Knifefish and anchovies have often been conflated since ancient times. Qing Guangxu's "Jieyang County Continuation" recorded: "Anchovies are catfish, commonly known as thorn fish, served in March and April, narrow and long, the large one is more than a foot, a knife fish, many and fat." Generally speaking, the Yangtze River Basin is mostly called knife fish, because this fish is shaped like a knife with a cracked knife, and the scales are silver and white, so Su Dongpo has a verse of "looking at the silver knife from the net" to describe the knife fish. In the local area, knife fish, anchovies, and puffer fish are called "three fresh in the Yangtze River", and knife fish should be the earliest in the city, so it ranks first among the three fresh.
As for Fujian and Zhejiang, they are mostly called phoenix tails. For example, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, has "Yandang fine wine tea mountain plum, Jiangxin Temple after the anchovy" said, Fuzhou and Guangzhou and other places also have many records of anchovies. Our first question is: Are knifefish and anchovies the same fish?
It is now known that there are four species of fish in the genus Anchovy in China, namely knife squid, anchovy, singing squid and short-jawed squid. Short-jawed squid, also known as lake squid or plum squid, its growth and reproduction are in rivers and lakes, belonging to the land-sealed freshwater fish, can be regarded as an outlier in the evolutionary history of sturgeon. For example, Meilin Lake in Chaozhou has a group of sea erosion stones, which is a typical sea trace lake, which is famous for its abundant plum fish in history. The other three species of mackerel usually live in the sea and spawn until the gonads mature, which are migratory fish. Among them, the knife mackerel is mainly produced in the north, the seven-silk mackerel is mainly produced in the south, and the phoenix is produced in the north and south.
According to the Chaoshan production of knife fish, mainly seven silk fish, phoenix fish and knife fish less. According to the information, the seven-wire scorpion (named after the 7 longfin filaments on the pectoral fin, while the anchovy knife sturgeon has only 6) contains 10.9 grams of protein per 100 grams of fish meat, fat from 2.2 grams to more than 10 grams, which varies greatly with the season, and various other nutrients are almost the same as the knife fish, and the meat quality and taste are also comparable, unless it is the rebirth of the god of food, it is difficult for ordinary people to distinguish between knife fish or anchovies. Because Chaoshan has many rivers such as the Han River, the Rong River, and the Lianjiang River entering the sea, the production of anchovies is extremely abundant, and the price is also cheap, and it is mostly used to boil soup or fry. In recent years, the Price of Knife Fish in the Yangtze River has been expensive, and it is often thousands of yuan per kilogram. Some of the local big tail anchovies are bought at high prices and resold to Shanghai and other places to impersonate knife fish.
The second question is: What are the differences in the meat quality of different seasons and different varieties of sturgeon? When the squid migrates, it is its fattest season, with the three characteristics of multiple seeds, fat body and cartilage, which also produces many gastronomic legends about the Yangtze River knife fish. In terms of cartilage, there has always been a saying that "the fine bone before the Qingming Dynasty is soft as cotton, and the fine bone after the Qingming Is as hard as a needle", and even the strange talk of the fish bones melting in the mouth before the Qingming Dynasty; because of the fat body, it is particularly emphasized when cooking and steaming, and the fine scales should be turned into dripping oil beads under the steam to add delicious taste. According to Qing Jiaqing's "Chronicle of Chenghai County", anchovies are "commonly known as thorns." As the saying goes: 'Thorny flower, prickly fat'. In March and April, yi custom Qingming sweeps the tomb, and must buy fish. "It shows that the old customary hipsters will sacrifice the fattest anchovies of their time in front of the tombs of their ancestors during the Qingming period."
"Shuowen Jiezi" said: "鮆, knife fish also." Drink without eating, Jiujiang has it. "The so-called drinking without eating means only drinking water and not eating. It turns out that mackerel, like eels, are no longer fed during reproductive migration. Therefore, the fat and plump of the Yangtze River knife fish is actually accumulated when it is used as a sea carp, which also means that the river knife and the sea knife cannot be much different in meat quality. If this is not the case, it can probably only be the benevolent who sees the wise.
Author: Zhang Xinmin
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