Foreword: Who can clearly describe the process of making handmade pancakes in the past? Let me recall, please add to the pancake lovers: the first step, pour the grains into a container and wash them and soak two bags of tobacco kung fu; the second step, the soaked mixed grain is stone milled or stone ground into a mixed batter, which is commonly known as "pushing and grinding"; the third step, heating the soft grass of the tweezers and wiping the surface of the hammers with a damp cloth dipped in oil; the fourth step, scooping up the batter with a large spoon, putting it on the hammer, and then evenly scraping it flat with bamboo "batch". After a while, a thin layer of paste on the tweezer turned into a fragrant pancake...
Recently, I saw a special introduction article about pancakes in the "past life and this life", and I couldn't help but feel a lot of emotions! It turned out that the pancakes favored by generations of people in Northern Lunan had a history of more than 5,000 years! Archaeological evidence is the earliest three-legged pottery tweezers unearthed at the Yangshao Cultural Site in Xingyang, Henan.
It is conceivable that the "invention" process of the tweezer: early humans used several stones to support a stone slab, and the stone slab was placed with fish caught or dug plant rhizomes, lit on fire below, burned and eaten! Perhaps inspired by this, after entering the pottery era, people fired the earliest hammers to process cooked food.
With the excavation and reproduction of various tweezers in different historical periods in more regions, it is safe to say that pancakes are not the "patented food" of the ancients in lunan and northern Jiangsu, but the "home-cooked meals" of ancient China throughout the north.
Why have pancakes been withdrawn from the table in other regions, but have been passed down for thousands of years in Lunan and a few counties in neighboring northern Jiangsu? I think it is mainly determined by the living environment of this region. Combined with the characteristics of pancakes and the living environment, the analysis is as follows.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > efficient use of grains</h1>
In the eyes of modern people, the words "grains and grains" are a fashion concept of balanced nutrition and scientific health. But in ancient times, "grains and grains" were not comparable to "fashionable", on the contrary, it was a proof of the barrenness of the land and the hardships of life.
Luzhong, Lunan and the neighboring counties and districts of northern Jiangsu, the terrain is basically hilly and mountainous. In the past, when relying on the sky to eat, the most planted here were millet, sorghum, barley, etc., and the yield was very low, which could not meet people's needs for food. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, with the introduction of sweet potatoes and corn one after another, grain production increased, and the problem of people's food was barely solved.
Whether it is sorghum or corn, processed into powder, not only rough texture is difficult to glue, but also the taste is not good and difficult to swallow; sweet potatoes are also the same, long-term consumption alone, easy to lead to accumulation of food; barley production is very low, a year's harvest can not make several meals. What to do? Mixing these "grains and grains" together, grinding and stirring well and then burning and processing them not only increases the viscosity, makes the food easy to form, but also improves the taste, and also solves the problem of some people eating "picking and choosing".
In years of famine, the "advantage" of pancakes may be even greater: mixing a large number of grass seeds, leaves, and roots with a small amount of grain to make pancakes can barely swallow and maintain life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > effectively save firewood and grass</h1>
Most modern people are accustomed to cooking with natural gas, liquefied gas, and coal stir-fry, and there are very few people who cook with firewood, and even many people's memories of cooking with firewood in the past have begun to blur.
Now, every summer and autumn harvest season, the fields are covered with "no burning" banners, and people patrol to prevent air pollution and fires, which in the past was incredible.
Before the 1980s, shortly after the summer and autumn harvests, there was probably no crop straw left in every piece of farmland, and it was basically cleaned up and transported back to their yards by farmers for storage. One is used as firewood for cooking on fire, the second is used as feed for pigs, cattle, donkeys and sheep, the third is used to prepare living utensils, and the fourth is used for heat preservation and even house construction.
Not to mention crop straw, that is, all kinds of wild grass and shrubs on the side of the road in the field, which are basically snatched up in late autumn; even the leaves of trees after autumn, as long as they are relatively concentrated, will be swept away by rakes (pa).
All this shows that in the past, firewood and grass were also an indispensable and important living material for every family.
People who have seen the former rural pancakes know that most of the pancakes are "soft grass" because it is easy to control the temperature of the hammers. Whether it is wheat straw, corn leaves, dry weeds and leaves, they are all "soft grasses" and can come in handy when baking pancakes.
Because pancakes are relatively dry and have a low water content, compared with noodles with higher water content such as steamed buns and steamed buns, they are stored for a longer time, and they are eaten in parts without reheating, which can also save firewood and grass relatively speaking.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > effectively save living expenses</h1>
"Pancake rolls with green onions" is the original impression of many outsiders on Shandong cuisine. This impression may come from the relevant film and television works on the theme of war, or from the sensory memory of the dry food that Lunan and Northern Jiangsu people bring with them when they go out. Although "pancake roll scallions" is not the eating habit of the whole of Shandong, it is still a very vivid summary for most rural areas in Luzhong and Lunan.
Turning grain stalls into pancakes can not only turn all kinds of grains that are difficult to swallow into fragrant food, but also save a lot of firewood and grass, and at the same time save a lot of living expenses. This is related to the hardship of living conditions, and it is also related to the property of Luzhong and Lunan.
Tai'an, Zaozhuang, Linyi are mostly hilly mountains, in the past wild onions, wild garlic, wild leeks can be seen everywhere, with a handful of casual, mountain spring water washed dry, rolled in pancakes, it becomes a spicy and delicious meal; Rizhao and the adjacent Ganyu East Sea close to the sea, more and more fish salt benefits, shrimp skin, dried fish are cheap raw materials, fried, fried, with some onions and garlic, put in the pancakes with a roll, not to mention eating into the mouth, is to see in the eyes can improve appetite.
After the Ming and Qing dynasties, chili peppers were introduced from exotic places to the mainland, further expanding the scope of pancake rollable things, almost everything. The small vegetable garden picks green peppers, combines with garlic, chops and pounds well, adds a spoonful of salt and stirs, rolls in pancakes, eats two in one go; chili fried shrimp skin, chili scrambled eggs, originally two pancakes can be full, at this time may eat three still unfinished.
The conditions are a little worse, and the home pickles can be barely matched with pancakes. When I was a child, I saw a family with the worst living conditions, and throughout the summer, every meal of their family was dried potato pancakes with radish leaves and pickles, drinking freshly beaten well water, our hometown is called "brick well cool". It was such a hard life, the family was still healthy and healthy, and both parents lived to be more than eighty years old.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > easy to carry and easy to save</h1>
When the father was alive, he often talked about the difficult years he experienced when he was young, in order to make his children develop the good habit of thrift and thrift. According to him, in the mid-1950s, he went to junior high school more than fifty miles away from his hometown, and walked to and from his hometown and school once a week. Coming home to see his grandparents is not the main thing, carrying pancakes is the right thing to do, and back pancakes are his staple food for a week. That is, at room temperature, pancakes are not a problem to keep for a week.
In the busy season of farming, the time is tight, a few green onions, bring a few pancakes, and then carry a pot of water, and the problem of eating in one day will be solved;
Go out to find relatives and friends, study and work, stir-fry some chili shrimp skin, dried fish, or simply peel a few green onions, and bring a dozen pancakes, no problem to deal with for a few days.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
Pancakes, as the staple food of Luzhong, Lunan and some neighboring counties in northern Jiangsu, have been passed down from generation to generation for at least 2,000 years, and have their historical reasons, inseparable from the local living conditions, inseparable from the survival wisdom of the locals, and inseparable from the local people's will to survive.
In a sense, pancakes can be described as a spiritual symbol, that is, the spirit of fearless and tenacious struggle that people who have lived in this hot land for generations is summarized as the "Yimeng Spirit". It is precisely the "Yimeng Spirit" that has greatly accelerated the pace of national liberation; it is the "Yimeng Spirit" that has brought about tremendous changes in this hot land with each passing day!
Pancakes are not only historical witnesses, but also spiritual symbols!
Maybe one day in the future, pancakes will disappear from people's tables, but I believe that as a spirit, as a kind of nostalgia, pancakes will continue to remain in the memory of future generations.
Written on October 17, 2021 in Cangjie's hometown of Puyang Nanle