Zou Zhaotao
In the cold of autumn, clusters of osmanthus flowers, bunches of bouquets, golden and dazzling, dazzling and moving, the aroma of the air is intoxicating. As the most affinity seasonal flower, osmanthus plays an important role in the daily life of Chinese.
Accompanied by the rich fragrance of golden autumn, taste the old things of osmanthus flowers in modern Jiangnan.
Suzhou Guangfu Town: C-bit of picking osmanthus flowers
Historically, Suzhou Guangfu Town has been famous for producing fresh fruits and osmanthus flowers in the Yangtze River Delta.
In 1935, a chief writer who had gone deep into Guangfu Town to experience the osmanthus season wrote in the "Suzhou Ming Pao" that interpreted the beautiful scene of the osmanthus season: "As soon as the steamship arrived at the port, the strong aroma had already blown the nasal tubes of people, and when they walked to the countryside, it was the mountains that spread all over the wilderness, a golden yellow."
The fresh fruit industry in Shifu Town is developed, and many female pickers live here, so when the osmanthus season comes, the Guangfu female workers will go up the mountain to pick osmanthus flowers.
On November 3, 2021, Jinhua, Zhejiang, after a night of autumn wind and rain, the osmanthus flowers in the streets and parks of Wucheng were overflowing with fragrance, and the flowers were colorful and full of golden yellow, leaving a unique landscape with a faint fragrance in autumn.
The author vividly recounts this: "The merchants of the Candy and Cake Confectionery Industry in Sudi went to the countryside in autumn to buy osmanthus flowers. The method of picking osmanthus flowers requires the flowers to be picked together with a thin flower handle. Otherwise, the fragrance of osmanthus cannot last and the price cannot be sold. Of course, women also participate in this kind of osmanthus picking, and the daily wage is about five hundred yuan. ”
Yaoshang Village, Guangfu Town, is now a scenic spot for enjoying gui in Suzhou.
The picked osmanthus flowers can be described as a "versatile" food companion.
In February 1937, the Iron Newspaper recommended several New Year's delicacies to its readers. Surprisingly, these carefully selected dim sum recipes invariably use osmanthus raw materials.
The Osmanthus Lantern Festival, which symbolizes sweet reunion in the New Year, needless to say, even the "Yuandou" of the main ingredient of soybeans, and the "fruit tea" boiled from various fruits need osmanthus sugar blessings. Especially "fruit tea", the author emphasizes that "adding white sugar, if you add osmanthus flowers is better".
Osmanthus sugar infographic
Osmanthus makes sugar, sweet tongue, fragrant aroma, is the most basic way to eat osmanthus flowers.
In 1934, Family Weekly introduced the process of making osmanthus candy: "Lay a white cloth on the table, pour the flowers on it, check it with a needle one by one, pick off its stems and debris, and then immerse it in thick salt water, after more than twenty hours, drain the osmanthus flowers out of the shade, mix it with sugar, the sugar must be more than the osmanthus flowers, mix well, and then put it into the pot Chinese cook it, after the sugar is dissolved, it must be quenched."
The exquisite osmanthus sugar is extremely picky about the quality of osmanthus flowers. An essay in the Newspaper Veliko 1937 reminded the reader: "Those who have a focus and white spots on flowers, that is, those who are sufficient in the opening of flowers, are also among those who are discarded."
In the 1930s, he made cartoons of Osmanthus Candy
Hangzhou: Osmanthus candy, the "supporting role" of stealing the scene
When it comes to osmanthus sugar, Hangzhou is a "treasure land" that must not be mentioned.
A hundred years ago, the osmanthus trees in Manjuelong on the south side of the West Lake attracted countless merchants of sweet cakes and cakes from near and far, and the local people reaped a lot of seasonal income. In Hangzhou and other places, the exquisite osmanthus candy is also a wedding candy, nicknamed "daughter sugar", which carries sweet blessings for the newlyweds.
Osmanthus "daughter sugar" is generally boiled by the mother's family in the September laurel season of the year before the daughter leaves the cabinet, and after cooling, it is cut into small pieces and packaged for storage. On the wedding day, the mother-in-law will take out the "daughter sugar" that emits a strong aroma and give it to the son-in-law who comes to marry.
Most of the wedding guests will also eat this mouthful of osmanthus candy, and in 1937, the "News" said that "the new house builders are not enough to break the siege.".
Osmanthus "daughter sugar" is generally boiled by the mother's family in the September laurel season of the year before the daughter leaves the cabinet, and after cooling, it is cut into small pieces and packaged for storage. Infographic
The dim sum made of osmanthus sugar is rich in variety and pleasant in style. On the eve of the Lantern Festival in 1947, the New Times talked about the "eye-catching" effect of osmanthus on glutinous rice balls: "The Lantern in the south has no filling, but after the Lantern is cooked, it is served in a bowl with soup, sprinkled with some osmanthus sugar, and eaten into the mouth, there is another delicacy." Osmanthus sugar can also be used to process taro desserts.
In 1938, Chen Jingquan, a fifth-grade primary school student, published an essay in the "New Declaration", which introduced the use of osmanthus candy: "People should burn sugar taro in the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, add laurel, thick and sweet, and taste better."
Osmanthus sugar taro seedlings
Of course, osmanthus candy is also a perfect match for high-quality rice cakes. In 1936, when the Southeast Daily introduced the rice cake of Shangyu LiangLang (now part of Yuyao, Ningbo), it strongly recommended that readers try to use osmanthus sugar to fry high-quality rice cakes that are "smooth, tough and tender". In 1933, the "Current Affairs News" also found that the use of osmanthus sugar processing rice cakes in Suzhou, Hangzhou and other places actually held the dual expectation of increasing fragrance and preservation: "Its taste is fragrant and sticky, and it can not be slighted for a long time."
Modern gourmets are also keen to cook osmanthus sugar steamed buns and osmanthus sugar lotus.
There are many steps to make osmanthus syrup, but the last journey is the origin of its name: "Put in a half-small bowl of soup to cook lotus, add half a small bowl of sugar, put it on the stove and boil it, immediately put in the honey osmanthus half a cup, and pour the sweet juice in the pot on top of the lotus slices." From this point of view, the osmanthus sugar steamed bun and the osmanthus sugar lotus in the osmanthus sugar lotus are just a touch of embellishment, the result is actually "anti-guest-oriented", has become a dim sum name, I think it is because of the separation of osmanthus candy, these two dim sum will be eclipsed!
Osmanthus sugar lotus
Also from the "antiseptic", it is made of stunning osmanthus delicacies, as well as osmanthus tea that resembles jasmine tea. In November 1932, the old article of the "News Daily" praised the osmanthus tea in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang Province, and described in detail the whole process of local osmanthus tea: "Every year in August and September, when the osmanthus blossoms are in full bloom, the flowers are plucked and cleaned. First, the tea leaves bought from the mountains are roasted once, and after roasting, the osmanthus flowers are mixed inside, and when the tea leaves are cold, they are put in a bottle and sealed tightly."
Wuxi Huishan: Osmanthus chestnuts
Osmanthus chestnut is another famous person in the osmanthus series of cuisine. In 1929, Shanghai's "Little Daily" bluntly said, "Probably thinking of the word 'osmanthus flower', you have to think of chestnuts."
There are two types of osmanthus chestnuts, one is natural, formed by the seeds between osmanthus and chestnut trees, and the other is artificially flavored with osmanthus sugar added to the stir-fried chestnuts.
Natural cinnamon chestnut is relatively rare and worth talking about carefully. In recent history, the most famous source of natural osmanthus chestnuts is Wuxi Huishan, and "Niangniangtangqian" is the "golden signboard" of high-quality guili. In January 1937, the gourmand Wu Nong published an article in the "Iron News" entitled "Huilu Osmanthus Chestnut", which popularized the two criteria for judging whether the guili is delicious or not. The first is whether the chestnuts are tender enough, and the first-class "Niangniangtang front" gui chestnut must choose the raw material of "only more than a bean, and it is indeed the most tender".
The second is that the rich atmosphere of osmanthus flowers should be sufficient. Because the most prominent advantage of guili compared to other chestnuts is "the fragrance of osmanthus flowers", after the entrance, diners will feel "sweet and fragrant, teeth and cheeks remain fragrant".
However, a hundred years ago, it was difficult for ordinary diners to have the opportunity to taste the authentic Huishan Gui chestnut, after all, as the Iron News lamented in 1935, this chestnut was "particularly valuable and not produced much". Also because of its rarity, Huishan Gui chestnut is different from ordinary chestnuts that are cooked and sold, and all that can be seen on the market is mao chestnut. In this regard, an essay in the 1948 Yishi Newspaper has a vivid description: "Only raw chestnuts are sold, but there are no ripe chestnuts to buy, because the production is too scarce to be cooked in the whole pot, and it is often sold." Unfortunately, many historical sources have shown that the "osmanthus chestnut" has disappeared, which makes people regretful.
A hundred years ago, Hangzhou Manjuelong was also planted with chestnut trees in the osmanthus forest, and the southeast daily reporter described the autumn scene as "gui put chestnut ripe, and its taste is deeper." However, compared with Wuxi Huishan, Hangzhou's Guili is probably still owed some fire in fame.
Hangzhou City, West Lake District Full of Gui Gui Rain Appreciation.
Osmanthus flowers are full of affection, not only to eat
Osmanthus cuisine is a prosperous industry in modern China. The osmanthus plum preserved by Shanghai GuanshengYuan, the osmanthus fen wine brewed in Shanxi, the osmanthus red bean porridge sold by Nanjing vendors along the street, and the large bowl of osmanthus wine developed by the "new long hair" business in Changzhou, regardless of the size of the osmanthus blessing, the list goes on.
In September 1935, the Current Affairs News recorded the elegant spectacle of the old Shanghai snapping up osmanthus flowers: "Pudong people, Xujiahui people, Longhua people, there are osmanthus trees at home, after opening, they will pick and sell in Shanghai." Shanghainese people saw the osmanthus flowers, how happy, a few copper plates a small twig, two corners of the small ocean a large branch, everyone scrambled to buy. ”
Shanghai Guilin Park osmanthus Xuhui green cityscape map
The farmer's osmanthus flowers are varietyed on the wall of the courtyard, so the osmanthus is also the navigation mark of the home.
In the autumn of 1932, the scholar Nie Shiqi's essay "Osmanthus Season" borrowed osmanthus tea and osmanthus cake to express her heartfelt thoughts about her deceased mother: "Whenever it is about to fall, she always asks people to fold down a lot, and some of the fillings that are inside and outside the tea leaves, and mixed with white sugar into cakes." Every year in school, there are always people entrusted by the mother, bringing a lot. The hometown is that the mother did not go back after her death, and the back garden did not know how to be desolate, and the fragrant osmanthus tea and osmanthus cake also had not been eaten for six years. ”
The fragrance of osmanthus flowers drifted away, but the hearts of those who ate osmanthus flowers were closer.
Editor-in-charge: Zhu Zhe
Proofreader: Yan Zhang