Source: Wenzhou News Network
After reading the article "FlatHead Brother in the Seafood Industry" in the Wenzhou Daily terroir edition on April 18, I recalled the scene of working and living in Yongqiang for eight years half a century ago, especially the frozen products with unique local flavors such as mullet jelly, huanjing jelly, and borer jelly, which are unforgettable. The cold plate garlic jelly that dominates the Wenzhou feast today originated from Yongqiang.
Speaking of mullet, I think of the small mullet and yellow-eyed mullet in the eastern foothills of Yandang Mountain, my hometown.
In the coastal waters of Yueqing Bay, there are two kinds of mullets, juvenile fish commonly known as small mullet, two fingers as big. A body flattened, slightly narrow and long, silvery-white throughout, the adult fish is only seven or eight centimeters long, about two centimeters wide, and can no longer grow much. The other has a flat head, a rod-shaped bar, a blue back, a silver-gray abdomen, commonly known as a yellow-eyed mullet, and an adult fish weighing up to three or five pounds.
The small mullet has a strange temperament, whenever the tide rises, flocks flock to the tide, follow each other, do not abandon, set off a piece of silver small waves, so commonly known as the tide head fish.
There are many ways to catch tidehead fish, large-scale fishing requires small boats to load a large number of fishing nets or fish curtains, paint on the mud along the river, connect the fishing nets or fish curtains, and form a bow shape, generally up to hundreds of meters. There are two types of fishing nets: high nets and low nets. The fish curtains are shorter, only more than a meter high. When the tide rises and recedes, the small fish and shrimp remain in the fishing net curtain, and they are at hand. When the fish curtain contained hundreds of thousands of small mullet pieces, the inside of the curtain was boiling, and many small mullet jumped up and rushed to the outside of the curtain. The fishermen in the boat used long bamboo poles to desperately slap the surface of the water outside the curtain to prevent the small mullets from sneaking out. After catching once in one place, the net is closed and transferred to another paint head to catch it. The high net also has a fixed interception of a punta, which will not be transferred for several months.
Small catchers of tidehead fish have group fish curtain catfish and individual cut net push fish. The fish curtain is a collective action of six or seven people, and the fish curtain is a bamboo curtain woven with many small bamboo strips, which is about 2 meters long and about one meter high, one for each person. Before entering the water, six or seven fish curtains were connected into a long curtain. Then, the crowd separated from each other, carrying the curtain, the cat waist, lightly stepping into the rising tide, burying the whole body in the water, only the head exposed, only a few small black dots slowly floating on the surface of the sea. Suddenly, small black dots connected into a line secretly moved closer to the tidehead fish glowing with silver light! Close! At a certain distance, everyone stood up at the same time, raised the curtain, and the black dot suddenly turned into a black dragon, rushed to the edge of the painting in unison, and quickly inserted the curtain into the mud paint of the tidehead, and formed a bow-shaped long curtain to catch the tidehead fish. Then, everyone stepped over the fish curtain and happily caught the small fish that were sneaking east and west. After catching it, put it in a horse cage with a barbed whisker on the back. After the little fish touched it, everyone straightened their waists, breathed a sigh of relief, and then pulled up the curtain, and slowly disappeared into the tide, quietly moving forward, waiting for the opportunity to carry out another assault.
The tool for individual work is a large cut-net. Two long bamboo rods, with funnel-shaped fishing nets on the top, the rod head is equipped with smooth and slightly upturned wooden feet for easy pushing on the painted surface, the tail is crossed, connected by rope, and the two bamboo poles are separated freely, separating like a large pair of scissors. While fishing, a man with a closed cut-net, buried his whole body in the rising tide, only his head exposed, slowly moved covertly. When flocks of small mullets are spotted at the head of the tide, they slowly open the large shear nets and quietly approach. Suddenly, standing up from the water, pushing and cutting the net, cutting off the back road of the tidehead fish, and then pushing it to the sea paint, you can easily catch the tidehead fish.
There is also a primitive method of fishing pond capture. In the high tide area of the sea tusks, mud blocks are dug up to form a one-meter-high semi-circular mud dam, the mud is sunken down, and after the high tide, the water is stored into a fish pond, like a small half-moon shaped reservoir. After three or five days of high and low tide, there are fish and shrimp in the small reservoir. Then, open a hole in the middle of the mud dam, lay out the rice sieve or dustpan, and after all the water in the pond is discharged, you can catch fish, shrimp, cockles, etc., and the main prey is still small mullet.
Large yellow-eyed mullet, which is caught in boats and nets, is the profession of fishermen. There is an ancient and simple method of pulling and fishing mullet. In winter, on a small sturdy rope tens of meters long, there are large fish hooks, and the ends are tied to two thick short bamboo poles. When the tide is about to rise, two short bamboo poles are firmly inserted into the riverside sea in the low-tide area. As soon as the tide rises and falls, there will be yellow-eyed mullet hooked by fish hooks.
Mullet is one of the high-quality economic fish, less bone thick meat, tender texture, steamed braised, fried soup, delicious taste, rich nutrition, nourishing body, ancient times for the princes and nobles of one of the high-grade food, there is a "anchovy uncle" known. This is to say that it is as delicious as anchovies. Qing scholar Huang Zhang's "Mullet" poem: "The willow leaves are long at the beginning of the apricot leaves, and the red swift mud fragrance is several times." Over the years, the east sea mullet has to be tasted. ”
For marine fish, yellow croaker is not respected, especially precious mullet, and the mullet and flathead carp and black scale pomfret are listed as the three major fish fresh. The big mullet is the best product for guests to give gifts, new year,The local new son-in-law pays homage to the first year, and there must be a pair of yellow-eyed mullet in the new year's gift box, each weighing two or three pounds, so that it can enter the door of the parents-in-law' house.
Small mullet, soft flesh tender, very delicious, more for fresh food, cheap and good, especially after the frost, the meat is the most delicious, fat and tender, to braised, steamed, fried and made fish jelly is superior, especially even the head of the fish can be eaten. In addition to fresh food, you can also dry mullet. Small mullets are scaled, dissected, offal, washed, salted overnight, and dried the next day in the sun, which can be stored for a long time. Steamed or cooked with bean paste, it is an excellent dish to serve with rice.
In addition, fish roe can be made into caviar. Mullet can also be used medicinally, its flat nature, sweet and salty taste, functional tonic weakness, good for the five organs, good for muscles and bones, healthy spleen and stomach, on indigestion, pediatric chancre, anemia and other diseases have a certain auxiliary effect.
This article is from [Wenzhou News Network] and only represents the author's views. The National Party Media Information Public Platform provides information release and dissemination services.