A few days ago, the well-known hot pot helmsman in Chongqing suddenly left. The hot pot that has been engraved in the food genes of Chongqing people has once again been discussed by people, looking back at the past and recalling history.
But what few people know is that at the first national cooking chef competition 38 years ago, the Chongqing delegation once brought out a "double-flavor hot pot" to conquer the judges. This "innovative dish" of that year also had a profound impact on Chongqing hot pot.
And that game is not only the "unique show" of the hot pot. A "pickle assortment" of the Chongqing team defeated abalone fin belly and bear paw antler velvet with home-cooked side dishes to win the second place in the country.
Does anyone remember that pinnacle showdown? Who was the chef at the time?
▲ The magazine of that year recorded the influence of Sichuan cuisine after this competition
A game
Three Chongqing chefs compete in the country
At the age of 17, he learned to cook and worked with hot pots and cold stoves for 60 years. Now 77 years old, Zheng Xianfang has long bid farewell to the back kitchen of the hotel restaurant.
After his official retirement in 2004, the Chinese culinary master who is good at Cantonese and Sichuan cuisine and was once known for his carving skills still refuses to be a smoky world. Occasionally, at the important moment of family reunion, he will reveal a few home-cooked dishes. The knife pot and the board that can't be put down, the taste is always remembered - Zheng Xianfang can't help but miss the highlight of "home-cooked side dishes", which was the first national cooking chef competition in 1983.
Zheng Xianfang was 39 years old and a first-class chef. The basic threshold of the "special chef" of the competition isolated him from the contestants; but because of his extraordinary fruit and vegetable carving skills and the deep culinary accumulation of the two major cuisines in Sichuan and Cantonese, he became one of the three members of the Chongqing delegation as an assistant.
The three words "thinking of that year" are the keys to open memories.
▲ Zheng Xianfang
A pickle
It's not amazing, but it's a blockbuster
"The competition venues are all in the Great Hall of the People, do you say that the momentum is huge?" Counting forward, nearly 100 celebrity chefs from all over the country have gathered, and the grandeur of competing in culinary skills has never been seen before. "Recalling the game 38 years ago, Zheng Xianfang opened the conversation box." In 28 provinces across the country, 30 representative teams were sent. The reason why there were 30 was because Beijing was divided into two teams; although Chongqing was not directly under the jurisdiction at that time, it was also different from Sichuan Province and formed separately. ”
The official competition is divided into three categories: hot dishes, dim sum and cold meat platter. At that time, the famous chefs who represented Chongqing were Sichuan cuisine Taidou, Li Yuehua, who was 51 years old at the time, and Chen Zhigang, 56 years old. Although the two chefs are now ancient, the two chefs each have 4 dishes and a total of 8 "battle dishes" that Zheng Xianfang still remembers vividly.
The four dishes of double-flavored hot pot, Guanyan peacock, Jiaolong Xianzhen and dry roasted rock carp are from Chen Zhigang's hand, and the four dishes of dry roast shark fin, Mandarin duck sea cucumber, Hundred Flowers Fat Head and Pickle Assorted Are spooned by Li Yuehua. Just by listening to the name, it is not difficult to peek into the specifications of the competition. Zheng Xianfang said that not only the taste of eating, but also the color, aroma, taste, shape and utensils of the dishes were included in the assessment content of the judges. "It's not easy for Sichuan cuisine to make a splash in this game. This means that Chongqing, as a representative team, must not only maintain the characteristics of Sichuan cuisine, but also reflect the spirit of development and innovation. ”
Ingenious placement of bird song machines on the plates. This "pickle assortment" of the Chongqing team has not yet been on the table, and it has already "taken the lead". Accompanied by crisp birdsong, four people carried them to the table for the judges to taste. It is said to be a "assortment", but in fact, this dish includes 20 kinds of pickles such as brine white beans, carrot spinner, pickled red pepper, garlic cucumber, red rape head, sesame oil squeezed vegetables, fish fragrant rape rolls, strange flower kernels, and sesame sauce bamboo shoot tips. Pickles are mixed, drowned, pickled, soaked, boiled, stir-fried, fried, drunk and other cooking methods, and are mixed into fish, five spices, red oil, garlic paste, sweet and sour, pepper salt, sesame sauce, spicy and many other flavors, and are divided into colors, shapes, and flavors.
Zheng Xianfang said frankly that among the eight dishes, only this pickle is the most worrying for everyone. "Fear of violations. After all, the competition asked for one dish, but we asked for a clever idea and made a combination of 20 pickles. ”
The ordinary and ordinary pickles on the land of Sichuan and Chongqing were skillfully used by the chefs to conquer all the scoring judges present. Judge Wang Liqi commented in response to a question from an Associated Press reporter that this dish is exquisitely cooked and widely selected, showing the wealth of the country of Tianfu; the taste is diverse, which fully explains the style of Sichuan cuisine of "one dish and one grid, one hundred dishes and one hundred flavors".
Second only to Liaoning, Chongqing's "Pickle Assortment" won the second place, and Chongqing chef Li Yuehua became the only player in the Sichuan-Chongqing team to win the "Best Chef". As an assistant, Zheng Xianfang, who meditated on ingredients and decorated dishes with carved decorations, also won the praise of the chefs of the Sichuan-Chongqing delegation.
"Both Teacher Li and Teacher Chen said that Xianfang had to suffer hardships and endure hard work, and with him as his assistant this time, I was very relieved at the beginning." Zheng Xianfang, who was caught in the memory, unconsciously restored the happiness of that year. "It must be exciting and glorious. Both Sichuan cuisine and Chongqing have shown their faces in the country, and we, as the chefs of the Chongqing delegation, have also won the glory of Sichuan cuisine. ”
▲The group photo of the seven chefs of the Sichuan-Chongqing representative team that year
A bite of hot pot
The hot pot "Double Flavor" was developed from this
If "pickle assortment" is a "blockbuster" in the competition rankings, then another dish is not less influential.
Double-flavor hot pot, written by chef Chen Zhigang, is different from the one-pot one-flavor red oil hot pot that was popular in Chongqing in the past. It double flavors the same pot, only needs one stove, and divides the soup and red soup in copper sheets. Nowadays, the three words of "Mandarin Duck Pot" are deeply rooted in people's hearts, but in those days, this was an innovative dish that stood out in the competition.
The competition officially began on November 7th, but including the double-flavor hot pot, the dishes of the Sichuan-Chongqing representative team were served on the table of the national leaders of the year as early as the 4th. The chief is a Sichuanese, and the joke of "try it first, see if you get the prize" reached the ears of the chefs, and what remained was anxiety and nervousness.
"The chief drank most of the two-flavored hot pot red soup with a soup cup, and also commented on this dish in particular, saying, 'Well, the entrance is Sichuan flavor'." At this time, the chefs waiting in the back kitchen were relieved. After the meal, a reporter from Xinhua News Agency took a precious group photo of the leaders and the 7 chefs of the Sichuan-Chongqing delegation. The photo Zheng Xianfang rarely shows people, but she treasures it together with her own certificate award and treasures it to this day.
▲ The group photo of the national leaders after tasting the dishes of the Sichuan-Chongqing representative team Zheng Xianfang has been treasured so far
Zheng Xianfang said that compared with today's Mandarin duck pot hot dishes are frugal and free, this double-flavor hot pot was very elaborate. "First of all, the pot, in the form of a taiji pattern, this is a copper pot specially customized in Chongqing Minsheng Shipyard before the game, we carried it to Beijing; then say the bottom of the pot, the modulation method is from the old style, but the clear soup must be clear, fresh, mellow, thick, red soup should be spicy and thick, but it should not be dry and spicy; another example is the hot boiling principle of dishes, like pea tips can only blanch clear soup, garlic seedlings can not blanch clear soup, etc."
Zheng Xianfang is a person with a heart, he clearly recorded all the meat raw materials when the double flavor hot pot competed that year. Dishes such as sea cucumber and shrimp are not common in the current Chongqing hot pot, but meat dishes such as eel slices, hairy belly, duck intestines, and brain flowers have long been popularized to the hot pot table of ordinary people and become "home-cooked food"; vegetarian dishes such as silver powder, pea tip, yellow rice white, and soybean sprouts are also now also loved by "people who don't eat spicy stars".
▲ Magazines in the 1980s left some photos of the events at that time
A legacy
Chef's past and present
Eating, for daily food and clothing, for feasting ceremonies, but also for the development of the industry. In the culinary historical materials published by the China Restaurant Association, this evaluation of the 1983 competition - called it a "grand event", describing it as the first national culinary conference after the founding of the People's Republic of China, which promoted the inheritance and development of Chinese cuisine; and the famous chefs who won the competition were included in the fourth volume of the national celebrity chef classic "National Famous Chef".
The four words "inheriting the past and opening up the future" also seem to prove that food and drink is also a history of flow, and the appropriate and popular name is: inheritance.
Hot pot dishes, which are only for tasting by leading experts, have long been popularized to "ordinary people's homes", and former assistants have now become national culinary masters who enjoy state subsidies. The old man told me with a serious expression different from before that in the past, people called the chef "cook", "brother", "guy" and "oil head", and the chef's profession was not very respected, it was "the lower nine streams"; and the words "church apprentices starved to death masters" have been around since ancient times, and the cooking skills of the masters on the stove are never easily taught.
The quality of "diligent study" is brought to the extreme, red and white radish bought back according to the basket and practiced carving exercises day and night, in order to practice Sichuan cuisine, Zheng Xianfang, who was born in Cantonese cuisine, went to work after work, ran to Chongqing Huacun, Chaoyang, Youth and other restaurants to "go to the stove" - eager to learn, preaching and receiving work allowed Zheng Xianfang to gain today's status and respect. The celebrity chef who said that "diligence is more important than talent" sighed that the current social environment has given chefs a broader space to play and growth conditions: the status of chefs has improved, there are more ways to learn to cook, and the teachers who teach chefs are more open-minded.
▲ Zheng Xianfang's carving
After retiring, the thin, tough, dark-haired old man was hired as a judge in several chef competitions and a teacher in cooking schools. He taught the experience to the younger generations, "When boiling the meat back to the pot of meat, the skin is up, the meat is down, so that the collagen is heated from the 'soles of the feet'; the strange chicken takes 4-5 months of baby chicken, and thirteen spices form a five-flavor balance." The old man secretly thought, these, in the past, the teacher would not say it to teach you, all by himself to grope; he also knew that the double-flavor hot pot that participated in the competition that year also had a heritage, taught by Chen Biao, the son of Chen Zhigang, to the boss Thoughtful, and even the pot was placed in the Zhou Brother Chongqing Hot Pot Ciqikou Shop, he paced to see it, very comforted.
"Cooking actually needs to be passed down from generation to generation, and it is important to take its essence." Don't stick to the rules, don't stick to the cuisine, pay attention to the strengths, and avoid the smorgasbord. In her spare time, Zheng Xianfang occasionally misses those nearly lost "work on the stove", "'Killing chickens and a dragon' Oh, how long did it take for a live rooster to become a plate of kung pao chickens in the past?" 1 min 42 sec!"
Of course, he also patronizes Sichuan restaurants. "Fish fragrant meat shredded meat pay attention to the meat shredded evenly, the color is rosy, you see this on me, two or three meat shreds are sticky together!"
The old man pouted, "Crooked corners!" (Chongqing dialect: layman)
Upstream journalist Zhou Qiao Huang Yanchun / Text, picture