, eating hot pot is playing the side stove, and eating finely. Beijing hot pot is a mutton dipping sauce with water shabu, and if the soup is too complicated, it is easy to attract conservative friends to frown and feel that it is not authentic; The soup is very fresh. In addition, the northern shabu-shabu is not taboo fat; In Guangzhou, I eat shrimp and squid, waist slices, belly slices, fish slices, chicken slices, and fish and shrimp.
I joked with a friend, saying that if I can't eat the fish fillet and kidney slices at this meal, can I still cook the boat porridge and eat it when I get up tomorrow morning? The friend replied earnestly:
In Shunde cuisine, there is really a white porridge bottom hot pot!
INTERVIEWER Speaking of which, there are also puffer fish pots in Japan that are made with rice at the end.
The gastronomic mindset is similar everywhere.
Guangdong pot also has a heroic style, that is, Chaoshan beef pot: it is said that the earliest sand tea sauce and broth as the base, charcoal slow cooking beef, and later developed a clear soup beef pot. My Cantonese friend concludes that most of the hot pots in Guangdong – including drunken chicken pot, pork bone pot, and beef pot – are made with a pot of soup made with fresh ingredients, and some fresh and delicious food is served by the way. By inference, I probably have a hand at making soup in Guangdong, so I can patiently spend a few hours and use fat chicken and pork bones to boil out a pot of soup to make a side stove; Second, Guangdong is not cold, and there is no demand for a hot hearth in the north; A large pot is cooked, and by the way, shabu-shabu fillets, shrimp slices, bamboo sunflowers, oysters, pork kidneys, etc., are looking for an elegant and mellow feeling, which is different from the northern night snow shabu-shabu, Yixing and flying feeling.
Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot is now famous all over the world, and its origin is not early. It is said that it was the way to eat the slender man on the river, but I flipped through the book, and the late Mr. Che Hui, the old author of Sichuan, said that according to Mr. Li Jieren's research, it should be in the 20s of the 20th century, some people in Jiangbei County sold buffalo meat, which was cheap, so people who worked hard along the river loved to eat it and used it to make tooth sacrifices; Buffalo meat sells well, and the heart, liver, belly, and tongue are also sold together.
At that time, it was popular on the side of the Jialing River, setting up a burden stall, setting up a bench, putting an iron pot, boiling brine, and starting to shabu these beef hearts, livers, stomachs, and tongues. Originally, it was called "hairy belly hot pot", and later it was not confined to hairy belly. Probably this is the style of Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot:
The oil is spicy and cooks parts that you won't necessarily eat elsewhere.
I also asked the elders in Chongqing why they had to use the nine-square grid when eating hot pot, and I heard different statements.
Some people say that things are in the pot, and they are ripe and shrunk, and it is difficult to find, so it is better to have a lattice.
Some people say that in the past, they paid attention to "setting up and eating", and several unfamiliar people ate hot pot and ate their own food, so as not to eat messy.
I think the most plausible statement is:
The nine-square grid has different functions. For example, the middle grid, in the center of the pot, the temperature is the highest, the churning is not stopped, it is not suitable for cooking for a long time, but it is suitable for shabu-shabu. Therefore, the hairy belly and yellow throat will rise as soon as they are shabu. The cross grid on both sides, the temperature is secondary, you can put the county flowers, meat slices, and fish there and simmer slowly. The temperature of the lattice at the four corners is the lowest, which is suitable for slow cooking of twist flowers, fat intestines, etc., or the child says, "I want to eat potatoes that melt a little, rake a little", and put them in the corners. Although the pot is a flavor and different grids, it represents different heat and different textures.
So a pot looks rough, but in fact, it is eaten, but it is delicate.
The sauerkraut white meat pot in the Northeast or Kaijiang fish stew can be interpreted as pickled sauerkraut in the Northeast, which produces big fish and big meat; Beijing's shabu mutton can be traced back to the fat sheep outside the mouth, which has a long history; Guangdong's side stove can be understood as eating the sea by the sea, and there is a tradition of making soup.
What about the allusion to Chongqing's eating method?
First, the southwest has been spicy since ancient times.
Generally, people who are accustomed to eating light tastes pay attention to bitter, spicy, sour and sweet, and will think that Chongqing hot pot is just spicy. But as far as the seasoning of Chongqing hot pot is concerned, there are other than butter and chili. According to Mr. Che Hui: In the middle of the 20th century, the marinade of hairy belly hot pot already had beef bone soup, butter, bean mother, bean paste, chili noodles, Sichuan pepper noodles, minced ginger, tempeh, salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper, rock sugar, cooking wine, green onions, garlic, monosodium glutamate, and the most particular ones should use mash grains instead of cooking wine.
Such a lively and complex seasoning, of course, is not just the word "spicy" can be described.
The second is the southwestern diet, which has always liked to look for various ingredients that can provide a magical taste, and then water them with a strong flavor.
This is similar to many Sichuan dishes:
For example, ordinary tofu, clear oil, beef, tempeh, and chili noodles are added to make them numb, spicy, hot, crispy, and tender - that is the great mapo tofu.
For example, the beef brain shell skin and beef offal that no one wants, boiled and thinly chopped, mixed with marinade, Sichuan pepper, and spicy oil and red mix, are today's husband and wife lung slices - it is said that they were once called waste slices, because they are all leftovers, they all rely on spiciness, and turn decay into magic.
Most of the ingredients of Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot are very out-of-the-way, but they do not hesitate to work hard:
The brain flowers are made well, all of which are first made with wine, green onions, ginger, and their own secret sauces, which are pickled raw and then scalded, without losing the smooth and soft taste.
The gizzard of the hot pot shabu, which is locally pronounced as the county flower, is cut into a flower shape and marinated in soy sauce, ginger and garlic, so the more shabu-shabu it is, the more flavorful it becomes. As for the daily signature of the small shop, "raw duck intestines" and "hand-torn hairy belly", it is even more domineering.
After eating the hot pot, there must be a bowl of cold shrimp with ice powder. After eating the spicy and spicy before, it is only complete when it corresponds to the cool and smooth.
In many hot pot restaurants in Sichuan and Chongqing, the egg fried rice is full of wok, and the small rice balls are sweet and glutinous, which is also the truth: only contrast and inconsistency can produce deliciousness.
People who don't like hot pot have their own reasons not to like it.
For example, Yuan Mei used to talk in "Suiyuan Food List" to quit hot pot:
"Winter banquets, accustomed to hot pot, noisy to guests, is already disgusting; And the taste of each dish has a certain heat, it is suitable for literature and martial arts, it is appropriate to withdraw and add, and it is difficult to change in an instant. Today's case is forced by fire, and its taste can still be questioned? ”
According to his logic:
First, the hot pot is noisy and annoying; The second is that all kinds of dishes have their own suitable heat, and they should not be cooked in one pot.
As a native of Jiangnan, I also felt that what Yuan Mei said was reasonable when I was a child. But after eating all kinds of hot pot in Pingjin in Northeast China, Sichuan, Chongqing and Guangdong, I looked back and felt that Yuan Mei's pattern was not big, and obviously, he didn't know how to eat pot......
For example, in the case of Guangdong's hot pot soup base, the flavor is changeable, how can the taste be single?
For example, Chongqing people who really know how to eat hot pot naturally know when to pick up the hairy belly and when the county flower will be hot.
Therefore, hot pot veterans, instead of filling the pot with one flavor, can eat a hundred flavors in one dish - just a chopsticks rattan and rattan vegetables, hot, stewed, stewed and eaten, dipped in oil dishes, dipped in dry dishes, the taste is naturally ever-changing.
I doubt that Yuan Mei has never eaten a good hot pot. I myself am from Jiangnan. But I think that compared to those ways of eating "high-end ingredients with minimalism to make high-end tastes", I still think that this kind of ingredient that can be eaten by the peddlers and pawns is magically conditioned to the point that people can't stop eating, and it is closer to the hobby of ordinary people.
As for Yuan Mei's so-called "noisy guests, it's already disgusting", I don't agree with it, probably the old men he wants to entertain are all withdrawn, and they don't like the hot feeling of a group of people, right?
I still remember one summer, eating hot pot on Nanshan Mountain in Chongqing, watching the whole mountain brightly lit and noisy, I don't know how many hot pots there are. The noise, I was happy when I saw it, and the whole mountain was fragrant with peppercorns.
Originally, it was a place where the mountain road and the narrow river were turbulent, and the people were choked, but now it has opened up for everyone to eat hot pot all over the mountain. Majestic, magnificent.
Compared with the set of handsome servants and beautiful maids, the windows are bright and clean, or the noise of the mountains, it makes people feel that eating is so beautiful, and life is really beautiful.
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