Gastronomy is one of the most fascinating cultures of a place.
Snacks can be described as the "big feelings" in food.
Because snacks are always connected with a period of childhood memories, it is the taste of hometown that wanderers who are away from home.
To cool down today, you may wish to dive into the street shops, find a mouth of hometown feelings, and find a warmth.
In a humble snack bar called "Hainan Kai Kuang" on Jinken Road in Haikou, it sells several kinds of authentic oriental snacks: eight Kai Kuang, shrimp cakes, red fish porridge, oriental fried noodles, etc.
Snacks have become famous, but the small shop is calm and peaceful, and there is a big tree in front of the door, and a table under the tree, as if guarding some kind of faith.
The owner of the small shop, Gao Haifeng, a native of Gangmen Village, Basuo Town, Hainan, returned to Hainan from Guangzhou after 16 years of leaving his hometown to start a second business.
Because of his deep memory of the snacks in his hometown, Gao Haifeng decided to bring the oriental snack culture to Haikou, because he walked through the streets and alleys of Haikou and rarely saw authentic oriental snack bars.
Bada Kai Kueh, known locally as bua, is a well-known snack in the East. In the oriental snack bar, the top snacks are of course eight white rice.
"When I was a child, my grandmother often let me carry white rice and send it to my grandfather who worked on the boat to eat." Gao Haifeng said that white rice is a snack that fishermen will make.
White rice cake is a fresh rice cake made of rice, made of rice milk after three steaming, the third layer of rice milk added to the natural food alkali made of grass and wood ash, forming a golden yellow surface layer, just from the color point of view is very attractive.
Eight white rice, according to legend, originated from fishermen. Fishermen work at sea for a long time, the intensity of work is high, often have no time to cook rice and cook, coupled with the hot and humid sea, often plagued by marine diseases.
It is said that later, a boat family in Gangmen Village used hand-stone grinding to grind out rice milk, steamed out the white layer of rice cake, cut into small pieces, and went to sea for a few days as a meal, which was convenient to eat and could be saved for a short time, and spread for a time, and everyone followed suit, forming a major feature of the fisherman family.
Oriental people eat white rice, sprinkled with a layer of garlic oil, but also with self-brewed sweet vinegar, the sweet vinegar into the white rice, while eating and drinking, sweet and sour.
The sweet vinegar used in the shop was prepared by Gao Haifeng's mother in the east and transported it. Sweet vinegar made from ingredients such as brown sugar water, banana peels, and roasted sweet potatoes is an indispensable combination for eating white rice.
In Gao Haifeng's childhood memories, the old grandmother in the village always carried the burden, from the head of the village to the end of the village, the bua sound together, let people go through the door and go out to bear and eat.
When I was a student, my classmates from the countryside were also tempted to extricate themselves, but they were struggling with living expenses, so they had the interesting story of exchanging rice for white rice brought by their families.
"Half a bowl of rice can be exchanged for a bowl of white rice!" He said.
Oriental shrimp cake is also a major snack.
Different from Lingao's practice of using leeks, the shrimp cakes of the eight institutes are made of green onions and small shrimp, small shrimp are more likely to be fried and crispy, and can be eaten whole without leaving residue, and the combination of shrimp and green onions is the cultural combination of the sea and the earth to form a natural aroma.
Eating shrimp cakes is exquisite, eating in the winter, more atmosphere.
Gao Xiaofeng said that in the era when 1 yuan bought 5 shrimp cakes, when it was freezing cold, after the evening self-study class, students with pocket money on their bodies would flock to the shrimp cake aunt at the school gate.
Everyone around the steaming big oil pot, staring at the oil pot noodles, when the shrimp cake floats out of the oil noodles, everyone can't wait to pick up the shrimp cake, dip the sour sweet and spicy sauce to eat, but also faster than who moves, even if the mouth is hot and smile.
Red fish porridge is also the breakfast of eight fishermen.
The east blows the sea breeze of the Beibu Bay day and night, the red fish is the red fish produced in the Beibu Bay, as a person from Gangmen Village, Gao Haifeng did not eat less red fish porridge.
After drying the red fish, cut into small pieces, put in the porridge when cooking, the fish aroma seeps into the porridge, eat a bowl of hot porridge, the stomach can warm up for half a day.
Hainan people's snacks, regardless of the southeast, northwest, "powder" is indispensable, Gao Haifeng's shop powder pursues taste and characteristics, adhere to two principles:
One is the delicate tendons, handmade powder; the second is that in the side dish of the fried powder, there must be shredded squid, which is the taste of the seaside.
On cold days, his snack bar still serves a variety of flavors of stir-fried ice, which is also Gao Haifeng's favorite snack.
Unlike previous snacks, stir-fried ice is a delicacy that has only emerged in recent decades.
"The fried ice of the eight institutes is also more famous in Hainan Island, and the Orientals eat fried ice earlier." He said that because the east is located in the west of the island, there is a lack of rain and drought and hot weather, and in the 1980s, people began to make fried ice.
Many of the diners who come to eat in oriental snack bars are oriental people in Haikou. "Eight people smell it and come." Gao Haifeng said.
But he believes that the snacks in his hometown are a food culture that has been precipitated for hundreds of years, and there must be a chance to shine, which has also become a driving force, pushing him to stick to this small shop.
"Snacks that have been handed down for hundreds of years will definitely have tenacious vitality." I believe that more and more people will love it. ”
Today, his mother not only taught him to make snacks, but also supported him to stick to the traditional oriental snacks, handmade sweet vinegar with white rice for his shop.
May the world's cuisine be passed down from generation to generation like family affection.
Want to eat? The address is here
No. 34-7 Jinken Road, Longhua District, Haikou City
Source: Late Night Love Newspaper WeChat public account (ID: SYABSIR)
Hainan Daily Hainan Weekly and Late Night Love Newspaper jointly planned
Author: Zhang Huining
Photograph: Zhang Huining
Some of the pictures come from the Haikou Raiders WeChat public account
Duty Director: Zhang Jie
Duty Director: Yuan Feng
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Wanxi, Tang Mimi