Zigong: The beef of this small city in southern Sichuan is delicious and delicious, but the "toilet rabbit" that thousands of people are looking for specializes in all kinds of bad-tempered dipping water dishes that are indeed very tender 1 / Salt Capital 2 / Salt Gang Dishes 3 / Beef and Salt / Fire Edge Beef / / Cold Beef / / Hairy Belly Hot Pot /

Author/Guo Xiaohua

Editor-in-Charge/Blue Orange

When it comes to Zigong, everyone's first reaction is to "eat".

Or there is a saying:

Eat in China, the taste is in Sichuan; eat in Sichuan, taste in Zigong.

Saying that Zigong is a foodie paradise is simply not too appropriate!

Walking on Zigong Street, everywhere you see, are "net red" level food, punch card must eat, eat after eating must be powder.

First order three things ha!

<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > "toilet rabbit" with a smell but is sought after by thousands of people</h1>

Don't be intimidated by this indescribable name, you're sure to miss out on a delicious meal.

All those who come to Zigong will go looking for this delicacy hidden in the deep alley.

Why do people go after this dish?

Probably a rabbit made on the spot, coupled with the unique spicy of Zigong, just looking at this full basin can cause the saliva under the tongue to continue.

A chopstick down, well, fresh enough spicy enough to taste!

The trace of guilt that was originally for the rabbit in my heart suddenly turned into a big meal.

Sorry, Bunny!

<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > specializes in all kinds of bad-tempered dipping dishes</h1>

Big temper?

Make a saucer, dip it, take a bite, and you won't have any temper!

The soul of a water-dipped dish is naturally dipped in water:

Fresh chili noodles, drizzled with boiling hot cooked oil, plus secret sea peppers and soybean oil, make the tip of the nose numb.

Let the slices of meat meet in the water, and you will win countless victories in the world!

<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > really tender bridgehead</h1>

Pork liver, pork loin, pork belly, these three things should not only be fried tender and delicious, but also make people feel endlessly evocative, no two brushes can not do.

But anyone who has seen the boss fry three tender, there will be a capital "suit" in his heart.

Flying flower cutting knife work, fast seasoning technique, after the fire is turned upside down, delicious.

Taste it, well, take it!

In Zigong, there are too many such delicacies, such as dry pot rabbit, diving frog, consumable fish, tofu brain gouache, beef Buddha steamer, fireside cow head, jingzhen fruit, and a variety of cold food series, beef alone has more than a dozen methods.

Zigong cuisine has the most authentic taste experience of Sichuan and Chongqing.

But about Zigong, if you only know how to eat, it's too low.

Zigong is not only a paradise for foodies, but also the land of dinosaurs, the city of lanterns, and the holy land of salt culture.

If you don't know it yet, it doesn't matter, today's sister will take everyone to feel it together, covered up under the delicacy with "salty Zigong."

<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1/salt capital</h1>

Zigong, an ancient town full of salt, has survived more than 2,000 years and is still quietly leaning by the Puxi River.

The Puxi River, from which salt boats used to flow into the river

Everything here is marked with salt, and even the names of the streets and alleys exude a strong smell of salt.

Place names such as "Yandian Street", "Yanma Road", "Into Yanba" and so on are all related to the salt transport trade road.

Place names such as "One Heart Stove", "Hexing Stove", "Long Stove Room" and so on are all related to the salt burning stove room.

Zigong Street is also mostly named after a salt well.

According to relevant statistics, there are 214 places that have retained the place name of "well" to this day, and even Zigong is also named after the famous "artesian well" and "gongjing" at that time.

Zigong produced salt, which began in the Eastern Han Dynasty, was famous in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Army built the capital Nanjing, and the transportation of sea salt was blocked, so the Qing government ordered "Sichuan Salt Jichu", which brought opportunities to the rapid development of zigong salt industry, and more than a hundred salt wells were newly dug in Zigong for more than ten years.

In the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the coastal areas fell one after another, the production of sea salt was destroyed, the transportation was blocked, and the Zigong salt industry once again "Sichuan salt Jichu", which solved the problem of Hunan Hubei and other provinces, the people's bitter taste is weak, it can be said that the Zigong salt industry has an indelible great cause in history.

In the past two thousand years, Zigong has dug more than 13,000 salt wells, so in the Sichuan-Chongqing area, there has always been a saying that "Zigong salt wells are as many as hemp sieves".

"The skylight is high, the crane is long, my family lives next to the crane", looking down from the sky, the land of Zigong seems to be full of black holes in the fort.

With the development of the salt industry from traditional craftsmanship to modern craftsmanship, a large number of salt well cranes have gradually withdrawn from the historical stage, and Zigong has also been difficult to hide its decline.

Among the once prosperous crane salt wells, the most famous one is the Shenhai well.

Shenhai Well, the world's first salt well to be excavated to a depth of more than 1,000 meters, is the only traditional well salt workshop preserved in Zigong City today.

Amazingly, it's still working today.

The huge crane slowly turns, the bamboo tube collects the brine under the kilometer, and the brine after removing impurities is boiled in the fire, the water gradually evaporates, and the salt crystals appear one by one.

For thousands of years, Zigong's well salt was produced in this way.

The former Zigong was therefore prosperous, with thousands of merchants gathering, salt boats, and liquor stores, and even the history books recorded:

This place is "Fertile and Fertile", "Too Other Counties", "Merchants and Travels", and "Bang Fu Mi Chong".

Zigong people with superb well sinking technology and rich salt resources, widely opened a new merger, the heyday, the annual output of well salt more than three million quintals, a quarter of the country's salt, are produced here.

This also made the number of salt merchants and salt workers who gathered in Zigong all year round reached about 200,000.

The food cultures of different regions have intersected and merged in this place, and gradually formed a unique style of salt gang cuisine.

Salt gang dish, a sound name is easy to misinterpret, mistakenly think that it is a dish with too much salt.

In fact, the salt pot dish is named because it comes from the Zigong salt well.

Salt dishes make good use of spicy and ginger, fresh chili peppers and dried chili peppers, plus ginger and garlic.

Different spicy tastes, layered and layered, although people are screaming and sweating, they still can't stop.

It is precisely because of the characteristics of "thick flavor and strong flavor, spicy and exciting", Zigong salt gang cuisine (Xiaohe Bang Sichuan cuisine) and Chengdu's official government cuisine (Shanghe Bang Sichuan cuisine) and Chongqing's Jianghu cuisine (Xiahe Bang Sichuan cuisine) are named sichuan cuisine three major cuisines.

One of the important reasons why salt dishes are unique in Sichuan cuisine is its strange way of eating "using its extremes and exhausting its skills".

"Small plate field chicken belly", using hundreds of frogs, take the smallest piece of the tender belly under its abdomen, and fry it with lard.

"Small dish of fried cowpeas" is to hollow out the cowpeas, in a small hollow, pour egg whites and minced meat, and then fry in sesame oil, the process is all complicated and cumbersome.

After the salt merchant's exquisite way of eating, after the American Mark Korlansky saw it, he wrote with trepidation in the book "Salt":

"In China, the more outlandish the ingredients of the dish, the more mysterious the cooking method, the more valuable it is."

"A dish of vegetables for a salt merchant, half a year's grain for salt workers", there was such a saying at that time, which also confirmed the strangeness, weirdness and elegance of salt dishes.

With the change of the times, this strange way of eating has gradually withdrawn from the stage of history, replaced by home-cooked craftsmanship and common ingredients.

Speaking of this, perhaps some people still don't know what kind of dish the salt gang dish is, the upper river gang, the lower river gang, the small river gang, in the end which dish is right for which gang.

But as long as you mention the representative work of salt and vegetables - boiled beef, I am afraid that no one knows, no one knows. The boiled fish that is popular in the country today also evolved from boiled beef.

Many people understand a city, and they start by eating.

To learn about Zigong, start with a plate of boiled beef.

When the first salt well was dug out in Zigong far from the sea, when the first bucket of salt brine was lifted up by the noose of the crane, when the first salt crystals boiled in the salt pot began to condense, when the first servant cow put on the rope and began the heavy labor, the combination of cattle and salt, which was originally unrelated, had a new meaning in Zigong.

The history of the Zigong people cooking beef is almost as old as the well salt of Zigong.

Boiled beef, roast beef, fireside beef...

Beef and salt, a seemingly unrelated pair of ingredients and spices, derive a wonderful flavor from the salt dish.

According to the "Chronicle of Sichuan Fengwu", as one of the representative works of salt dishes, boiled beef was born next to the salt well in Zigong as early as possible.

As early as the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Zigong salt farm used cattle as a power to push the cart to take brine, with the increase of salt wells, the size of the car increased, and the number of cattle was also increasing, so every year a large number of elderly cattle were eliminated, and salt merchants often distributed these beef to the salt workers.

In order to remove the smell of the beef, the saltier uses the chili noodles prepared in advance as the raw material, mixes the spicy soup, and then pours all the slices of meat into it, after a little blanching, drizzle with chili oil, and a delicious dish is prepared.

The newly potted boiled beef is spicy and thick, smooth and delicious, and the aroma is strong, accompanied by a bowl of white rice sweating, and the exhaustion of half a day's work is exhausted.

The slaughtered cattle fed the salt workers in another way.

Since then, beef and salt have spawned a variety of cuisines in Zigong.

<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >/beef/fireside</h1>

One of the most recommended dishes of the Zigong people, no matter who eats it, will be full of praise.

The most difficult knife work is the beef by the fire, which is cut thin without breaking, and can be faintly transparent, then marinated with Zigong well salt, dried by drying, and then baked by beef dung over a low heat.

Cow? Don't get me wrong, beef roasted with beef dung has a natural fragrance that charcoal roasting doesn't have.

Only the fire-edged beef baked with cow dung can be crispy but not spongy, and the lips and teeth remain fragrant. And now it's not so easy to buy authentic beef roasted over the fire.

The bright red, oil-soaked, shiny fireside beef, when viewed across the screen, can make people salivate and have a big appetite.

At first glance at the name, I thought that the hot dish was eaten cold.

In fact, cold eating is a recipe in salt dishes.

Carefully prepared through 12 courses of cooking, the cold beef is characterized by spicy and fresh flavor, the meat is smooth and tender, the mouth is slagged, and the oil is not greasy. One by one, the beef strips are slowly torn and eaten, dry and spicy, and the aftertaste is endless!

And the more you eat, the hotter and hotter you can't stop!

<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >/Mao Belly Hot pot/</h1>

Come to Sichuan, do not eat a hot pot, then do not call to Sichuan, then from the tribute, do not eat a mao belly hot pot, do not call the Zigong.

Mao belly hot pot is also a bit exquisite to eat, hair belly, yellow throat cut a few points thick, and then hot a few points cooked, can be crisp in the mouth, or chewy long.

The base of the soup pot, add how much pepper ginger, eat more fragrant; dry dipping sauce must put some more sea pepper noodles, pepper noodles, fine salt, if you add a piece of tofu milk, add some chives, coriander, eat another taste; finally drizzle with some sesame oil, eat it will not be on fire.

Mao belly hot pot was once the favorite of the working people, because poverty could not afford meat, these cattle that no one wanted were sewn into the water, and became a delicacy for salt workers to beat their teeth.

After constant trial and error, it eventually became a delicacy on the tip of the tongue.

Unconsciously, it was time to eat again.

Zigong is not only the capital of salt, the hometown of dragons, the city of lights, but also the birthplace of tie-dye, Gong fan and paper cutting.

Today's Zigong no longer relies on the development of the salt industry, and well salt has become a taste that remains in the mouths of Zigong people, and a memory in their hearts.

Zigong, which once prospered on well salt, is now looking for a new label.

The land of dinosaurs, the city of colorful lights, tie-dye, Gong fans, paper cuts...

Perhaps in the near future, Zigong will use a new way to once again "substitute salt" for itself.

Resources:

Sohu: Hidden in the "thousand-year-old salt capital" - the paradise of Zigong

Zigong People's Government website

Horse honeycomb: Thousand years of salt capital Zigong

Zhihu: Wang Tiger

Little Red Book: Click, "Do you think walking in self-tribute is enough just by mouth?" 》

Wutongzi: The History of the Zigong Salt Industry