This article is a draft of the official account Flavor Planet (ID: fengweixingqiu) under the documentary "Flavor of the World". Last Sunday, "Sausage Collection" was played, and Mei Shanshan asked me to write about Sichuan sausage. Because of the reason of selling sausages before, I felt that I could write everything I could write, so I went to visit Mr. Hu Lianquan. As soon as Mr. Hu heard me say that I wanted to write sausages, he told Liao Zelin and the Pickle Gang about liao zelin and the pickle gang - he was 77 years old, or he had read the relevant materials when he wrote the "Sichuan Cuisine Cooking Dictionary" nearly 40 years ago. It is said that people are old and forgetful, and he remembers it so clearly because of "shangxin", and this seriousness makes me very moved. Unfortunately, mr. Jiang Mengbi (pen name Jiang Mengbi), the author who wrote about Liao Zelin's apprentice Liu Dachuan, died a few years ago, and I had to find the information to let everyone know as much as possible about the deeds of the Sichuan Pickling Gang.
Considering the difference in the readership, the editor of the flavor planet version rewrote some sentences, which made it easier and more pleasant to read: honestly, Sichuan spicy sausage has to be called Cantonese sausage brother, the following is my original text, interested friends can cross-read, but also interesting.
Restaurant
In the spring of 1922, there was a fire in the "Chun Hou Xiang" dry and miscellaneous shop in Chengdu's Frozen Qingshu Street, and after the fire, the owner Liao Zelin made a calculation and decided to give up the dry and miscellaneous business handed down from his father's hands and find another way out.
After the Republic of China, Chengdu's commerce developed. Not far from Chun Houxiang, there is a "Changhe Xuan", the boss Qi Xingfu found the Sichuan people after the winter solstice concentrated on making sausage bacon business opportunities, played the "Guangdong food" signboard, every autumn harvest after the low wage to hire a few suburban farmers, pickled pork, pig heads, sausages, sold in stores, only in the winter and spring at the turn of three or four months of business, business is good. Liao Zelin renamed the shop "Dehouxiang" and also sold pickled foods. He used "Guangdong food" to pickle goods, but the brine goods were ingenious to play the sign of "scallion roasted food". Catering to the customs of the Sichuan people, they sell pickled goods in winter and spring, and halogen goods in summer, and are open all year round.
Liao Zelin died of illness in 1928 at the age of 48. He established the Pickling Halogen Gang in six years, and his apprentices occupied half of the later Chengdu Pickling And Brine Industry, which can be described as legendary.
Before the Republic of China, there were no shops specializing in pickled foods. Sichuan folk have the custom of making cured meat in the winter wax month and brine meat during the Dragon Boat Festival, usually at the end of the year, the bacon sausage is prepared, and it is almost finished eating on the fifteenth day of the first month. Some roasted pork stalls or cold taverns also sell pickled brine products, which are small fights and small troubles, and they are not climatetized.
In the manuscript recipe book of the Tongzhi dynasty, "The New Record of The Feast of Abundant Bread According to the Pattern", the sausage belongs to the "meat preserved product" and is recorded as "letting the intestine"
In the 1909 edition of the "Chengdu General Survey", there is a record of "Chengdu's Famous Food Store", of which "Wang Bunzi" is listed with "Sausage Cured Meat", along with "Roast Duck of Cheap Shop" and "Steamed Bun Dim Sum in Du one place". "瓤" is "brewing (醸)", Sichuanese used to read "let", take the left "Xiang" meaning "wrapped, contained" (Sichuan people really recognize the word and recognize half of the side!) For example, the Sichuan chef said "let the tofu" and "let the eggplant", in fact, the meat puree into the tofu, eggplant box of the dish. Therefore, the "sausage" is "stuffed intestine" and "let the intestine", that is, the meat stuffed into the intestine: sausage.
This is one of the evidences of the trend of pickled wax products from household goods to commercialization. As for why Wang Bunzi sells sausage cured meat, the reason is the same as above, which belongs to the boss's part-time side business.
It is not known when Sichuan people began to eat sausage and bacon, which may have been imported from Zhejiang or influenced by Guangdong. Li Tiaoyuan, a Qing Dynasty scholar and a native of Luojiang in Deyang, Sichuan, compiled and edited the manuscripts of dietary materials carefully collected by his father Li Huanan (1713-1769) when he was an official in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, and published them in the "Record of Awakening garden". Among them, the "Wind Pig Small Intestine Method" is almost a replicable sausage making guide:
"Put the small intestines of the pig in the porcelain basin, first drip a little vegetable oil, stir well with your hands, wait for a while, wash it in the water as you do, cut into sections, and each section is about a foot long." Use semi-refined white pork, file it into pieces, mix soybean oil, wine, peppercorns, green onion beads and other ingredients and mix well, wait for half a day, and put it into the intestine. Only eight points, not too full. Tie the two ends tightly. The laminated cage is steamed and air-dried. To use, when steamed, cut into thin slices, eat very well. ”
The above and today's Sichuan sausage practice is very similar, with rapeseed oil to wash the small intestine (washing fat intestines can also be), pork fat and lean half (according to personal preferences, three seven open, two eight open can be), under the seasoning of cured meat, filling, air drying. It's just that the Sichuan sausage is not filled with minced meat, but sliced pork (the front leg is better to have the meat sandwiched), and the sausage is no longer steamed, but naturally air-dried, it can also be smoked, and the difference in the degree of water collection determines the thickness and taste of the sausage, and finally put it away and frozen, which can be eaten for a year.
Although Liao Zelin is not a chef, his ancestors' experience in running a dry and miscellaneous shop has been of great benefit to him: he knows the flavor of various spices very well and knows how to combine them better. Although he also hung the "Guangdong Food" signboard, it was improved. He believes that the Cantonese taste is sweet, the Sichuan taste is salty, learn from each other, neutralize the two, and use sugar, pepper, shaojiu, fragrant lees, sesame oil, plate gui (old laurel bark), ginger, etc. in the cured meat seasoning, which was a major innovation at that time. Today, most Sichuan people's cured meat is actually the same seasoning, more or less change no more than three.
Why hang "Guangdong Food"? It is not that Sichuanese people are not confident: First, there were no "Sichuanese" at that time. At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, due to the war, the population of Sichuan was "left behind", and a large number of cultivated land was abandoned. In order to solve the problems of Sichuan's labor force and grain production, the Qing government adopted measures of resettlement and reclamation, known in history as "Lake Guangdong Filling Sichuan", mainly from more than 10 provinces such as Lianghu, Liangguang, Jiangxi, and Fujian to settle in Sichuan to settle and reclaim the land. The whole process lasted a hundred years. The 1909 edition of Chengdu General Survey states: "Today's Chengdu people are all from other provinces."
Playing a Cantonese sign shows that Cantonese cuisine was very popular in Sichuan at that time, and descendants of immigrants from all over the world generally liked to eat it.
The second reason is that peppers were introduced to Sichuan in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and it was not yet popular to eat spicy during the Republic of China, and there was little concept of "Sichuan flavor". After the opening of the Chen Mapo Tofu Shop in 1862 in Wanfu Bridge outside the North Gate of Chengdu, although tofu was famous for its "hemp, spicy and hot", it was still incomparable with the fierceness of today's jianghu cuisine, where most of the manual laborers who ate there were peddlers and pawns.
According to Professor Lan Yong's statistics, in 1909, the propaganda language of Chengdu's catering circle generally used words such as "Chinese and Western food", "diet improvement", "Nantang dinner", "Shanghai famous restaurant", "Huaiyang famous teacher", "north-south barbecue", etc., and there was no "Sichuan flavor" and "Sichuan cuisine".
At that time, the sausages sold by Changhe Xuan and Dehouxiang were absolutely not added with paprika, which was closer to Cantonese sausages. Chili peppers into the sausage, initially the idea of the farmer (more or less to make the sausage more under the consideration of rice), and then gradually introduced to the market, with the "Sichuan flavor" and "broad taste" points, after cooking the red skin transparent sausage, is only in recent decades. Liao Zelin named the brine "onion roast" is not nonsense, he believes that onions have a ventilating effect, cooking food plus a bunch of onions can be more flavorful, doubly fragrant. At that time, the traditional brine raw materials were salt, soybean oil, star anise, san nai, fennel, peppercorns, etc., Liao Zelin felt that this recipe was salty and dry, the spice smell was pungent, and there was a bitter aftertaste after eating, after repeated experiments, san nai, fennel, replaced by sugar, shao wine, lees, fragrant mushrooms and green onions, so that the brine was warm and not dry, mellow and luscious, which was a pioneering achievement.
In the 1960 lecture notes on technical training in the catering industry, sausages with paprika (more peppercorns) were called "home-cooked sausages"
De Houxiang's business soon overshadowed Chang hexuan, and in 1924, Liao Zelin successively opened two stores in Zongfu Street and Qian paper Lane.
After the prosperity of Dehouxiang, it attracted many people to enter the pickled brine industry. In 1925, Liao Zelin initiated the establishment of the Pickle Gang and served as the first gang leader.
At that time, the catering industry in Chengdu was divided into different gangs according to the type of business, such as the Yan Steaming Gang, the Rice Food Gang, the Pasta Gang and the Pickling Gang. The Yan Steaming Gang mainly operates the Bao Xi Hall and the South Hall, which undertakes feasts and technology, and focuses on the high-end market; the Rice Gang covers all kinds of stir-fried restaurants, casual restaurants and bean blossom restaurants, which are the main battlefields of mass consumption; the Noodle Gang brings together a variety of noodle copyists, steamed buns and bread practitioners; the Pickled Brine Gang specializes in pickled products, halogen products and smoked products. There is an unwritten rule between the gangs: you can't rob each other's business. We all coexist peacefully and seek common development. Soon after the establishment of the Pickle Gang, it was discovered that there were people who opened restaurants secretly selling sausages, which was not obviously a business grab?! So the two factions fought a lawsuit and asked the guild to rule. Liao Zelin negotiated on behalf of the Pickle Gang, and in the end the Pickle Gang won, but did not kill the Rice Gang. The two sides reached an agreement: if the Rice Gang wants to sell sausages, it is not impossible, but it can only sell cooked ones; in order to facilitate identification, the sausages made by the Rice Gang must be longer than those of the Pickled Brine Gang, indicating that the product is not made by professional sausages. This was later known as the "raw and cooked dispute" and "length dispute" of sausages.
After the establishment of the Pickle Gang, Mou Maolin, an apprentice of the master, left Dehouxiang and founded the "Sūn City" (the "Pan Catering Market" in many of Today's Chengdu population) opposite the Yuelai Tea Garden on Huaxing Street. Yuelai Tea Garden is the birthplace of the "Three Celebrations", sichuan opera performances are second to none, full of people every day, and there are many tourists in Huaxing Street. Leng Yuanfeng specified that the theater code list and the glass board in front of the stage should be published with advertisements for Pan Piao City, and soon, the business of Pan Pi City overwhelmed De HouXiang.
The original appearance of the stage in the Republic of China period of Yuelai Tea Garden
In 1930, Long Chengxiang and Zheng Shuyun, who originally set up a roasted wax stall on East Avenue, jointly opened a "fragrant flavor" pickled brine shop, with one façade selling pickled brine products and one facade selling rice, and the first business model of "pickled brine + rice shop". Over time, pickled brine has gradually become one of the common cold dishes in Sichuan restaurants. To this day, Sichuan restaurants in Beijing serve Sichuan sausages, bacon, marinades all year round...
Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant by Min Min
In 1928, Liao Zelin died, and on his deathbed, he told his apprentice Liu Dachuan to temporarily help take care of the business. In 1933, Liao Zelin's son Liao Jixian became an adult and took over the business. Liu Dachuan, Xu Yuwen and Liu Zhikang brothers jointly invested 300 yuan in silver yuan to open a Libin feast cured meat shop at No. 60 Shangnan Avenue. On July 7, 1937, the Anti-Japanese War broke out, and the three of them each had a family affair, so they made a split: in 1938, all the assets of the three stores in Libin Feast were equivalent to 1,000 silver yuan, and Liu Zhikang received 300 yuan to change his business; Xu Yuwen branched the Libin Feast on Zongfu Street and changed its name to "Libin Feast"; Liu Dachuan divided it into Libin Feast on South Avenue and renamed it "Daji Libin Feast"; and the Houzimen Store Department was closed. In addition, there are Shuncheng Street "Shuanghelong", Beidajin Street "For people", Ancestral Hall Street "Li He sen", etc., all of which are in the same line as Liao Zelin and are different from other families. There are also Gulou Street "Xuanxingxuan", Shaanxi Street "Beautiful and Incorruptible", Dongchenggen Street "Jinpan City"... Before liberation, the number of members of the Chengdu Pickle Gang reached as many as 50 or 60.
Pickled foods are divided into large pieces and small pieces: large pieces such as pig heads, sausages, pig trotters (tail, ears) and offal parts of the pickled brine products; small food is based on the head, feet, wings and tongue, intestines and livers of chickens, ducks and geese, including pig paradise, brain flowers and so on. In addition, there are smoked fish, smoked beef, scalding crispy duck, tangled rabbit, winter legs, Yuanbao chicken... At that time, after buying the brine, the chicken and duck were cut into pieces, and the pork was cut into shiny thin slices, and the packaging was all made of lotus leaves, and some brine was poured before the package. After the buyer received the goods, he sniffed it with his nose and left the shop with a smile. "Yu Ji" was closed in the 1950s, "Da Ji" inherited the tradition of DehouXiang and developed, famous foods such as duck cake, gold and silver gizzard liver, winter legs, woolly chicken, etc., at the beginning of this century due to urban construction and demolition closed. Old-school pickle shops are either because of changes in the world, or there is no successor, and now there is nowhere to be found.
Chengdu's old life sighed from time to time, when I was a child, I wanted to eat and couldn't afford to buy, and then I had money and couldn't buy it...