The original site of the flyover was found! Recently, the Beijing Municipal Institute of Surveying and Mapping Design and Design said that as the application for the central axis of Beijing continues to advance, the overpass that has disappeared for nearly 90 years has now found an accurate spatial location.
There are no Beijingers who do not know about the flyover, but where is the "flyover"? The current bridge was actually rebuilt. Since the 1920s, after the transformation of the Longsugou nullah into a hidden ditch, the construction of trams, and the widening of roads, the overpass was finally demolished in 1934, and has been "in name only" ever since.
It has been determined that the approximate location of the overpass is at the confluence of the four traffic arteries of the north entrance of South Avenue, the south exit of Qianmen Avenue, the west exit of Tiantan Road and the east exit of Yong'an Road, 40 meters north of the current overpass landscape.
In fact, for the old Beijingers, the flyover is not only a bridge, it is a place name, but also a kind of life. It was once the largest, most complete, most prosperous and lively entertainment place in Beijing, the most popular place for the sale of small commodities, and the most concentrated place for various snacks. There are three religions, nine streams, five elements and eight works, showing the folk customs of the old Beijing and the variety of life. Recalling the sky bridge is like opening a picture of the most pyrotechnic city life in Beijing.
Beijing snacks, there is no best to eat only the most favorite to eat
Reading about the flyover, my favorite part is the part about snack food. In recent years, there is a popular saying called Beijing no food, especially Beijing snacks, often referred to as "crude", which often leads to wars on the Internet, and I have also been involved in it, often justifying the name of Beijing cuisine. Later, I found that there was no need at all, because the sense of taste is the most personal and regional thing, and the local snacks carry not only delicious, but also nostalgia, is the thought, there is no best to eat, only the most loved to eat, you love to eat or not to eat, I love! How can I?
Far away, back to the tianqiao, the tianqiao used to be the largest birthplace and distribution center of Beijing snacks, the names of many snacks in Beijing have a characteristic, often it is the name of the business variety plus the surname of the owner, this name is more derived from the snack stalls of the overpass. At that time, when the Tianqiao Market was first built, many mobile tourists in the streets and alleys became fixed stalls, and the snacks in the Tianqiao were mostly stalls, so there was no formal name, in order to facilitate the memory and identification, it was called, such as "Bursting Belly Stone", "Cut Cake Lee", "Noodle Tea Zhang", "Tofu Brain White", "Tea Soup Lee", "Bean Juice Xue", "Small Intestine Chen", "Sheep Cream Wei", "Fried Liver Gold", "Zhou Ji Oil Tea Noodles"... The unique flavor of Tianqiao snacks, together with colorful juggling rap and a wide variety of new and old goods, makes the Tianqiao Market lively and famous in Beijing.
The once bustling Tianqiao Market is just south of the central axis of Beijing, and the middle section from Qianmen to Yongdingmen is now gone. "Wine flag drama drum Tianqiao City, how many tourists do not remember home", Yi Shunding, a famous poet in the late Qing Dynasty and early Minchu, wrote a poem in "Tianqiao Song".
In the early years of the Republic of China, the flyover was truly formed into a prosperous civilian market, and as many as 50,000 or 60,000 folk artists came here to sell their art and set up a venue. At this time, the Tianqiao Market is a place for eating, drinking, sightseeing and shopping. As the famous scholar Qi Rushan said in the "Preface to the List of Flyovers": "Those who have overpasses are also places where the lower-level people of Beiping will meet and rest." Into it, and the social customs of Peiping can be seen. "A unique overpass civilian culture has gradually formed here.
The most classic Beijing snacks are here
If a place has food, there will be people's fireworks. Overpass multi-rice stalls, vendors along the street with wooden planks nailed out one by one shed, in the shed to build a stove, around a few tables and chairs on the opening; if you can not afford to build a shed, you can also directly set up a stove in the open, diners or squat or sit, the business is also very hot.
Most of these rice stalls sell oil fruits, bean juice, haggis soup, miscellaneous noodles, fried belly, fried buns, meat cakes, tofu brains, fried cakes, AiWowo and other foods, and civilians, human servants or vendors can eat and drink a large bowl of steaming hot potatoes with a few copper coins. According to Wang Yuehui, an old man in Beijing who lived in the Tianqiao area since childhood, "Tianqiao is the place with the highest concentration and abundance of public food and Beijing's unique snacks. People have everything they want to eat. ”
First of all, this bean juice, it is a typical local flavor snack unique to Beijing, the streets and alleys, day and night have sold raw and cooked bean juice, when the Tianqiao bean juice had eight or nine parts. When pouring his grandson Bai Jingqi bean juice in "The Gate of the Great Mansion", He said, "If you can't drink bean juice, it is still a Beijinger." ”
"King of Bean Juice" was set in front of the Kuihua Opera Garden in the southwest corner of the Tianqiao, which has a name for decades, its cloth drapery is written with a name, the furniture on the stall is very exquisite, the pickle taste is good, it has won many patrons, and the "Roast Meat King" and "Wang Eight Tea House" of the Tianqiao at that time were called "Three Kings".
Wang Yuehui's old man most often went to the tianqiao "bean juice Shu", in the 30s of the last century, it and the "bean juice Er Zhang" of Liuli Factory, the "bean juice Er Xu" and "bean juice Er He" in Dong'an Market and called the four big people of bean juice, which shows its fame. People who drink bean juice in the overpass know these two sentences: "Sincerely invite guests from all over the world, a bowl of bean juice is always comfortable." This refers specifically to "bean juice shu".
For ordinary Chinese people, Chinese tofu is more important than the "four major inventions of China". Tofu brain, also known as "soft tofu", is a traditional snack in northern China. The tofu brain of the old Beijing Tianqiao is the most famous "tofu brain white". In Mr. Zhou Jiawang's book "Eating and Drinking in Old Beijing", it is described as follows: "White tofu brain, white as jade, tender as fat, and the fragrance of soy milk in the mouth."
Baijia's tofu brain pays attention to the color of white and delicate, especially in the production of marinade, it is more distinctive and mellow. The raw materials pay attention to the use of Zhangbei Dam on the platform to soak in water, after the water turns red, we remove the dregs and precipitation, and the fine yellow flowers, fungus and slices of lamb's hind legs cut into paper as thin as a piece of lamb are boiled with fine salt. In 1992, the descendants of the Bai family resumed their old business in Xisi Snack Hutong, and restored the traditional old brand of "tofu brain white".
The stall of "Tea Soup Lee", which claims to have 9 tea soup pots in Beijing accounting for 6, is in the east courtyard of the Tianqiao Triangle Market, and according to the old man's recollection, there are two gasoline barrel converted stoves in front of his desk, and on one stove sits a huge copper dragon's mouth large teapot, always steaming outside. Inside the glass cover of the table are several large disks, which contain fried noodles with sesame oil, tea soup noodles, almond flour, fine fruit, sugar, and brown sugar, and diners can choose their own ingredients according to their own tastes.
The stall owner holds the small magnetic bowl of the diners' good food in his left hand, holds the copper pot handle with his right hand, and the dragon's mouth is aimed at the small bowl a foot away, and the bowl of sweet and delicious tea soup is brought to the diners who specialize in this mouthful. In the 1980s, the "Tea Soup Lee" sign was also re-hung, and it can now be seen in many shopping malls.
Drink bean juice in the morning and eat popcorn in the evening
Drinking bean juice in the morning and eating popcorns at night is the way of life of the tianqiao people. Most of the popcorn stalls are just a few long tables on the side of the road, on which there is a slip of seasoning bowl, next to a large pot of boiling hot soup, on the other side of the lamb tripe, someone comes to eat, the owner cuts the lamb tripe, and then holds up a large colander to roll the soup in the pot, the action is neat and elegant. The fried belly is served in a high bowl, and the diners are dipped in sesame sauce, curd milk and other ingredients, and add a little coriander, which is very beautiful.
The most famous "Bursting Belly Stone" is located at the east entrance of Tianqiao Xie Street, and many famous Peking Opera actors such as Ma Lianliang are guests here. Burst belly stone memories of things, fresh, clean, no matter how to eat, there is no bit of dirty smell, cut out of the belly silk width and narrow, length and length are the same, absolutely neat, after the belly is cut, into the pot micro-boiling, the water boiling is ready, put into the plate, are the water spirit of the refreshing, is simply a handicraft.
In 1937, Shi Kunsheng, the treasurer of the "Bursting Belly Stone", opened a small restaurant in the Tianqiao Fair Market, named "Nan lai Shun". In 1956, when the public-private partnership was established, Nan Laishun was merged into the Caishikou Snack Bar together with "Sheep's Head Horse", "Pie Week", "Cake Cutting Rice" and "Jiaoquan King". After the reform and opening up, the "Nanlaishun" brand name was restored and now moved to the southeast corner of the Grand View Garden. Nanlaishun is now the most famous halal-style professional snack bar in the southern section of Beijing's central axis. There are more than 150 kinds of snacks, and many of the tianqiao snacks of the past have been passed down here.
These snacks can't be eaten anymore
In the memory of the old people, there are countless tianqiao snacks, dun rao, hard noodle dumplings, toad spit honey, screw turn, sugar ears, mochi, thin crisp, fried cake, steak fork, cut cake, rice cake, donkey roll, Ai Wo wo, pea yellow, cloud bean roll, sugar roll fruit, fried pine meat, fried back, fried tofu, ball soup, brine balls, fried liver, brine fire, old tofu, grilled cake, dried fruit, fried red fruit, sugar gourd, sheep frost intestine, snowflake cheese, in addition to selling pot stickers, pies, buns, dumplings, there are also stewed lamb, beef stew, stewed beef, Meat dishes such as jar meat, fried lamb, and selling roller fish, yellow croaker and so on... Countless snacks and delicacies belong to the unique memory of Tianqiao, which cannot be written in a single book, but now many of them have been lost and can no longer be eaten.
There is one thing that many people can't forget, that is, the sheep frost intestines that have disappeared in Beijing. Sheep cream intestines are washed with sheep intestines, poured into sheep blood and cooked, and then cut into slices to dip into the material to eat, because there is a layer of oil on the outside of the sheep intestines like white frost and named. At that time, Tianqiao sold one part of the sheep frost intestines one by one, and many people surrounded the car stalls of the sheep frost intestines and ate with relish. There is a person with the most people, that is, Wei Zhancai, who is famous in the overpass.
Sheep frost intestines are also called foreign frost cream, lamb tripe soup, and the vendors who sell sheep frost intestines shout when they sell: "Lamb tripe open the pot!" Wei Zhancai's stall looked very clean, and the utensils were shining. The sheep frost intestines he sells, after boiling in boiling water, most of them have intestinal blood bee eyes and small holes, which are easy to taste and naturally more delicious to eat. Sheep cream sausage is a cheap, delicious and delicious food, typical of "poor people's happiness". Seventy or eighty-year-old Beijingers, who dreamed of eating this bite, are now hard to find. However, in the previous paragraph, I found that there was sheep cream sausage on the menu in the "bursting belly" of the back sea, but it was sold out at that time, I don't know if it was the previous taste, and then I suddenly thought, what the previous taste was, in fact, I did not know.
There is also one of the oldest ice products in Beijing, snowflake cheese, also known as tufa ice cream, which was also a popular snack in Tianqiao. It was originally a secret refrigeration food in the Ming Dynasty Imperial Palace, and then passed down to the people, it was a snack that poor children in the old society could afford to eat, often children begged bitterly, adults could not earn, buy a bowl of snowflake cheese, and the whole family of 7 or 8 children shared to eat. In winter, a large piece of ice floes on the Yongding River is chiseled out, wrapped in straw mats and stored in the cellar, until the following summer, some of the ice cubes are taken out and broken into powders, and eaten with honey, sour plum juice and preserved fruits.
The "steamed fried" of the overpass is also a flavor food, which is said to be an original variety created by a person surnamed Li, who steamed the zucchini stuffed dumplings and let them cool, fried them in a frying pan, and then dipped them in vinegar and garlic to eat. The reason for the difference in taste is one: pepper in the filling, the second is the mutton fat in the filling, and Guo Degang's cross-talk also appears "steamed and fried", to put it bluntly, it is a large dumpling.
These lost snacks and the back of the old sky bridge have gradually drifted away. Nowadays, the area around Tianqiao has become the rising Beijing Performing Arts Center, and most of the snacks of that year have been integrated into the city's gastronomic culture, retaining the inheritance in various forms, which is the cultural heritage of Beijing's continuous continuation and endless life.