The rise of fish flavor in Sichuan cuisine may be due to the "fish flavor meat shreds". Since the addition of the dish of shredded fish and meat, the smell of fish has been singing all the way and forging ahead, and to this day it is still popular and walking in the rivers and lakes. Unfortunately, the fish flavor is still there, and the days of fish and meat shreds are tight, a little miserable and a little down, and the figure of fish shredded meat cannot be found in many Sichuan restaurants, this problem seems to have nothing to do with the soaring price of pork this year.
In the past 10 years, many Sichuan restaurants have basically lost sight of shredded fish and meat on the menu, and even if some of them are only printed on any corner of a beautiful recipe, how much is a copy of a "shredded fish and meat", and they no longer give her a beautiful jade photo. If you can still eat the regular fish and meat shreds in any restaurant today, it is still the taste of the memory that was once there, that can be regarded as burning high incense, Amitabha Buddha, indeed it is also the Fluke creation you eat.
I remember that two years ago, there was a social news, saying that a foreign tourist went to Chongqing for a tour, ordered a dish of fish and meat shreds in a certain store, and after eating, the guests just did not pay, why? The reason is that the fish fragrant meat shreds do not see the fish, and everyone is talking about this matter. After some media also briefly said why there is no fish, textbooks generally write: fish fragrant meat shredded because of the ------, can also be regarded as a publicity for fish slobbed meat. However, neither this matter nor this passage has reversed the decline of fish and meat shreds in Sichuan cuisine.
We can't help but ask, where is the shredded fish and meat? In order to figure this out, I consulted many diners, as well as countless chefs, as well as food and beverage practitioners, and the owners of Chinese restaurants.
Cheng Hao, male, typical of the post-90s, 22 years old, can be called a good mouth.
I asked if he knew about the shredded fish? Before I could finish asking, he crackled and poured beans and said, "Fish and meat, such a famous dish, oh, I have not only eaten, but also made, is a particularly delicious." He said word for word from meat to condiment. This was very unexpected, because my perception is that young people like a heavy dish, and it is reasonable to say that this dish may be a name in his eating memory.
Ask him where he ate? Answer home!
I'm even more depressed! Who did it for you?
"My Dad"
"Your dad, what's going on?"
"My dad is a professional cook" ...
I then asked, "Did you eat this dish at any restaurant?" ”
"I ate it once or twice outside, and I felt that I really couldn't find the taste that my dad made, so I didn't want to eat it, or my dad made it well."
"Did you eat that in the shop where my father worked?"
"No, he doesn't buy this in the store where he works."
"Do you know why?"
"I don't know, it seems to say that the boss is unwilling, and my father didn't tell me specifically."
I don't want to comment on anything else here, so I don't want to know the story behind this dish that the chef who has such a skill in this shop still doesn't have the story behind the dish of "shredded fish and meat". I just think or know how important a father who is a professional chef is to his son's food, perhaps because of love.
Zhang Yunyun, female, 35 years old, I T practitioner.
To be honest, similar to the fish shredded dishes, my parents still prefer, but often complain that the taste of the restaurant is also very general, but also expensive, mainly or the chef's craftsmanship is not good, in short, it is not delicious. I rarely eat outside, occasionally go to eat hot pot or dry pot or the like, anyway, there are old mothers cooking at home, such as mapo tofu, back pot meat and the like feel better than some restaurants.
Liu Dingyi, male, 48 years old, restaurant owner.
After we met and greeted each other for a few words, I went straight to the point and went straight to the subject, of course, the topic was those "old Sichuan cuisine" things including fish and meat shreds.
I asked, "Why doesn't your shop make shredded fish?" ”
As soon as my words came out, Boss Liu said in one breath: "I am a chef, like fish fragrant meat shreds, sugar sticky lamb tail, Eight Treasure Pot steaming, liver cake soup, hibiscus chicken slices, chicken bean flowers these dishes I will do, and some of me still do not bad." But you see there isn't a dish like this on my menu. One of the reasons is not that the old Sichuan cuisine is not good, but the current chefs are eager to make quick profits, the basic skills are not solid, come out to run the rivers and lakes, learn a few jianghu dishes to fight the world, the name is heavy taste of jianghu cuisine, everyone is rushing to develop in this direction, it is natural that she will have a market. Another reason is that I opened a shop also to make money, after all, the store to survive is more important, if I blindly in order to adhere to the old Sichuan cuisine complex, stubbornly stick to the old Sichuan cuisine, then at least in the short term I can not bear the pressure of not making money! There is also a is the old Sichuan cuisine is more about traditional skills, the production process is complex, the basic skills should be solid, the small shop depends on me alone can not support up, for these young chefs, is that I want to teach them, they are not willing to learn, there is also learned to do a good job or there is a process, and then these chefs want to jump ship, it is difficult to teach him a little thing, he left, I am bothering to work, but the children I bring to call others daddy, I feel that there is no need to do so, It is better that I go with the flow and earn a little money to support my family..."
Boss Liu said that the expression inside was very stiff, he slowly took a sip of tea, and continued: "In fact, I sometimes can't stand Sichuan cuisine, and occasionally I think, or even question: Is the craft I learned really useless?" Is there really no market for old Sichuan cuisine? But why do you remember Sichuan dishes such as mapo tofu, kung pao chicken cubes, and boiled water cabbage? ”
"Suppose one day when I stop bending over for Doumi, I want to open a Sichuan restaurant that follows the taste for the feelings of old Sichuan cuisine. But it may be a distant dream..."
Looking at the pain on Boss Liu's face, in order to break the silent atmosphere, I took over the topic. Yes, the essential purpose of opening a store is to make money, but this is not the only purpose. Site selection is still very important, but each boss chooses to be familiar with the focus of the different. Someone once said that catering is a bitter sea, not a red sea; it shows the difficulty of success in catering. It is also said that the food and beverage that follows the feelings is a hooligan, and the genes that are destined to succeed are not healthy; the main purpose of this assertion is to meet the needs of the market, not subjective consciousness. But I personally think that this statement is one-sided, at least he ignores one problem, that is, he does not admit to seeking unity in change while meeting market demand. This unity is how to inherit the tradition, extend the tradition, and innovate the tradition. Instead of seeking differences for the sake of innovation, the ancestors were uprooted and dried and started another stove. Today, many so-called Sichuan cuisines have not yet reached this step, but it is true that chaotic sentient beings exist. This remark made Boss Liu once again raise the teacup: "Thank you for this remark, I recognize it very much, and it also soothes the pain intersection in my heart."
Zhou Xiangcheng, male, 29 years old, professional chef.
His view is this: To be honest, I am familiar with these dishes such as fish and meat shreds, at least A little bit, but it is difficult to do well, after all, it is rare to do, naturally unfamiliar. In my experience as a chef, the most common dish in LaoChuan cuisine is back to the pot meat, followed by mapo tofu and kung pao chicken, and then fish and meat shreds. Others are rarely done. There are only two classic Laochuan dishes that can be seen, one is in the cooking competition, often see some high-end Laochuan dishes, such as chicken bean blossoms, boiled water cabbage, etc., but in the competition, there are basically no fish shredded meat or Kung Pao chicken and other dishes, unless it is possible to formulate competition items; the other is in the traditional cooking books, which are considered to be more than 10 years ago.
Today, many Sichuan cuisine books are innovative dishes or heavy flavors of Sichuan cuisine, we are also learning these dishes, because it is good-looking, and there is a market, and the current condiment market is particularly developed, as long as you can use good condiments, purchase the necessary raw materials, according to the cat painting tiger basically can make eight or nine dishes.
Besides, the basic skills of old Sichuan cuisine are high, we can't do it well, and now many bosses are making money in order to open a shop, and no one wants you to waste time and money in order to practice old Sichuan cuisine. In fact, we chefs still want to learn LaoChuan cuisine, but one is that there is no good teacher to teach us, and the other is that there is no platform for us to practice our skills.
Sometimes I think that maybe recreating the classic is not something that the chef group can completely solve, but also the cognitive awareness of the restaurant owner. In addition, it may also require the strong assistance of departments with government capacity to guide the direction of development. In short, to take a multi-pronged approach, perhaps to a certain extent, healthy Laochuan cuisine can be fully developed, and we also want to be the beneficiaries.
Li Dongcai, male, 24 years old, chef.
The understanding of traditional dishes such as fish and meat shreds is like this: I went to the cooking school at the age of 19, read books for four years, and still had some involvement and understanding of laochuan cuisine and its cooking allusions, and there were cooking teachers in the school who also taught us, but when I went to the unit to practice, I basically did not see the shadow of these teaching dishes. Looking at the dishes made by those masters are basically what we have not seen, some dishes are fancy, anyway, it is good-looking, as to whether it is good or not, I dare not evaluate. But we sometimes suspect that what we are learning in school is as disconnected from this restaurant society, and we really don't know what inheritance is and what innovation is.
Those of us who have just graduated are ignorant teenagers, and we also love to drill the horns, and the students often argue that inheritance is to return the old things to Zhao as if they were scripted, and innovation is to start a new stove after a little knowledge. Although everyone says that Sichuan cuisine is not only spicy, but good use of spicy, but only in the dish there are some peppers, most people more or less think that it is Sichuan cuisine, if you use some tableware, flowers and plants to decorate some, you can also climb the elegant hall. After I worked, I found that the taste type of Sichuan cuisine has changed too much, not the original so-called 24 flavor types can be summarized, the teacher who has worked for many years can not say clearly about the current taste type, many dishes do not know to belong to that flavor type or a certain category, so what is the traditional inheritance, or to go to the hundred schools of contention has no practical significance, it is better to immerse yourself in learning the current skills. It is often said that heroes do not ask about the provenance, so why bother with old Sichuan cuisine and new Sichuan cuisine? I am now studying with a master, he told me not to be old pedantic, more work and less to say, restaurant business is good, can earn money is the king. The chefs who didn't go to cooking school are now well paid, and I questioned the four years of cooking.
I was asking Xiao Li about his knowledge of old dishes, but I didn't expect him to question the uselessness of cooking in cooking school.
So I enlightened him: cooking is a discipline that intersects multiple disciplines, and it is also a matter of cooking practice. For example, many practical chefs know how to fry sugar color, and can also master what the situation is good, but they do not necessarily know what the principle of the process of sugar heating to evolve into sugar color is, but chefs who have studied cooking must know this principle, and students who have just graduated are a little confused when they participate in cooking practice, after all, cooking is based on skills, but when they work for a while, they must think more keenly and jump in the development of ideas, and they can creatively develop cooking. This is that people who do not delve into the theory of cooking only know what it is, and those who have mastered the theory of cooking know the truth of why it is so.
Of course, Xiao Li also agreed with my views. Xiao Li told me that in fact, he still has to pick up books when he has the opportunity, and dishes such as fish and meat shreds cannot be easily abandoned, and as a new generation of cultured chefs, it is necessary to master traditional classic Sichuan cuisine.
Master Tang, male, 71 years old, master of the catering industry, retired.
I know Master Tang very well, and in the past few years, when I talked to him about the industry, I was always angry and complained about things I was not used to, but he was very good at cooking, and many famous chefs would ask him some classic Sichuan cooking skills.
In a quiet tea shop, he said his views on my proposal: "Wei Cheng, the year before you talked to me about the teaching of old Sichuan cuisine, there is a problem with the explanation of the back pot meat, you can't say to the young post-90s and post-00s that the shape of the back pot meat is only "lamp nest", in your words, because these people no longer know what "lamp" is, they naturally can't understand what the shape of the lamp nest is, and can only talk about this as an allusion, and should find a more vivid and more specific shape to describe it at the moment. I agree, but I still haven't found a suitable analogy. ”
He continued to talk about traditional Sichuan cuisine such as shredded fish and meat: our older generation does not want to rigidly leave it behind, but hopes that the younger generation will realize the "seasoning" of Sichuan cuisine and the exquisite "cooking techniques", "taste in Sichuan" can not become an empty phrase, and the inheritance of techniques cannot flow into form. If today's young chefs dare to make this dish in the "trial dish", whether it is good or not, they should first add 10 points, that is, to encourage them to summarize the research and development in the process of doing it.
Today, many restaurants have a short lifespan and die quickly, I think one of the heavy reasons is that their dishes have no roots and souls, do not focus on the attributes of ingredients, do not understand the special effects of dishes, do not do dishes that will not be done, do not do bad dishes, such restaurants can be long-lasting? Let's not talk about any more specialties and classic Sichuan dishes. We also know that the times are developing, dietary needs are changing, but the changes are not far from its ancestors, our country's five thousand cultural heritage, the culture and skill inheritance of food is indispensable, take its essence, go to its dross Our older generation of chefs are still sensible, I personally think that the dilution of some old Sichuan cuisine disappears One is that we have not done a good job of inheritance, more selfless sharing and exchange for everyone, one is the impetuousness of the entire Sichuan cuisine industry and the rush to make quick gains. Many things are reincarnated, such as we used to dislike cotton, we like really good materials to make clothes, who knows that cotton is so expensive now, thinking that the bicycle of the past is forever gone, but this sharing era of bicycles is not also black pressure into it! The restaurant industry is the same, and eventually it returns to the essence of eating, and I still believe that there is always a market for good things.
Hu Guiqiang, 33 years old, male, professional chef.
He answered my question like this: Teacher, I feel that this line can not find the north, the boss clearly told us to artificial, technology is not important, what you want is to be able to operate in accordance with the standardization of the dish, now industrialized food is very developed, the cost of craftsmanship of chefs is too high, it is better to find some quantitative standard dishes, find some general similar to the worker chef can operate, all day long looking for such products everywhere, warn us at any time, do not hold the craft, We must use the thinking of modern catering people to re-understand catering, either change thinking or change people.
We chefs felt that the boss didn't value us too much and a lot of the chefs wanted to leave. Some of the Sichuan dishes you mentioned are basically not cooked by our chefs here, and these dishes can be easily done without years of experience? If you meet a boss like us now, you will do a state banquet and he will not use you. The boss also said that today's catering market changes are each leading the way for three or five years, so popular to do that, thinking to change, to keep up with the situation, all the success of catering and our technology has nothing to do with, our store has a lot of semi-finished dishes, to be honest not delicious, not assured, how far can smell an abnormal fragrance, but the boss to make money, we also have to support the family Ah, you say that we still have the heart to pursue the classic Old Sichuan cuisine Oh!
Looking at the pain on Master Hu's face, I said: The experience of the elder brother may be a wealth. But you also said that your boss is pursuing industrial food, that is not a dish. We have no reason to oppose industrialized food production in the great changes of the times, but the dishes of the handicraft workshop are the concentrated embodiment of skill, no matter how developed or developed the times, as long as people still eat, cooking with the taste of fireworks is indispensable. Your choice now is to either endure this pain or give up. As the saying goes: Maxima is often there, Bole is not often there!
I couldn't help but ask again, "Where is the shredded fish and meat?" For the topic that led to this, I went to Yangzhou at the end of 2019 to find taste. Huaiyang cuisine is the main dish composition of Yangzhou and Huai'an, and is one of the four major cuisines, also known as Su cuisine.
During my time in Yangzhou, I have a particularly obvious feeling that no matter whether it is a small restaurant in the streets and alleys, or a high-end atmospheric restaurant club, the classic writers of Huaiyang cuisine must have, such as lion's head, Wensi tofu, large boiled dried silk and other dishes, as a diner, you can immediately judge which family's dishes are doing well, where is the good, is the problem of the heat or the problem of soup, or the problem of knife work, basically eight or nine inseparable.
And the chefs who cook also have a highest realm of pursuit of the goal, never give up, do not give up because of their own production is not good, do not because they do well, no longer strive to the extreme, but have been looking for gaps, are trying their best to continuously improve their skills. This kind of classic dish that has become famous for Huaiyang cuisine, its chefs and restaurants are striving to pursue the realm may not be common in other developed dining cities, and their admiration, respect and reverence for local dishes is what I admire the most. For example, in Chengdu, many restaurants will not have boiling water cabbage or chicken bean flowers. You can only see these dishes in high-end clubs or high-end restaurants, and they are sold for a lot of money. This is in stark contrast to Yangzhou's catering market.
I witnessed the Yangzhou fried rice in a high-end hotel, counting 8 minutes, a step by step of serious operation, must be every "cutscene" seriously really enough, this meticulous rigor is not the craftsman spirit we pursue? Just imagine, if our Sichuan cuisine chef or restaurant owner in the process of yangzhou taste, will not have this inadvertent thing to find and touch the deep heart of the problem - like fish fragrant meat syrup similar these classic Old Sichuan dishes can no longer be like left-behind children, but to carry out a high degree of social attention to her, from the relevant functional departments of the government to catering enterprises, and then to the chef to work together, to preserve the old Sichuan cuisine is not to hold the old, but in the new era to inherit the flavor of Sichuan cuisine soul, Sichuan cuisine cooking skills re-creation. "Food in China, taste in Sichuan" with the spirit of ingenuity to carry forward the past and the future, with a sense of awe to be responsible for Sichuan cuisine cooking, respect the ancient method of the skills of the predecessors to live and use. Happy to see a master like Zhang Zhongyou in many catering enterprises immersively teach Sichuan cuisine skills, quote the scriptures, enrich the experience of chefs, broaden the chef's horizons, combine the tools of the new era to better control the ancient cooking techniques, to be impetuous, sink your heart, step on the actual Sichuan cuisine, let her taste always arouse your most accurate memory, let her rhyme always be graceful and charming. Generations have praised healthy delicacies, isn't that the same taste of the year?
I am Teacher Sun said catering, thank you for your attention, welcome to comment forwarding, welcome to spit!