▲ Beef skewers with folded ear roots. Figures/MarketMap
-Fengwujun Language-
Guizhou people's "spiritual opium"
If there is any "spiritual opium" that the people of the southwest avoid, and the outsiders avoid it like a snake and scorpion, it must be a fishy grass.
▲ In the southwest region, people generally call the leafy root of the houttuynia cordata, and the root of the houttuynia cordata is called the folded ear root. Photo by Porco Rossoboy, Photo/MarketMap
But seriously, in the matter of whether houttuynia cordata is delicious or not, the people of the southwest never quarrel with others, because the "delicious" thing is the same as "love", you can't tell its mysteries, but the physical reaction can't deceive people, your arsenic, it is really my honey.
Although the three southwestern provinces, including Hunan, now eat houttuynia, but on the issue of true love, it is still Guizhou people. Unlike other places, Guizhou people eat houttuynia cordata, do not eat leaves, and love to eat its roots, that is, "folded ear roots". Guizhou people not only eat nearly 30,000 tons of folded ear roots every day, but even local dairy companies in Guizhou have launched yogurt with folded ear roots.
▲ Folded ear root yogurt, the limit of Guizhou people. Photography / Big Monster Squid
In fact, the taste of folded ear root is not only fishy, but also contains a trace of astringency that belongs to the roots of grass and wood, there is a strong spicy aroma like coriander and other seasonings, and there will be a wisp of sweetness under the chewing of fresh and tender folded ear root, and the taste is both crisp and tough, very "chewy".
Therefore, guizhou people use folded ear roots to use exquisitely. As the finishing touch, the folded ear root must first be chopped, chopped and mixed in the dish, the crisp taste of the folded ear root itself is prominent, and the fishy taste is weakened.
▲ Cold mix folded ear root in Guizhou, is a universal side dish. Photography /luqiurong, photo/market map network
Folded ear root is best suited to oily meat dishes and staple foods, and the crisp texture and slightly astringent taste are particularly debilitating. Folded ear root is also the most suitable for pairing with chili peppers, which can cover the fishy smell of folded ear roots and highlight the unique spicy aroma. It is oily, it is spicy, and Guizhou cuisine, which is always fried with red oil and pepper, has gathered these two characteristics.
So foreigners don't have to be surprised by Guizhou people's love for folded ear roots, as a Guizhou person to tell you that folded ear roots are delicious, I am sincere!
▲ Peppers with folded ear roots dipped in water have a soul. Photography/ Wan Wan Xiao Jia, Picture / Figure Worm Creative
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > gold medal supporting role in Guizhou cuisine</h1>
The status of folded ear root in Guizhou cuisine is like Wu Mengda in Zhou Xingchi's movie, as a golden supporting role throughout every Guizhou snack and home-cooked dish.
▲ Cold mix folded ear roots. Photography / Tan Hua Shattered Dreams, Picture / Figure Worm · Creativity
Breakfast | refreshing and refreshing
In the morning, I went to school with puddles left by the rain that fell at 7 o'clock, and the sun shone on the breakfast stall selling sticky rice, and the sticky rice mixed with lard and soy sauce was full of grains and glowed with caramel-colored oil.
▲ Sticky rice on the street side of Guiyang. Photography / What a paradise it is, picture / figure worm · creativity
Fill the palm-sized sticky rice balls with oil chili peppers, shredded potatoes, pickled radish, sausages and crispy whistles, and finally add a spoonful of broken ear roots, this ordinary early breakfast can suddenly become extraordinary. The essence of the folded ear root is to degreas the grease, after chopping the taste is crisp and crisp, mixed in the sticky glutinous rice can maintain the balance of taste, like buried "Easter eggs", from time to time chewed to burst out of the unique spicy.
Snacks | after class Soul dipping sauce
After class, children will always take advantage of the 20-minute "big recess", or when the physical education class is free to move, and run to buy snacks in groups of three or five, which is definitely "fried potatoes".
▲ Guizhou fried potatoes. Photography/ Tong Xin Cuisine Photography Workshop, Photo/MarketMap Network
The back door of each school must have a "best taste" fried potato food stall, a fried potato is not delicious, the key is in the pepper dipping water, the so-called "dipping water", can be understood as the "sauce" in the salad, is the baked dried paprika with sesame oil, sauce, vinegar, salt, and garlic paste into the "garlic water" made of sauce, used for cold mixing - all the seasonings are tied in this spoon.
▲ Another soil in Guizhou eats potato soup, which is also inseparable from the embellishment of folded ear roots. Photo by Wang Yishan
And the soul of the pepper dipped in water is not actually the paprika, but the root of the folded ear. The chili powder is the same taste at home, except for the dipping water of the folded ear root, and the flavor can be highlighted at once. The boss fished the fried potato strips into the iron bowl, sprinkled with green onion and coriander, scooped a spoonful of folded ear root pepper dipped in water and poured it on and mixed well, and the aroma came out at once. One of the twittering children will definitely be responsible for shouting: "Boss, more points to fold the ear roots!" ”
Dinner | home cooking in Guizhou
When it's time to get home after school and play for a while, Mom must have already started to put on the meal. Buy a handful of tender folded ear roots to go home to choose a good chopped cold mix, experienced mothers will definitely put more soy sauce and vinegar, because folded ear roots are not easy to taste, to let the folded ear roots in the condiments for a while, into the taste is delicious, what fishy smell has been removed earlier, leaving only the unique spice.
▲Stir-fried bacon with folded ear roots. Photography/ mafei123, photo/market map
The remaining half of the folded ear root and a large piece of bacon, garlic seedlings, dried peppers under the pot stir-fry, be sure to let the folded ear root suck the salty aroma of bacon and the dry spicy taste of the pepper segment, eat both meaty and greasy and even a hint of sweetness, more delicious than the bacon itself. One meat and one vegetarian are all under the meal, enough for a family of three to eat a pot of rice beautifully. Oh yes, when Dad passed by the vegetable market after work, he went to the brine stall to weigh half a pound of brine pig ears, cut thin slices of red oil and cold mix, and the crispy and crispy inside was the folded ear root.
| supper The wild king at a food stall
In the evening, it is the coolest, Guizhou is cool, even if it is the hottest time in summer, Guizhou people use fans less, let alone air conditioning. Let the night wind blow when walking, and you won't see anything hot and boring. When the sun has completely set, it is almost eight o'clock, and the supper stalls on the street should be propped up, and the girls in shorts and flip-flops can go out to the night market. There are two protagonists on the supper stall, one is called a silk doll, and the other is called a bamboo skewer small barbecue.
▲In the small silk doll, you can even wrap more than 20 kinds of dishes, and the folded ear root is the C position. Photography / Tan Xiao, Photo / MarketMap Network
"Silk doll" is actually a small spring roll, but the wrapped spring roll is like a child's swaddling so it is called "silk doll", such a vivid name, now only common in dialects.
The "silk doll" is eaten in a delicate and arrogant way, a long table with a small plate and small bowl are filled with sour and spicy potato shreds, bean sprouts, cucumber shreds, pickled radish shreds, cold noodle shreds, carrot shreds, squeezed vegetable shreds, crispy whistles, crushed peanuts, fried soybeans... There are a dozen side dishes. The girl's white tender palm spreads a spring roll skin the size of a dumpling skin, with chopsticks in each side dish clipped with "a few silks" wrapped up, and finally poured with folded ear root pepper dipped in water, once sent to the mouth, bringing satisfaction is never lost to the big fish and meat.
▲ This spoonful of chili pepper dipped in water with folded ear roots is the soul of the silk doll. Photography / Katsuhiko, Photo / Figureworm Creative
The roast meat is also very delicate, a toothpick thick long bamboo skewer on the maximum of three small pieces of meat, a thin one fat and a thin, nearly a hundred skewers of good meat bamboo skewers to make a handful, rolling and jumping on the charcoal fire, bamboo skewers knocking on the edge of the carbon stove to make a rhythmic sound of "sand - sand".
A handful of bamboo skewers should be sprinkled with a handful of folded ear roots when baked, or it should be accompanied by an additional dipping of folded ear root peppers. The combination of refreshing and degreasing folded ear root and grilled meat is the same as the fried bacon with folded ear root, but what is special is that the unique spice of the un fried folded ear root has not been lost, and the flavor of the roast meat complements each other, and the taste of the entrance together is quite similar to the northerners with raw garlic slices with grilled meat, but the fishy smell of the folded ear root will be suppressed by the grilled meat, only highlighting the aroma, and the mouth will not leave the stink of garlic after eating.
▲ The small meat skewers that are nourishing and oily, and the folded ear root are a perfect match! Graph/Network
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "guizhou" fireworks</h1>
Seeing this, there will definitely be people with a face like paper, and it is difficult to understand the Guizhou people's "willingness to eat" of folding ear roots. In fact, in the earliest days, it was not only the people in the southwest who ate the origami root (houttuynia cordata), as a kind of wild vegetable, the origami root was previously widely distributed throughout the south. Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Lianghu, Shaanxi, and southwestern provinces, including Liangguang, have extensive records of eating houttuynia cordata, and there are also records of folded ear roots as medicinal materials in various pharmacopoeias.
▲ Houttuynia cordata in traditional Chinese medicine (folded ear root). Photography / Whaletail Vision JWESTUDIO, Photo / Figure Worm Creative
As for why Guizhou people now love folded ear roots, some people say that it is because Guizhou people love to eat glutinous rice, folded ear roots are very rich in fiber, which can help gastrointestinal peristalsis digestion; some people say that Guizhou vegetables are more oily and spicy, and folded ear roots are used as a side dish to cool down the fire, dissolve grease and relieve spicy; others say that it is because guizhou land is barren and drought-prone, compared to leaf vegetables, folded ear roots are more able to adapt to drought and barren soil, and are life-saving food during disasters. No matter what the reason, in the end, it has contributed to a "fate" between the guizhou people and the folded ear roots.
▲ Folded ear root is not only a seasoning, but also a "life-saving straw" for Guizhou people. Photography/Wen Yi Shu Gentleman, Figure/Market Map Network
The highest praise we have for a person's life now is "there is pyrotechnic gas", then the folded ear root is the "most Guizhou" fireworks. It may seem inconspicuous, but as an ingredient, from breakfast to supper, it runs through the soul of Guizhou snacks and staple food seasoning. It is in the tumbling oil pot, in the home-cooked small stir-fry, in the burning carbon stove; it is on the way to school, on the family table, but also in the night market stall, carrying a Guizhou child from childhood to adulthood, every scene of the food memory.
Until he grew up, when a mediocre Guizhou "Houlang" ate Guizhou cuisine that had become exquisite and "popular" in restaurants in big cities, the missing folded ear root would also make him lose a second: "Even the folded ear root is not obtained, this is not authentic." ”
▲ Folded ear root, the nostalgia of Guizhou people. Photography/Wen Yi Shu Gentleman, Figure/Market Map Network
A person's homesickness always starts with the mouth first, but because other places do not eat much, the folded ear root has become a taste deficiency that is difficult for a Guizhou person to make up after leaving his hometown. Perhaps for the people of Guizhou, there is no more food that can carry the "hometown" than the folded ear root.
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