When it comes to food, many people will unconsciously drool - soup tumbling, spicy and fragrant hot pot;
Slightly browned roast meat with spilled oil juice; cake full of fruit and layers of cream;
Crimson soup, Q-bouncy beef noodles... The list goes on and on.
"The people take food as the sky", diet is a necessity of life that Chinese can or is missing in life.
The many literati and inkers in Chinese history, the pursuit of food is no less than the enthusiasm for academics, they not only love food, but also use words to outline a gourmet feast.
The author of this book, mr. Liang Shiqiu, a master of literature, was born in the Shuxiang Family in Beijing, and his grandfather Guan Zhi Sipin, who is also the majority shareholder of Beijing Houdefu Restaurant, has experienced a lot of catering things since he was a child.
But Liang Shiqiu is not a rich child who only enjoys, he has experienced war and chaos, and he has been happy with his friends; he went to the United States to study, but refused to accept a green card; after settling in Taiwan, he has always been concerned about the motherland.
Liang Shiqiu has been away from his motherland for more than 30 years and has written many homesick poems and essays, including this book "Yashe Talks About Eating".
Therefore, this book is not only a food treasure book, but also reflects the attitude of the literati of the Republic of China to life and the author's nostalgia for his hometown.
First, ordinary ingredients also have their own taste
When it comes to eating, choosing ingredients is key.
The author believes that eating is an attitude, the ingredients are not expensive, and ordinary ingredients can also make authentic delicacies.
For example, in the article "Eggplant", the author talked about the thin and long eggplant in the south, because there is too much moisture to make the desired taste.
The eggplant in the north is spherical, limited by geographical conditions, with less moisture and a solid texture.
There are many methods of eggplant: boiled eggplant, cold mixed eggplant, fried eggplant box, eggplant fried sauce noodles, but "roasted eggplant" is necessary to use northern eggplant.
Let's talk about the method steps of this dish, and friends who like to make food here should start to write it down:
Cut the eggplant with skin into one-inch long pieces, make crisscrossing knife marks in a place where there is no skin, the finer the better, and then fry in the pan.
Because the eggplant absorbs oil, remember to put more oil and fry until the eggplant is slightly yellow and fished out.
Leave a little oil, a little tenderloin shredded under the pan, then add the fried eggplant and stir-fry, add soy sauce and quickly serve on the plate, sprinkle with a lot of minced garlic, remember to mix it in the rice and eat it together, the taste is very sweet.
Also in "Vegetable Packets", Liang Shiqiu talked about the Chinese cabbage belonging to North China, and the Chinese cabbage in North China belongs to Shandong, and there are many methods:
Stir-fried cabbage shreds, boiled cabbage, pickled cabbage, anyway, how to make delicious, and the author's favorite is the vegetable bun.
You need to pick the larger cabbage and tear it open slowly until the last cabbage is left, and the cabbage gang is removed, leaving only the leaves to make a circular shape, wash and set aside.
The point is: prepare a small bowl of garlic paste mixed sauce; sauté a plate of hemp tofu, which is the residue left over from mung bean vermicelli; cut a plate of small belly cubes; fried tofu pine, tofu pine is to fry the tofu; stir-fried cabbage shreds, fried rotten.
Spread the garlic sauce evenly over the leaves, then serve a bowl of rice, mix the tofu, the belly, the tofu pine, and the stir-fried cabbage shreds together in a bowl.
After that, take an appropriate amount of mixed rice and put it in the vegetable leaves, wrap it up and hold it with both hands, and bite it in a big mouthful.
According to the author's recollection, every time he ate it, he had sauce and grains of rice on his face, and still couldn't stop one by one.
Later, he heard a flag man say that this cabbage was eaten by the Manchus, because it was convenient to take out the leaves of the cabbage and eat it during the march, which was praised by everyone. And the author has also used this dish to entertain guests many times, and those who have eaten it are all full of praise.
Second, we can see people's attitude towards life from eating photos
Mr. Liang Shiqiu said that hunger is a physiological need, people eat because of hunger, eating is the embodiment of good appetite and good health.
The author believes that people's attitude towards life can be felt from eating, and some truths can be realized from cooking.
For example, in the article "Tofu", talking about the importance of tofu for Chinese, it is mentioned that a "big book" can be written about tofu, and the author talks about several favorite tofu methods:
Tofu mixed with tofu, chicken planed tofu, pot tofu, oyster sauce tofu, Luohan tofu, old tofu, frozen tofu.
When talking about the popular frozen tofu, the author recalls that seeing the toiling people in the north, holding a pot helmet in one hand and a large bowl of frozen tofu vermicelli in the other, boiling cabbage, eating a sigh and purr, making the author sincerely feel the happiness of his self-actualization.
In addition, in "Eating Phases", the author mentions a vivid event - that is, in a snack bar in Beijing, a driver who came in to catch a car, holding a piece of pork and a pinch of leeks, asked for a pound of flapjacks and a bowl of stew.
When the two loaves and meat were served together, the coachman divided the dish into two portions, one for each pie, rolled up a pie thicker than a fist, opened his mouth, one on the left, one on the right, one in the middle, and in a few moments he was accompanied by two large burps, and they were all finished.
Another time, the author saw a group of stonemasons in his residence in Qingdao, someone came to deliver food during the noon break, opened the cage drawer, which was steaming steamed dumplings, the stonemasons just clapped their palms and picked up and bit, and together they brought a bucket of boiling water, and there was a scoop floating on the surface of the water, and they scooped water around the bucket to eat.
And that's not all, there came the vendor with the green onion, each one as thick as sugar cane, and the stonemasons each held an onion in their hands, just like eating fruit after a meal.
Liang Shiqiu said that these two scenes cannot be forgotten for a long time because these people are self-reliant working people, they are open-minded, they eat when they are hungry, and for them to fill their stomachs is happiness.
In "The Revelation of Radish Soup", the author just arrived in Chongqing during the War of Resistance, had the opportunity to go to a friend's house to eat, and a large bowl of ribs radish soup came up during the banquet, the ribs were crisp, the radish was soft, and the soup was thick and fragrant.
When someone asked for the secret, the owner was reluctant to tell. Suddenly, a friend broke the siege and said: "Put more ribs, add less radish, add less water", which caused the hall to laugh.
Later, the author really tried it once. The best ribs were selected, the radish was cut thin and moderate, the heat should be more exquisite, and simmered slowly for a long time.
As a result, quite successful. Since then, my friend's rib radish soup is no longer unique.
The author thus thinks of the truth of making an article: it is not an easy task to write a text that is loud and clear.
But to make the article have something to say, not to make people feel dull and tasteless, this secret is the same as "less radish in the soup and less water", that is, less nonsense.
Third, food can not only fill the stomach, but also heal people's hearts
Mr. Liang Shiqiu is known as a generation of literary masters in Taiwan, and after he left the mainland, he wrote a large number of nostalgic essays.
For the author, food can not only fill his stomach, but also his thoughts and nostalgia for his friends.
In "Yashe Talks About Eating", the taste of childhood and the snacks of his hometown have become his thoughts about his homeland.
In the article "Lion's Head", the author's classmate Mr. Wang Huacheng once taught him to make this dish, select seven points thin and three fat tender pork, can not have fascia, can not cut crooked, can not be chopped into mud, the secret is cut into cubes, and the more broken the better, and finally can be slightly chopped.
Do not add mustard powder to the meat, otherwise it is not easy to form, this step is very important. The mustard powder should be smeared in the hand, and then the minced meat is lumped into four balls, so that there is naturally a layer of mustard powder on the outside, but there is no powder on the inside. Press the balls flattened and fry them in the pan, with a slight yellowish surface.
Don't think that's okay, the following is the highlight, steaming. Put a layer of winter shoots at the bottom of the bowl, and if you don't have one, you can cut a few yellow buds and white slices.
Gently place the fried balls in a bowl and steam over high heat for more than an hour. After opening the pot, skim off the oil in the bowl, and you can't see a drop of oil in the bowl.
Note that steamed lion's head cannot be clamped with chopsticks, but with a spoon, because it is as tender as tofu. The meat should be added with onion and ginger juice and salt, and if you want to add other ingredients, you can like it yourself, and of course, you must also chop it.
"Lion's head is an important color in the Yashe recipe", at that time, the author's colleague Mr. Xiao Yiwu was the most able to appreciate this dish, and he always danced with his eyebrows when eating.
When he first learned English, he called the lion's head "Laiyang Kelp", and Mr. Xiao Yiwu had been dead for many years, and the author would be infinitely sad whenever he thought about it.
In the article "Ham", it is said that when I ate ham once in Shanghai, the clerk cut the ham into thin slices, the lean meat seemed to be flame, the fat meat seemed transparent, and it was very delicious to accompany the wine and rice, so that the author's memories are full of the afterscent of the time.
When the author recalls studying in the United States, he can only use "Virginia ham" to relieve his hunger, its color, aroma, and taste are slightly similar to Jinhua ham, in the author's words, "it is better to talk about this than nothing."
The author was once told that there was a knack for boiling the whole ham.
Soaking the whole ham in water for more than three days, changing the water twice a day, then scraping off the oil stains on the surface, and then digging out the bones with a chisel is a difficult step.
Then tie tightly with hemp rope, cook on high heat for 20 minutes, then cook on low heat for two hours, then bring to a boil on high heat, and then serve after cooling.
The author believes that such a complex process is better to buy and eat.
There are also interesting facts about ham that are mentioned in the article.
When Liang Shiqiu was old, he got a Jinhua ham, went to the shop he knew and asked the boss to help cut it, when it was cut in half, the boss froze and exclaimed, This is the authentic Jinhua ham.
Because he had not smelled this smell for decades, the boss loved it and asked to give him the tip of the claw, and the author even gave him the hoofed claw, and the boss happily said that he wanted to take it home and stew a pot of soup to eat.
In "Croquettes", the author mentioned that he was young at the time, did not know too many delicacies, and loved small croquettes at that time.
The meat is chopped very loosely, and then fried to the outside and tender on the inside, the entrance is particularly crisp, and the balls are preceded by a "small" word, not for no reason, because it is not easy to fry through the big, even if it is fried, it will be fried.
The author recalls an interesting incident when he was a child, when several children in the family snuggled up to their mothers and chatted, and the youngest brother suddenly asked: "Mom, how much does a small croquette cost?" ”
Everyone laughed, but the mother was distressed by the child, and immediately asked the maid to go to the Tonghe Hall in the alley to buy a plate of small croquettes and come back.
Several children ate so satisfied that even if they recalled it more than seventy years later, they could not forget the taste of the small plate of croquettes.
Ordinary ingredients can make irresistible food, the author from the food of ordinary people to insight into people's attitude to life, the memories of unforgettable food pinned on the nostalgia of the hometown.
A year before Mr. Liang Shiqiu's death, Zeng Shu gave a friend a poem by Du Fu:
Jiang Hansi returned to the guests, and Qiankun was a corrupt Confucian.
The clouds are far apart, and the moon is lonely forever.
The sunset is still strong, and the autumn wind is sick.
Old horses in ancient times do not have to take long distances.
However, what can't go back is not only the years of old age, but also the taste of hometown in the memory and the spring and autumn of the motherland...