The origin and development of Fujian cuisine is inseparable from local natural resources. Cooking raw materials are the material basis of cooking and the guarantee of cooking quality. In the play of cooking role, the generation of cooking effects and the realization of cooking purposes, cooking raw materials play a key role. Fujian is located in the southeast corner of China, surrounded by mountains and seas, with a mild climate and abundant rainfall all year round. Its mountainous areas are lined with trees, green bamboo, streams and rivers, and the coastal areas have long coastlines and vast shallow beaches.
The geographical conditions are superior, and the mountains and treasures are rich in seafood, which provides unique culinary resources for the Fujian cuisine system. The local industrious ancestors, in the long practice of life, created, bred and gathered colorful cooking ingredients for future generations, and rice, sugar cane vegetables, melons and fruits are abundant here, especially longan, lychee, citrus and other good fruits are famous at home and abroad. The mountain forest stream has a famous tea, shiitake mushroom, bamboo shoot, lotus seed, coix kernel rice, as well as chamois, pheasant, partridge, river eel, stone scales and other mountain delicacies, while the coastal areas are rich in fish, shrimp, snails, mussels and other marine products, all year round.
According to Ming Tu Benjun's "Records of Seafood in Minzhong", there are as many as 257 kinds of scales and introductions. There are more than 750 kinds of statistics of modern experts. The "Fujian Tongzhi" compiled by the Qing Dynasty has records of "the raoness of tea shoots and mountain wood all over the world" and "fish salt mirages and clams are rich in green Qi". Fujian is not only commonly used in cooking raw materials rich and colorful, but also the special raw materials are also widely distributed: Xiamen grouper, Changle Zhanggang sea mussels, Jianning lotus seeds, Liancheng sweet potato dried, Shanghang radish dried, Yongding dried vegetables, Wuping dried pig bile, Ninghua dried rats, Mingxi dried meat, Changting bean house dried, etc., with a wide variety of varieties, different flavors, and enjoy a high reputation. These rich specialties provide the people of Fujian with unique culinary resources and lay a material foundation for the formation of famous dishes of Fujian cuisine.
Min cuisine, one of the eight major cuisines in China, has gradually formed through the mixing and exchange of Han culture in the Central Plains and the local ancient Yue culture. According to the Neolithic pottery pottery and connecting stove used by the Fujian ancestors in the Neolithic ruins of Tanshi Mountain in Hengxin Village, Sugarcane Town, Minhou County, it is proved that the Fuzhou area had entered the cooking era from grilling 500 years ago. Fujian is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese in China, and the new varieties of food and some novel condiments introduced by overseas Chinese abroad have also had a non-negligible impact on enriching Fujian's food culture and enriching the content of the Fujian cuisine system. After long-term exchanges with overseas people, especially the people of the Nanyang Islands, the overseas food customs have gradually penetrated into the food life of the Fujian people, so that Fujian cuisine has become a unique cuisine with open characteristics.
The origin and development of Fujian cuisine is inseparable from local natural resources. Cooking raw materials are the material basis of cooking and the guarantee of cooking quality. In the play of cooking role, the generation of cooking effects and the realization of cooking purposes, cooking raw materials play a key role. Fujian is located in the subtropics, with a mild climate and abundant rainfall, and the four seasons are like spring. The local industrious ancestors, in the long practice of life, created, bred and gathered colorful cooking raw materials for future generations: here are the vast sea areas, long shoal bays, winter is not cold, summer is not hot, light transmittance is good, sea pressure is not large; Minjiang, Jiulongjiang, Jinjiang, Mulan Creek and other rivers and rivers bring rich bait, water quality is fertile, plus it is the confluence of the Taiwan Warm Current and the Beibu Gulf Cold Current, becoming a good place for fish to gather, fish, shrimp, snails, mussels, oysters and other seafood products are endless all year round. According to Ming Tu Benjun's "Records of Seafood in Minzhong", there are as many as 257 kinds of scales and introductions.
In the early Qing Dynasty Zhou Lianggong's "Min Xiaoji", there are many articles about the seafood of Fujian, and believe that "Xi Shi tongue is a divine product, and Jiang Yaozhu is an yipin". The vast Jiangnan Plain is rich in rice, vegetables, flowers and fruits, especially citrus, lychee, longan, olive, banana and pineapple and other good fruits are famous at home and abroad. The vast mountains and streams are rich in mountain treasures and wild game, and there are famous mountain treasures such as tea, shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, lotus seeds, barley and white fungus.
Fujian is not only commonly used in cooking raw materials rich and colorful, but also the special raw materials are also widely distributed: Xiamen grouper, Changle Zhanggang sea mussels, Jianning lotus seeds, Liancheng sweet potato dried, Shanghang radish dried, Yongding dried vegetables, Wuping dried pig bile, Ninghua dried rats, Mingxi dried meat, Changting bean house dried, etc., with a wide variety of varieties, different flavors, and enjoy a high reputation. These rich specialties provide the people of Fujian with unique culinary resources and lay a material foundation for the formation of famous dishes of Fujian cuisine.
As early as the "Yongjia Rebellion" during the Two Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, a large number of Central Plains Yiguanshi clans entered Fujian, bringing with them the advanced scientific and technological culture of the Central Plains, mixing and exchanging with the ancient Yue culture of Fujian, and promoting local development. In the late Tang Dynasty, the brothers Wang Zhenzhi of The Gushi of Guangzhou, Henan Province, led troops into Fujian to establish the "State of Min", which played a positive role in promoting the further development and prosperity of Fujian's food culture.
Before the Tang Dynasty, the Central Plains began to use red yeast as a cooking ingredient. Xu Jian's "Beginner's Record" of the Tang Dynasty Yun: "Guazhou red yeast, half of the ginseng, soft and creamy, the entrance is scattered." "After this kind of red yeast was brought into Fujian by the Central Plains immigrants, due to the large number of red yeast, red has become the main color in the culinary aesthetics of Fujian cuisine, and the red sake lees with special flavor has also become a commonly used ingredient in cooking, red rotten fish, red rotten chicken, red rotten meat, etc. are the main dishes of Fujian cuisine, "red yeast cooking" has become Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou have successively traded with foreign countries, four merchants gathered, cultural exchanges are becoming more and more frequent, and overseas skills have also been introduced. On the basis of inheriting traditional skills, Fujian cuisine collects the essence of various dishes, adjusts and changes rough and slippery customs, and gradually evolves towards a fine, light and elegant character, and even develops into a very high-style Fujian cuisine system.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, a number of famous shops with local characteristics and famous chefs with real talents and practical skills emerged in Fujian. At that time, Fujian was an important area for foreign trade, and Fuzhou and Xiamen once had a deformed market boom. In order to meet the needs of bureaucrats, gentry, comprador classes and other high society, Fuzhou appeared "Juchun Garden", "Hui Ru Perch", "Guangyu Lou", "Guests", "Another Day", "Nanxuan", "Le Qionglin", "Quanfu Lou", "Shuangquan" and many other famous restaurants appeared in Xiamen. These restaurants are either known for their Manchu han seats, or are known for their official cuisine, or have a reputation for local flavors, which promotes the formation and continuous improvement of local flavors. In particular, Fuzhou's "Juchun Garden" has experienced vicissitudes and has been prosperous for a hundred years; Xiamen's "Nanxuan" has been full of ups and downs and has not faded for eighty years.
They have a strong team of chefs, outstanding business characteristics, flexible service forms, novel dishes and famous flavors. Such as "Buddha Jumping Wall", "Chicken Mushroom Golden Silk Shoots", "Three Fresh Braised Sea Cucumbers", "BanZhi Dried Scallops", "Mushroom Soup Broad Belly", "Chicken Silk Bird's Nest", "Lychee Meat", "Shacha Chicken Cubes", etc., are all famous dishes created by them. While creating many famous dishes, these famous restaurants also accompanied the famous Fujian cuisine masters such as Zheng Chunfa, Chen Shuimei, Qiang Zugan, Huang Huiliu, Hu Xizhuang, Yang Simei, Chen Binding, Zhao Xiulu, Zhu Yisong, Yao Kuanyu, Zheng Yuchun, Qiang Mugen, Qiang Ququ and so on.
Fujian cuisine is a combination of local cuisine with different flavors from Fuzhou, Southern Fujian and Western Fujian. Fuzhou cuisine is the mainstream of Fujian cuisine, in addition to prevailing in Fuzhou, it is also widely spread in eastern Fujian, central Fujian and northern Fujian. Its dishes are characterized by refreshing, tender, light and elegant, sweet and sour, and most of the soup dishes. Fuzhou cuisine is good at using red rotten as a ingredient, especially paying attention to the soup, giving people a sense of "hundred soups and hundred flavors" and bad aromas, such as "mushroom soup broad belly", "meat rice fish lips", "chicken silk bird's nest", "chicken soup sea mussels", "fried eel", "light and fresh bamboo clams" and other dishes, all have a strong local color.
Minnan cuisine is found in Xiamen, Jinjiang, Youxi and Taiwan in the east. Its dishes are characterized by fresh alcohol, tenderness, lightness, and is known for paying attention to the material and making good use of spicy, and has unique features in the use of sand tea, mustard, orange juice, medicine, jiaguo, etc., such as "DongYu Dragon Ball", "Steamed After-the-Force Fish", "Stir-fried Sand Tea Beef", "Roasted Hoof Tendon with Onion", "Angelica Beef Brisket", "Jiahe Crispy Chicken" and other dishes, which more prominently reflect the rich food interest of southern Fujian. Fujian western cuisine, popular in the "Hakka" region, its dishes are characterized by fresh, fragrant, mellow, known for cooking mountain rare game, slightly salty, oily, good use of ginger, in the use of spicy condiments are more prominent. For example, "stir-fried ground monkey", "roasted fish white", "oil braised stone scales", "fried flower mushrooms", "honeycomb lotus seeds", "dried golden silk tofu", "unicorn elephant belly", "shabu jiu pin", all clearly reflect the traditional food customs and strong local colors of the mountain village.
The knife work is rigorous and into the fun dishes
Fujian seafood treasures have soft and tough characteristics, and can be effective from non-general shoddy manufacturing, which determines that Fujian kitchen knife workers must have strict rules. Fujian kitchen knife workers have the reputation of shaving flowers like lychees, cutting shreds like hair, and thin as paper. Such as "chicken mushroom golden shoots", as thin as gold wire winter shoot silk, and chicken mushrooms, egg paste into one. When eating, the chicken is fluffy and soft, does not drag oil with water, still has the feeling of bamboo shoots being tender and crisp, fresh and refreshing, and fragrant.
Another example is "stir-fried double crisp", when the chef processes the tip of the belly, he uses the knife method to cut the meat in the belly slice on the horizontal and vertical fine lattice flowers, the knife is fast and rhythmic, the knife falls to the bottom, and the bottom retains only one point of thickness to connect, which is breathtaking. Coupled with the delicate stir-fry, the dishes are both fresh and crisp, and the beauty of the shape makes people pleasing to the eye. In short, the knife work intention of Fujian cuisine is never placed on the flashy shape, but carefully designed for the "taste", without futile fabrication, nor blindly pursuing the gorgeous and colorful appearance.
Most of the soup dishes, the taste is fresh
Soup dishes occupy an absolutely important position in Fujian cuisine, and it is one of the obvious signs that distinguish it from other cuisines. This culinary characteristic is closely related to Fujian's rich seafood resources. From the perspective of cooking and nutrition, the Min people have always closely linked cooking with ensuring freshness, pure taste and nourishment. Among the many cooking methods, soup can best reflect the original taste of the dish.
Therefore, the purpose of "heavy soup" or "no soup" of Fujian cuisine is this. Such as "chicken soup sea mussels", which is a soup with pure and beautiful soup, penetrates into the tender and crisp sea mussels, and the two phases are beautiful, so as to achieve the effect of seeing the soup as clear as water, and the aftertaste of food is endless; it is also such as "milk soup grass", the color is white as milk, the meat is tender and sweet, the taste is sweet and refreshing; and then it is "onion roasted hoof tendon", the juice is thick and fresh, the green onion is fragrant, sweet and delicious. The pure soup adds a delicious rhythm to the flavor of Fujian cuisine.
Flavored bizarrely, lusciously aromatic
Delicious and delicious is the common requirement of people's dishes, and being good at seasoning is one of the characteristics of Fujian cuisine. The seasoning of Fujian cuisine is sweet, sour and light. The formation of this feature is also related to the fact that cooking ingredients are mostly taken from mountain treasures and seafood. Make good use of sugar, remove fishy; skillfully use vinegar, sour and tender; light taste, you can preserve the original taste of raw materials, and sweet but not greasy, sour but not steep, light but not thin, enjoy a reputation.
Fujian cuisine chefs have accumulated rich experience in long-term practice, they according to different raw materials, different knife work and different cooking methods, they insist on accurate feeding, time accuracy, order accuracy, and taste accuracy when seasoning, so that the taste of the dish is rich and colorful, endlessly changing, and constitutes a unique flavor of Fujian cuisine. For example, "light rotten snail slices", "drunken chicken", "braised rabbit", "roasted partridge in eggplant sauce", "bad sauce sea mussels", etc., focusing on the flavor characteristics of freshness, harmony, labor aroma, and non-greasy, it is unique in southern cuisine.
The cooking is delicate and colorful
Fujian cuisine has a variety of cooking methods, not only unique in boiling, stewing, and simmering, but also good at stir-frying, steaming and simmering methods. Fujian cuisine "Ringing Ling meat", pale yellow, crispy texture, slightly sour and sweet, some slightly loud when eating, so called ringing meat; "oil braised stone scales", color oil yellow, tender and sweet, mellow and delicious. These dishes, affectionately known as the flavor of hometown in Fujian people in other places, have become the link that maintains the feelings of hometown, and the so-called "thinking of things because of the wind, homesick because of things", is precisely this truth.
The simmered dishes of Fujian cuisine have a tender and smooth, soft rotten meat aroma, rich and mellow, flavorful, and tempting charm to eat but not greasy. The famous "Buddha Jumping Wall" was the first "Juchun Garden" restaurant in Fuzhou in the late Qing Dynasty, with a history of more than 100 years. The literati's good name of "the incense of the altar is floating around, and the Buddha smells the abandonment of Zen and jumps off the wall", which aptly praises the crown of simmered vegetables , "Buddha jumping off the wall". This famous dish, full of meat aroma and mellow taste, has been a hundred years of overseas tourists flocking to taste this delicious dish as a great pleasure.
In addition, the "raw fried sea mussels" with white tones, harmonious and beautiful, fresh and crisp, and refreshing taste; the "steamed afterli fish" with clear colors, tender and smooth fish, and mellow and fresh taste; the meat is rotten and fresh, the bad aroma hits the nose, the texture is smooth and refreshing, and the sweet and delicious "Jiangzhi sheep"; the color, shape and taste are like lychees, the food is crisp and tender, the sweet and sour is delicious, and the smooth and refreshing "lychee meat" is deeply known for the common taste of domestic and foreign guests.
The vegetarian dishes in Fujian cuisine also have their own unique features. The vegetarian dishes of Nanputuo Temple under the peak of Xiamen's "Five Superpowers Lingxiao" strictly abide by the traditional Buddhist grain rules and regulations, and are good at cooking colorful and colorful and flavorful delicacies with vegan raw materials, which not only give people a blessing, but also give people a beautiful artistic enjoyment.
Such as "Half Moon Shenjiang", "Silk Rain Lonely Cloud", "Snow Gorge Silver Wave", "White Wall Qingyun", "South China Sea Golden Lotus", "Lotus Crispy Sauce" and other famous dishes, the name of the dish not only means appropriately, but also objectively reflects the color, aroma, taste and shape of the dish. It is no wonder that it aroused the infinite emotions of celebrity bachelors, poets and painters, and inscribed books for them. Fujian vegetarian cuisine is famous at home and abroad, and its fragrance is all over the world, attracting tourists from all over the world.
Fujian cuisine charm:
1, Fujian cuisine: represented by Fuzhou cuisine, but also the main body of Fujian cuisine, not only popular in the Fujian-Taiwan area, but also at home and abroad Chinatown can be seen everywhere in the Representative of Fujian cuisine, but also "Fuzhou cuisine is fragrant all over the world, food culture has been passed down through the ages".
Five representative dishes: Buddha jumping off the wall, chicken soup with sea mussels, light rotten snail slices, lychee meat, drunken chicken. Five bowls represent: Tai Chi Taro Paste, Pot Edge Paste, Meatballs, Fish Balls, Flat Meat Swallow.
2. Southern Fujian: Represented by Quanzhou cuisine and Zhangzhou cuisine, it is mainly popular in southern Fujian and Taiwan.
Representatives of Minnan cuisine are seafood, medicinal food and Nanputuo vegetarian cuisine. Minnan cuisine includes local charm snacks, whether it is seafood sea oyster fried, fish balls, green onion snails, soup blood clams, etc., or meat-based roast meat brown, crisp pigeon, beef brisket, fried five nose, etc., or hungry shallots, leek boxes, thin biscuits, noodle paste, etc. all make people salivate and want to eat a lot.