The car drove from the highway into the trail, dusty, 35 kilometers away from the county seat of Liucheng, this place called Liutang Silver Village, dusty and prosperous that belonged to the last century.
After getting out of the car, looking through the dense shade of trees, under the cover of vines, you can faintly identify some red brick and black tile bungalows, which are the dormitories of the former Guangxi phosphate chemical plant.
There is a "wide phosphorus beef brother fried snail" shop here, which is said to be an old shop where diners will not hesitate to find taste. In front of the door is a bougainvillea tree, dead branches and new leaves are intertwined into low door openings, the gate is made of several old door panels, and the brushed blue paint has become mottled.
There is no sign at the door, and the name of the shop is only on the owner's business card. I think that such a shop really has to be found by the old food.
Entering the store, the simple and simple atmosphere of the small courtyard of the farmhouse came to the face. It's not a deliberate design, but the years have passed, and it has slowly grown like this.
This was not the case with the former PHOSphate plant.
Brother Niu at that time is now a cow uncle who is nearly 70 years old. Speaking of the Guangphos Plant, he proudly said that this was the largest inorganic salt chemical plant in Guangxi at that time, built in 1966, with nearly 20 million yuan allocated by the Ministry of Chemical Industry and more than 3,000 employees. At that time, the factory was efficient, and the life of Guangphos and Liucheng people was almost two worlds. The girls in this area most want to marry the Guangphos people.
The image comes from the Internet
Brother Niu retired from Guangdong in 1975, came here as a worker, and married a beautiful and virtuous cow sister-in-law. Unexpectedly, the development of science and technology is changing rapidly, the times are changing rapidly, and the prosperity of the Guangphos Factory has also been swept away by the torrent of the times. In 1999, Brother Niu was laid off.
The couple has done everything by selling porridge and snow strips, but they still can't support their children. Brother Niu decided to go down to the river to touch the snail to sell. Every morning, he pedaled his bicycle for nearly 3 kilometers to the river near Mengcun to touch the snails. Winter was particularly cold, and he grabbed his pants and gritted his teeth and walked into the cold river. So hard, but I want to save some costs, others sell 5 yuan a bowl of snails, he can sell 3 yuan a bowl.
At that time, the Guangphos Factory Night Market was bustling, and most of the workers who left work liked to come to a bowl of sour and spicy fresh fried snails in the night, the price was not expensive, the taste was delicious, while chatting and talking, it could be long, as if this was the real life of their own, and this taste could soothe the body and mind.
At the beginning, Brother Niu's business was not good, and he opened on the first day and only made a dime. Later, Brother Niu continued to think about improving the taste. As the snails he made tasted better and better, more and more diners, especially in 2000, when the highway was built, many road repair workers went to Niuge's shop to eat, recognized the taste of his home, and treated like relatives.
He carefully selected the snails and did not mix with a dead snail. He found that using the leaves of the row of money and the snail to bubble together, so that the snail "flowered", that is, the snail opened the shell to stick out the head, stretching like a flower, so as to quickly spit out the mud. The snails soaked in this way do not have a muddy smell.
He made chicken, duck, pig's feet, etc. with snails, and it tasted better. We ordered snail chicken, which is said to be one of the twenty-four dishes in the Jin-style Manchu han table.
Brother Niu first washed the snails, blanched them in water and boiled them. Then use a large pig iron pot to fry chicken, his stove is special, the fire is particularly large, the chicken is fresh and sweet is quickly locked in the meat, so that the fried chicken has a wok, fragrant saliva uncontrollably. Chicken fried 70% or 80% dry, he put in the snail, add sour shoots, water and ingredients, simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, brother Niu said, he does not have to taste the taste, look at the soup color he knows whether the heat is up, the heat is just right, the chicken is tender and smooth, the snail is crisp.
Sour shoots, he himself chose the material, with well water, to soak for a year, the sour aroma is extraordinary. He didn't buy what was sold in the market, and the suspects didn't soak it long enough.
This pot of snail chicken, with more than 3 pounds of chicken and 6 pounds of field snails boiled, the soup is thick and sweet, the sweetness of the chicken, the freshness of the snail, the sourness of the sour shoots perfect combination, the sour taste magically disappeared, melting a pure thick sweetness, in the aftertaste you can feel the sour shoots that wisps rise, straight to the incense of the Tianling cover, this fragrance is very pestering, always haunting you.
Generally, the sweetness of the soup is gone to the root of the tongue, and when the snail soup of the cow brother slides down the throat, the entire esophagus will feel the texture of the soup and the delicious encroachment, and the sweetness will stay for a long time. This taste, it is nature's code, about pairing, about matching, are mysterious adventures, who unlock this code, you can get the purest taste.
Snail, the most delicious is the shell of that little fresh soup, the soup into the shell of the snail, will be in the semi-enclosed space and snail meat blending, snail meat initially the strongest umami taste is first stored here, each snail is hidden in some of the some, a suck, the tip of the tongue immediately feel the fresh and sweet blow. Brother Niu boiled a good soup into it, and this bite is even more extraordinary.
Niu Brother boiled snails, using only three ingredients and special hot sauce, less ingredients, more able to present the original flavor of snails. There are many boiled snails on the market, all using complicated spices and flavors, drinking dry mouth, on fire, brother Niu's snail soup, the soup is very fresh and sweet, after eating snails, and then accompanied by a bowl of noodles, plus his hot sauce a mixture, it is really a delicious taste that people can't stop.
How delicious is his snail series? He does not do much every day, ten pots, late can not be booked, often people from Jinchengjiang, Guilin, Nanning come to buy... Some diners once teased him, "Did you have poppy shells in this soup?" Makes me think about it every day! I'm going to take it back for testing. He smiled heartily and said, "Whatever you test, the materials I use are only good for people's bodies, and I don't do harmful business."
But his formula is not public, someone once paid 500,000 to buy, he refused to sell. I said that if you sell to 10 people, can't you stop selling snails and enjoy your old age? The cow aunt rushed out and said, No! I'm going to sell my snails!" Brother Niu said that this dish is not all about the recipe, but also on the grasp of the heat, there are more than ten years of kung fu, the teaching will not smash the signboard; the church, no one will come here. Asked why he didn't move out to open a big shop, he looked around and said, "No." "He said he moved away, those old Guangphos people, those road workers want to eat again can not find him, I said you can leave a message at the door." He said he still didn't want to.
In this large dormitory area, there are few residents left, and the walls are covered with vines. In Brother Niu's yard, there are many old objects, some of which are broken, small plates printed with the red paint characters of "Liuzhou Area Agrochemical Factory", and broken aluminum barrels that can no longer be seen. Here is his most brilliant youth, but also his most difficult start, every grass and tree, are integrated into the shackles of life.
The cuisine here, it belongs to the past, it also belongs to the present.
Liucheng County Party Committee Propaganda Department Director Liucheng County Rong Media Center produced
Text: Qiao Minjuan