【Wind stirs Bayu】Stir-fried rice sugar boiling water

One fried rice candy boiling water Chongqing nostalgia

Culture is a living fossil. It is like a piece of amber, wrapped in the history of the past. Peel it off gently, and inside is a long-ago memory.

Chongqing's urban memory is inseparable from fried rice candy boiling water; the origin of Jiangjin rice candy cannot fail to mention fried rice candy boiling water. For thousands of years, glutinous rice culture has been bred in Chinese folk; for a hundred years, fried rice candy boiling water, popular Bayu, has become a landscape of mountain cities; and jiangjin has derived rice candy, creating a legend for the small city.

For thousands of years, due to the differences in agricultural civilizations in the north and the south, the food of the north and the south has also been very different. Wheat is produced in the north, eating noodles and eating dumplings, mainly wheat culture; rice is produced in the south, eating rice and eating tangyuan, mainly rice culture. As the saying goes, "Five miles are different sounds, ten miles are different." "Even in southern snacks, the specialties are different from place to place. For example, Hechuan peach slices, mung bean cake, and yellow rice dumplings have their own characteristics. In the Yangtze River Basin, especially in Chongqing, east Sichuan, fried rice candy is the most popular kind of snack in the folk, and now in the vast countryside, the villagers still do it, and the township stalls sometimes sell it. Who first invented this snack, which dynasty it originated from, appeared for hundreds of thousands of years, and has long been impossible to examine.

The method of frying rice candy is relatively simple to say, and there are many variations. To this day, in the remote villages of Bayu Shu Township, folk craftsmen who make fried rice candy candy can be found and eaten in the original form of fried rice candy. However, probably because the reputation of rice candy was better later, the countryside also called this fried rice candy rice candy.

In the summer of 2018, I and Zhou Kailan, editor-in-chief of Tourism Jiangjin Magazine, went to a remote village in Hejiang County, which borders Jiangjin Tanghe Ancient Town, to investigate the practice of fried rice candy in its original state.

The hosts are authentic farmhouse, about forty years old, dimly lit, typical of a family workshop. There is an iron pot on the earth stove, and a simple board is set up on the side of the stove, and the bucket is filled with half a barrel of oil, which is considered to be a tool for making rice candy. He boiled the rice to a semi-cooked, commonly known as "raw points", spread it out to dry into yin rice, and then poured it into the hot sand that was boiling hot in a large iron pot, and kept stir-frying until the yin rice puffed into grains of rice, and then sifted out the rice and put it in the pot. Next, use the caramel made of red amaranth as a binder, add a little oil to it, pour the rice flowers in while it is hot, stir it evenly, spread it on the table, press it into a large finger thickness, and then cut it into a rectangular block the size of a palm, and a seal of fried rice candy is made. This stir-fried rice candy made from red caramel has a rustic and fragrant taste, with a special country flavor.

After the fried rice candy is ready, the back is carried to the countryside, a stall is set up, and the little dolls and adults will come around and weigh the pounds or sell the pieces. The fried rice candy he makes is all made and sold fresh, and there will be no inventory for several days. So eating in the mouth, are fragrant.

Stir-fried rice candy in the countryside will not use glutinous rice, but only ordinary rice rice. Most use red amaranth sugar to make caramel, but some use corn, sorghum, barley, and wheat fermentation to make maltose.

It is understood that in order to save costs, some artists no longer use lard, but use salad oil, or also use palm oil. Invented the high-temperature and high-pressure tin can puffing method, the exploded rice is another flavor; some artists do not even use rice rice to make rice, but directly buy artificial rice made of rice noodles. This is too far away from the traditional fried rice candy.

These are all postscripts, and we'll mention them later.

Fried rice candy in old Chongqing, there is another way to eat. Chongqing people like to eat fried rice candy, and the vendors who can sell fried rice candy in business came into being.

"Fried rice candy boiling water", the street food of old Chongqing, just like the newsboy, is a memorable memory of old Chongqing, is the street scene of old Chongqing, and can be said to be the image business card of old Chongqing. Many cultural people at that time recalled the scene at that time and remembered it for a lifetime. At that time, there was a song and ballad circulating in the mountain city:

"Chao Tianmen, sell boiling water,

Buy tickets to catch the boat in The Sand Mouth.

Upper River, Lower Fuling,

Drink a bowl of boiling water in a good mood.

Fried rice sugar, poached eggs,

There are also salt tea boiled eggs. ”

Eating fried rice candy, eating a culture, eating a feeling, this is the invention of Chongqing people. Therefore, stir-fried rice sugar boiling water is an authentic Chongqing diet. It consists of three parts, one is fried rice sugar, that is, popcorn; the other is sugar, some with white sugar, some with brown sugar; and the third is boiling water. Vendors who sell stir-fried rice candy and boiling water are either pushing a cart with a small stove and fried rice candy. Or it was a pick-and-roll, with a small stove and kettle, a sautéed rice candy, and a large bowl of blue and white soup spoons, as well as sugar and eggs. Hawkers often walk through the slopes of the mountain city, sometimes selling along the street, sometimes stopping at the side of the street. The authentic Chongqing accent of "fried rice candy boiling water" shouts and sounds, loud and long, through the doors and windows, and reverberates in the streets and alleys all year round. Meet the guests and brew immediately. Put a piece of fried rice candy in a bowl, rinse with boiling water, stir with a small spoon, and it becomes a hot and fragrant fried rice candy boiling water. Tired of walking, come to a bowl, and immediately full of energy. Especially in the cool summer or wet and cold winter nights, a bowl of hot fried rice sugar boiling water suddenly makes people warm and transparent; the sweet and soft texture of the rice blossoms after being soaked makes you feel the incomparable warmth of life.

The more advanced stir-fried rice candy boiling water will be filled with brown sugar and a poached egg.

Stir-fried rice candy boiling water was popular in the Republic of China period, and in the "accompanying capital" period in the 1940s, it became a unique landscape in the rear area. Stir-fried rice candy boiling water is an authentic old taste of Chongqing, is the folk culture of Chongqing people, and is the humanistic image of Chongqing City, which makes many literati and inkers fall for it. In the novel "Cold Night", the writer Ba Jin once made a detailed description of the vendors selling fried rice candy and boiling water on Zhongzheng Road Street during the Republic of China period. Zhongzheng Road, now called Xinhua Road, was the most lively commercial street around the Jiefang Monument.

Ten-year-old Yu Guangzhong fled with his family in 1938 and spent seven years as a student in Chongqing until the end of the War of Resistance. The first section of the poem "Nostalgia", which is famous in the World Chinese World, is written in Chongqing. In 2005, after sixty years away from Chongqing, the seventy-seven-year-old Yu Guangzhong returned to the mainland to visit. After visiting the place where Chongqing once lived, Yu Guangzhong talked to Liushahe about his youth in Chongqing, and he said to Liushahe: "At that time, I heard a long shout on the street in my dreams, 'fried rice candy boiling water-'". Liushahe said that Mr. Yu swung around, and softly shouted a "fried rice candy boiling water", full of Chongqing flavor, after drinking, he laughed at himself and suddenly returned to the past era.

It was during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, materials were scarce, and if the young people could have a bowl of fried rice candy boiling water to drink, it was already a pleasure.

Chongqing's fried rice candy boiling water is one of the nostalgia in the afterglow, but it is not the nostalgia of all xiajiang people. Of course, it is even more nostalgic for chongqing people.

At that time, there was also a street that was also famous, that is, the Minsheng Road where the CCP opened the "Xinhua Daily" during the second cooperation period of the Kuomintang, which was also near the Liberation Monument. Many CCP leaders lived and worked here. Maybe Zhou Enlai had eaten fried rice candy boiling water here. Mao Zedong lived in Hongyan during negotiations in Chongqing, and with Liu Yazi and "Qinyuan Spring", perhaps there was a bowl of fried rice candy boiling water on the desk.

Stir-fried rice candy boiling water has been deeply imprinted into the memory of Chongqing people and embedded in the history of Chongqing City. It is the image of Chongqing City, it is the feelings of Chongqing people.