Editor's note: How can such a concrete ingredient be considered an "intangible cultural heritage" that food has become an "intangible cultural heritage" at first glance? In fact, the so-called intangible cultural heritage on the tip of the tongue does not refer to the food itself, but the cooking technique of making food. Since 2006, China has published four batches of national intangible cultural heritage lists, totaling more than 1,000. Folk literature, music, dance, drama, art, crafts, medicine are all familiar to us, and the culinary techniques of food account for more than 5% of the proportion, which should not be underestimated.
Shanxi not only has the natural beauty created by the special natural environment, but also has the humanistic charm of 5,000 years of history and culture, has a rich category of intangible cultural heritage resources, and is a veritable "intangible cultural heritage province", and traditional gastronomic skills are an important part of Shanxi's intangible cultural heritage. The theme reporting activity of "Intangible Cultural Heritage on the Tip of the Tongue" should play a crazy "call" for traditional culture, excavate and display the precious history and culture behind the food, and let the intangible cultural heritage move, live, beauty, fire, and pass on!
In Taiyuan there is such an old saying: "Old Baifen in the apricot blossom village, six flavors in Taiyuan City", "Do not eat six flavors, do not count in Taiyuan". Why do Taiyuan people love Liuwei Zhai so much? In the words of the Taiyuan people: "This is the taste we love to eat the most!".
Historical allusions to The Rokumisai
Liuwei Zhai, founded in 1738, originated from the city of Beijing during the three years of qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, there were two sons: one was a Lu person, and the other was a Jin person, who rushed to the examination in Beijing to take the name of Luosun Mountain, and there were few left. Together, the two opened a delicatessen shop near the Xidan Arch in Beijing, called Tianfu. One night, the two men cooked meat on the stove, drank wine and chatted, and fell asleep unconsciously. By the time they woke up, the meat in the pot was as rotten as mud, and all that was left was a thick and sticky piece. In a hurry, they carefully placed the meat that could still be formed in the pot piece by piece on the paving for sale, and looking at the broth that had become the juice, they made a clever move and smeared the gravy on the meat. Who knew that after eating the next day, people felt that the meat tasted more delicious. Since then, one pass ten, ten pass a hundred, more and more buyers, the business is more prosperous, the two treasurers have fixed the method of cooking meat. After being "recommended" by Liu Yong and many identity customers, the store's reputation did not go away.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, it became a necessity on the table of Empress Dowager Cixi, and empress dowager Cixi was able to eat delicious sauce meat products every day, and the store also got a "waist card" that could freely enter and exit the Great Inner Forbidden Land.
The inheritance and development of the old brand
In 1938, Tianfu set up a semicolon in Taiyuan, Shanxi, the earliest name was "Fuji Liuwei Zhai Sauce Elbow Chicken and Duck Shop", which means that on the basis of the sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and salty five flavors that food often has, it emphasizes the "fragrant" taste, and later renamed "Liuwei Zhai", from which "Liuwei Zhai" was named. The court tribute tianfu tianfu of the imperial capital master, the sauce elbow, settled in Taiyuan and entered the table of ordinary people's homes.
On the eve of liberation, the semicolon of the Tianfu in all parts of the country collapsed, but the Liuwei Zhai in Taiyuan remained with its reputation of "six flavors pressing three Jin, fragrant crown and beautiful Qunfang". After the founding of New China, the production and operation of Liuweizhai developed slightly. After the public-private partnership in 1956, Liuweizhai was officially renamed Liuweizhai Sauce Meat Shop, developed into a former shop and a factory, self-produced and self-sold, and the products were gradually loved by people and became a necessity for every household to celebrate the New Year' Festival.
In 1995, after Yan Jihong became the head of Liuweizhai, with his sense of responsibility and mission, he was duty-bound to carry the banner of protecting the Liuweizhai brand, inheriting the skills of Liuweizhai and maintaining the credibility of Liuweizhai. Today, there are more than 300 chain stores in LiuweiZhai and in 2011, the traditional production technique of Liuweizhai sauce meat was also rated as a national intangible cultural heritage!
Preserve the traditional sauce meat making techniques
For more than 270 years since the founding of the founding of the sect, Rokumisai has maintained a unique processing method based on manual craftsmanship. The meat is divided → dipped → cleaned→ and the → of the cut → sauce is selected→ the sauce is → the finished product inspection → the finished product is cooled → the shaped→ → brush sauce. Fresh (frozen) pork as raw material, after being processed into pieces by cutting, burning wool and other processes, adding multi-flavored Chinese herbs and seasonings is slowly simmered over low heat, and is made by brine, sauce and brush sauce.
When cooking, it is necessary to touch, look, listen, and smell four times, that is, use your hands to judge the quality of cooking, look at the fire, look at the meat, look at the soup, listen to the concentration of the soup, smell the smell of the meat. After a long time of boiling, the soup becomes juice, and the boiled oil also penetrates into the meat, the skin of the meat is shiny, the red is purple, and the aroma is overflowing. The sauce is an old soup made with marinated sauce meat that is boiled with a strained residue without adding anything.
Brushing sauce is a unique process necessary for sauce meat processing; due to the wide variety of production processes, the pork skin is soft and tender after being brineed and sauced, and the appearance is not very good. Brushing sauce is to protect the pork skin, make the appearance beautiful, but also improve the taste, so that the sauce meat meat is delicious, soft and delicious, rich in aroma.
Sauce meat in the sauce, cooling, from the appearance of the color of the sauce red or reddish brown, with a knife cut, the internal organization is pink, with "cooked but not rotten, sweet but not thick, salty but not astringent, spicy but not strong, light but not thin, fragrant but not tired, fat but not greasy, thin and not chai" characteristics reflect the "harmony for beauty" Chinese food culture. Because the traditional recipe of Liuweizhai contains dozens of Chinese herbal medicines, coupled with slow simmering over a low flame, it is very nutritious, and the meat of Liuweizhai sauce has been tested, and the saturated fatty acids have been reduced by 30% to 50%, and the cholesterol has been reduced by more than 50%. Regular consumption also has the effect of health care, and truly achieves "medical and food homology".
Liuwei Zhai, a time-honored Chinese brand, has maintained its traditional craftsmanship for more than 200 years since the founding of the sect through the efforts of generations of people. Just as the people of Beijing can trust Quanjude and the people of Tianjin cannot do without the dog, the people of Taiyuan have a special love for Liuwei Zhai. Whenever the bell rings, the sauce meat of Liuwei Zhai is always a delicious dish on the table of taiyuan people. (Reporter Song Chao)