The first time I tasted hot dry noodles was in a street shop in my hometown, but the impression was that it was greasy and sticky in my throat, and I couldn't swallow it, and I felt really bad! So much so that before I went to Wuhan, I had already resisted Wuhan's most famous hot dry noodles. It wasn't until I traveled in Wuhan for a month on business that I realized that I was still too arbitrary and almost missed the food that best represented Wuhan - hot dry noodles.
As a city full of dock culture, Wuhan brings together people from all over the world, but the people who first gathered here are all for their livelihood. And these busy people have gradually formed its own unique food culture and food cuisine for the city, which is the most characteristic food culture early on. In Wuhan's premature, most foods contain the characteristics of fast, hot and high calories, and hot dry noodles are even more unique. On the streets of Wuhan in the morning, you can see people everywhere holding a bowl of hot dry noodles, stirring quickly as you walk, and then sending them to the mouth to chew, which is also a unique landscape in Wuhan.
Wuhan's hot-dried noodles were once selected as "China's Top Ten Noodles" in 2013, and the ranking is not low. Originally, hot dry noodles were not called hot dry noodles, but mochi noodles, and it is said that it originated in the early 1930s of the last century, although it was loved and liked by people, but it was not officially renamed hot dry noodles until 1950 when it was registered for industry and commerce. But with the change of the times and the change of people's living environment, hot dry noodles cannot satisfy everyone's taste buds with one taste, so there are various innovative changes and genres.
Nowadays, wuhan's hot dry noodles are roughly divided into three genres: the street and alley school, the Cai Lin Ji school and the Cai family inheritance school, and the Cai family inheritance school is also the only one that maintains the original taste and flavor. In the old hot dry noodle process, a good bowl of hot dry noodles should meet four criteria, namely "well-made, fine slurry, yellow and bright color, complete seasoning", and they also retain the original "little skill" in the process of each ingredient.
The original hot dry noodles, in addition to the alkaline water surface with sesame oil flavor that distinguishes it from other pasta dishes, its sauce is its most unique existence. Among its 10 sauce recipes, tahini and small ground sesame oil are its soul, accompanied by chives, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, chili oil, monosodium glutamate, pepper, cotton sugar and diced carrots, according to the little technique in the old recipe, to restore its original taste. I think this taste must also be the most nostalgic taste of the old Wuhan people.
However, the Cai Lin Ji School, which is also from the Cai Lin Ji with the Cai Family Inheritance School, is different from it, it is like a "tide maker" who keeps up with the times, trying to take off the old school coat at the same time, but also trying to find the hot dry noodles that belong to them and the change of the times. Not only have they thrown away the old-school practice of never using brine, but they are also constantly innovating in sauces, which is probably the different pursuit of gastronomic positioning in different eras.
The remaining street and alley faction, although it does not have the fame of Cai Linji, has achieved the fireworks on the streets of Wuhan. Although the original production methods belonged to the same old school, with the difference in their rooted environment and the different tastes of the masses, they also had their own improved version, serving and warming an area that adapted to their tastes. This should be the local streets of Wuhan, not necessarily the most delicious but the hot dry noodles with the most hometown flavor in everyone's heart.
Therefore, the hot dry noodles in Wuhan are not only one taste. The hot dry noodles that belonged to my taste buds were a nameless shop on Rouge Street, and I still have some nostalgia to this day. So hot dry noodles that belong to your taste buds, have you found it?
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