I remember that in the late 90s, there was a distillery at the end of the old street where I grew up, and every time around 2 p.m., the strong smell of lees spread throughout the streets and alleys, and the sour nose was flushed. At about 5 o'clock, the lees piled up in the open space slowly cooled, and an old scalper hung on a broken board, pulling basket after basket of debris, not knowing where to transport it.
That lees, is the residue after the distillation of sorghum, sorghum energy has been fermented by the distillery to extract alcohol, the rest is only protein nutrition, protein content of about 10-20%, after processing to feed livestock, is a good thing.
Pushing forward a few times, at that time, sorghum was a staple food on the table of the Chinese people, and Zhang Yimou's "Red Sorghum" was the story that occurred in the 1930s, and red sorghum became a "synonym" for the poor era.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > poor memory, scarce and broad</h1>
The history of the development of sorghum is the history of the development of human civilization.
More than 2 million years ago, early humans migrated around the earth in an attempt to conquer the great rivers, surviving in the wilderness and drawing the power of nature in the wilderness. At that time, sorghum was still a weed that could be seen everywhere on the roadside.
One day, primitive humans discovered that the spikes produced by this weed could actually fill the hunger and stomach. As a result, like other species, sorghum was collected, domesticated and bred by primitive humans and became an important crop in the "five grains" of the Chinese nation. After thousands of years of evolution, continuity, and finally evolved into what it is today.
According to the available data, the origin of sorghum is ancient Ethiopia in today's East Africa, a plateau known as the roof of Africa, whether it is temperature or rainfall, it is in line with the growth of sorghum.
After being domesticated, sorghum began to spread rapidly in both east and west directions, and about 2800 years ago, sorghum reached India from the coast of East Africa with a fleet of ships later called Arab merchants; soon after, it entered China.
950 years ago, Chinese farmers noticed in their fields the uniqueness of sorghum, an herbaceous plant that is resistant to floods, drought, salinity and alkali, and barrenness. Where there is sunshine, it can thrive. In the poor war years, the fruit of this plant became a magic weapon for Chinese to fight hunger.
In just one hundred years, sorghum has spread widely in northern China and is firmly rooted. By the Yuan Dynasty, sorghum became the staple food on the rural table, continuing until the 1950s and 1960s.
Lu Yao's "Ordinary World" wrote:
"Is Sun Shaoping's steamed bun made of chocolate?"
"That's made of sorghum!"
"Is sorghum delicious?"
The first dish of each class is only served in a small basin, and it seems that there are few students who can afford to eat meat dishes. Ice dishes are also served in a small washbasin, indicating that there are not many people who eat this inferior meal. Only the B dishes are served in porcelain bigfoot basins, the sea is long, and obviously most people eat this dish that is neither extravagant nor shabby.
Staple foods are also divided into three classes: white bread, corn noodle steamed bun, sorghum noodle bun; white, yellow, black, the color indicates a difference; students jokingly called Europe, Asia, Africa.
Around the 1960s, life was particularly difficult, and the people at that time planned to use not enough grain to eat, so they could only exchange white noodles for sorghum noodles, and the yield of sorghum was indeed higher than that of crops such as white noodles. Hybrid sorghum is drought-tolerant and flood-tolerant, with a yield of up to 800-1000 catties per mu.
People who have eaten sorghum know that although sorghum has a high yield, protein and sugar content, but the shortcomings are also particularly obvious, its lack of lysine and tryptophan, starch and protein have a strong binding chain, making salivary amylase difficult to decompose, which is the so-called difficult to digest.
We see that the sorghum bun is black because the anthocyanins in the sorghum are heavier, contain more tannins, have a bitter taste, and are difficult to swallow. That stuff is really unpalatable, coupled with no oil and water and stomach, it is easy to cause indigestion, constipation and other problems.
But in the famine years, it is enough to be full, and even if you can take care of the taste.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" > south sorghum, north sorghum, all of different values</h1>
The growth characteristics of sorghum determine its regional planting area, and the early sorghum mainly grew in the barren north of China, and its planting area was as high as 85%-90%. With long-term natural selection, as well as artificial selection, sorghum gradually took root in the south.
Sorghum in different regions, just like people in different places, has different water and soil, and has its own disposition.
Sorghum in the south is mostly waxy sorghum, which is a high-quality raw material for winemaking; in the north, most of the sorghum is sorghum, which is mainly edible and feed.
The sorghum starch in the south is high, easy to ferment, the ratio of various substances is just right, and the microbial fermentation produces incense smoothly, which can promote the production of various aromatic substances. The resulting wine is sweet, strong but not spicy, sweet and soft, far better than other grain wines.
The reason why the aroma of sorghum is that sorghum also contains an appropriate amount of tannins, and the appropriate amount of tannins has a certain inhibitory effect on harmful microorganisms in the fermentation process, which can improve the wine yield. Tannins can also produce aromatic substances such as syringic acid and pericaldehyde, and can also increase the aromatic flavor of liquor. Therefore, sorghum is indeed an excellent raw material for winemaking.
From ancient times to the present, there has been a saying that "good wine cannot be separated from red grain", and we Chinese people have used sorghum to make wine for more than 700 years.
Famous At home and abroad, Guizhou Moutai, Sichuan Jiannanchun, Luzhou Laojiao, Wuliangye, Shanxi Fenjiu and other famous wines are all made of sorghum as the main ingredient or condiment, a large number of sorghum winemaking belongs to China's characteristics, in foreign wines the use of sorghum to make wine is not much, such as vodka raw materials are grain or potatoes; whisky raw materials are generally barley, oats, wheat, etc., brandy raw materials are mainly grape-based fruits.
After a long history test, Chinese still prefer to drink liquor made from sorghum. The choice of sorghum varieties is actually the reason for the different quality of the wine, such as the red tassel glutinous sorghum in Maotai Town, the red tamarind sorghum particles are solid, full and uniform, the grain is thick, and the amylopectin content is as high as 90%.
Sorghum is a gift of nature, the use of sorghum winemaking, is the crystallization of people's wisdom, and sauce wine is to play the characteristics of sorghum wine to the extreme, the complexity of the process is the most liquor, the long production cycle is also the most liquor.
And then there's the sorghum in the north.
Only a few varieties of sorghum in the northeast have a good taste, the product is very low, and most varieties are difficult to swallow. For example, Jidong planted sorghum in a large area before the mid-1980s, and the sorghum seed yield at the beginning was high, but it was not delicious, and the red rice and red soup did not go to the mouth.
Later, other species were introduced for hybridization, and the fruit produced became better, and white rice soup and yellow rice soup could be boiled. However, with the development of society, after the contract was contracted to the household, there was no place to make seeds, and later the seed company no longer operated sorghum seeds, and the hybrid sorghum was extinct, and the people began to breed rice and wheat on a large scale, and they should eat another staple food.
Sorghum in the northeast twenty years ago is still planted in large areas, the yield is very high, but after the sorghum matures, it is easier to attract birds and finches, and now birds and finches have become internationally protected animals, and they are not allowed to be caught, so farmers have gradually abandoned sorghum planting.
Some sorghum fields can still be seen in the north, mainly for raising livestock, and their poles are relatively sweet, comparable to sugar cane, and can be processed into strip brooms after the panicle is finished.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="43" > learn to distinguish sorghum in order to be effectively eaten</h1>
Sorghum is divided into red and white according to color; red is also called wine sorghum, which is mainly used for winemaking, and white is used for eating, and the sex is warm and sweet. The red sorghum grains are large, and the yellow and white ones are solid.
Among them, the sexual sticky can be used as bait with glutinous rice; the non-sticky ones can be used as cake and porridge. And the chaff of sorghum, soaked in water and red, can be used as a pigment for brewing red wine. The bran bark of sorghum contains a large amount of tannic acid and tannic acid protein, so it has a good astringent and hemostatic effect.
Among cereals, sorghum has the lowest content of lysine in protein, so the quality of protein is also the worst; sorghum does not have as much niacin as corn, but it can be absorbed by the human body, so areas where sorghum is the main food rarely occurs "leper disease".
In addition, sorghum rice contains tannins, which have the effect of astringent and solidification, and patients with chronic diarrhea often eat sorghum rice porridge, which has obvious curative effect.
【Dietary Note】
1. Sorghum rice must be cooked, sorghum rice can be made into dry rice, porridge, and can also be ground to make cake balls, cakes and so on.
2. Folk commonly used sorghum rice, sugarcane juice four parts, together into the pot to cook into sorghum sugarcane porridge, has the effect of vitality, for the elderly phlegm hot cough, dry mouth, saliva mucus saliva has a therapeutic effect.
3. Sorghum rice or milled flour cooked food, has the effect of strengthening the spleen and stomach, filling the muscles and nourishing the body, boiling porridge nourishment, for the spleen deficiency and wet people to eat.
4. It is not advisable to eat sorghum rice or leftover sorghum rice after heating, and it is not advisable to add alkali to cook.