Whoops
Ye Zi/Wen
delicacies
Once, I was on the phone with a friend from out of town, and at the end of the day, when I invited him to play in the future, I said in passing: "When I came, I invited you to eat." I wanted to end it with this, but I didn't expect him to ask eagerly, "Did it be made by a male duck?" From the questioning, it can be concluded that he is a person who has read Li Yu well. When talking about ducks in "Idle Love", it is said: "The good health of poultry, the male duck is also", Li Yu also chattered that the old duck is cooked badly, and the effect is comparable to astragalus and ginseng.
Leaving aside for the moment whether Li Yu's words are true, such a question is not sudden and reasonable, because just listening to the name, it should be related to the duck. This is the first message left by its pronunciation. In fact, this is a flavor snack in the northern Longshang small city of Gansu Tianshui, "呱呱" is just the name of the dialect, which is just a false rumor to express the meaning of the pot. However, the pot is indeed the essence of the croak.
When I was a child, my mother used to make cold powder for us to eat. Que, is a kind of cold powder, but the raw materials used are buckwheat grits (Tianshui people read the grits character zhen), buckwheat peeled and pulled into ballast grains, when making the buckwheat grits in a bucket soaked for a period of time, after the bubble is soft, put on the case repeatedly and hard kneading, let the starch dilute out - Tianshui has a proverb, "the noodles kneaded by the daughter-in-law, the buckwheat flour that is rubbed does not stick to the case", it is said that the cold powder is rubbed - then, the starch is filtered with gauze, the dregs are removed, and set aside; then, put a large iron pot on the stove and boil a pot of water. Stir the starch slurry well, slowly add boiling water, while adding water while using the noodle stick to quickly stir, at this time you have to use the fire, the inside is fluttering, when the noodle stick does not move, it will be changed to Wenshui, Tianshui people called Steamed Bread, the longer the steamed, the thicker the pot, the more delicious, flexible, smooth. When the color is yellow, stop the fire, get out of the pot, put it into the pot and let it cool, and then eat. Tianshui people often say "a pot of steamed bread to eat", steamed bread, is a slow word, can make people think of the way the fire is rushing. Therefore, the people who do the business of Que Que can't sleep lazily, they can't even sleep well, they have to get up at two or three o'clock in the morning every day, because Que Que is the food of the Tianshui people. By dawn, time will just catch up.
The early breakfast of outsiders is to eat fritters and drink soy milk, and Tianshui people also eat, but not much, more is a bowl of croaking and a small burnt cake. According to common sense, it may be better to eat something light and nutritious in the morning, but Tianshui people start their day by eating a bowl of croaks. Especially the old Tianshui people, eating in the morning is almost thunderous, like me, who is a guest in Tianshui, how much is a bit unaccustomed, because its spicy is really unbearable. The choice of spices is extremely strict, especially the chili noodles must be made of local sweet grain; the oil of the spicy seeds should be donkey oil; how much pepper powder and star anise should be added to the spicy seeds; the sesame sauce should be melted with cooked hot oil, and the garlic paste should be mixed with water.
I've always stubbornly thought that croaking is a kind of food with the meaning of a craftsman. With so many spices, the collocation inside may not be learned. Sure enough, in Tianshui, there are several families' que, there are ancestral secret recipes, not outside, such as the Xiguan family's croak, I don't know how many people often in the cold wind through Qinzhou City, to eat a bowl. Their family has been running for generations, which reminds me of the hustle and bustle of the heavenly waters.
In the last years of the Western Han Dynasty, the world was in chaos, warlords were lined up everywhere, and the Tianshui people Kui Huan also took the opportunity to have heavy troops in the Qinlong area for 11 years. According to legend, when Kui Huan divided Tianshui, his mother, Empress Shuoning, was particularly interested in Que Que and would have a meal every few days. Yu is the imperial court food for the imperial palace. Later, Kui Huan was defeated and exiled to Western Shu, but the imperial cook lived in seclusion in Tianshui, rented a shop in the city, and ran a business. I don't know if this is true. If it is true, it can be imagined that the imperial chef was not easy in those years; if it is a false legend, it can at least show that there is still some history in Tianshui.
Regarding buckwheat, Jia Ming, a foodie of the Yuan Dynasty, has this passage in the "Dietary Instructions":
Buckwheat sweet and cold, spleen and stomach deficiency cold people eat it, great loss of vitality, falling eyebrows. It is difficult to eat a lot, move the atmosphere, and make people dizzy.
Despite this, the Tianshui people have been eating for many years. Besides, I don't think I have to take this seriously, because Tianshui women love to eat and cry, and Tianshui women's hair does not fall out, and they are famous for their beauty. But we should really be, in terms of eating style, there are still some changes. At first, when eating, the stall owner broke a piece from the croak with his hand, then crushed it with his fingers, and then put it into the bowl, but now it is not, and a tool is used instead. The original eating method responded to the old saying of Tianshui people that "it is not dry and clean, and there is no disease when eating", but in recent years, the gradual use of tools is inseparable from the creation of a national civilized tourism city and a national sanitary city in Tianshui.
But I still like to eat and pinch it out by hand.