Guiyang is the capital of Guizhou. In Guiyang, there are four century-old snacks such as Guizhou's most famous specialty snacks", "Lei Yuanzi", "Su Guwang", "Song Cake Dumplings", "Wu Tangyuan", etc., which are not only rated as Guizhou's brand snacks, but more importantly, they all highlight the culture of Guizhou from another angle. Take the famous "Lei Jia Tofu Dumplings" in Guiyang City, it is delicious and delicious, but the whole process of production and processing is little known.
According to historical records, at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, Guiyang was already a fairly prosperous city. At that time, there were already twelve squares and one hundred and thirty-four streets and alleys in the city, and the "seventy-two lines" that people often called it had already been formed. In particular, today's fountains and the Great Cross area are bustling with people. At that time, there were two poems that said: "Shengge Ten Mile City In the middle of the city, crown covers the outer city of a thousand families." It can be seen that the lively scene of old Guiyang in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty is extraordinary. It is precisely because of the rise of agriculture, industry and commerce after the great migration that the development of the old Guiyang catering industry has been promoted, and the Lei family yuanzi has also come into being.
The ancestors of the Lei family, who lived in Guiyang, have always made a living by selling tofu. The Lei family had three sons, and lei Duanzao, the third oldest, still inherited his father's business to run a tofu business. But the small-budget tofu business does not bring a rich life to the family and change the poor situation. When Lei Duanzao was middle-aged, through the mediation of neighbors, he married the daughter of the Zhu family. After Zhu Shi married into the Lei family, she not only managed the housework diligently and frugally, operated the business flexibly and well, but also lived in harmony with the neighbors, so people respected her as "Lei Sanniang".
In the thirteenth year of Qing Tongzhi (1874), the imperial court wanted to hold the "Imperial Society", and the imperial court ordered that during the "Imperial Society" all "slaughter" should be "prohibited", and "meat" should also be "forbidden". As everyone knows, it is this edict of "forbidden slaughter" and "forbidden meat" that has helped Lei Sanniang a lot. As a result, the skillful Lei Sanniang began to think. At this time, she mixed the tofu of her workshop with salt, alkali, green onions and spices to make egg-sized balls, and then fried in tea oil and picked them up on the street to sell. As a result, people smelled the incense and sold out in the blink of an eye.
After returning home, in order to make the business bigger, Lei Sanniang carried out a lot of work on the basis of the tofu she made. One is to choose pure soybeans to soak well, fine grinding and refining the pulp; the second is to pay attention to the heat when boiling water, and the "plasma" is used in the fermented sour soup, which is the tofu tender and white; the third is that the water that has been made into tofu must be fully squeezed out to avoid the sour and bitter taste of the tofu; the fourth is to add tofu to a certain amount of peppercorns, star anise, fennel, cinnamon, grass fruits, naphtha, salt, chives and other condiments, after repeated kneading, stirring, and then kneaded into rounds, put into the pot and fried. The shell of the fried rounds is brown and yellow and crispy, and the inner layer is covered with large and small "honeycombs", and the color and aroma are attractive when served on the table. When eating, it is eaten with soy sauce, paprika, sesame oil, pepper, green onion, garlic paste, wild bitter garlic, folded ear root and other preparations of dipping water, which is really fragrant, delicious, crisp and tender.
In the middle of July 1958, the beloved Premier Zhou Enlai inspected the work in Guizhou and stayed at the most beautiful Jinqiao Hotel in Guiyang at that time, and he casually asked the staff around him: "I heard that the tofu dumplings of the Lei family are a famous snack in Guiyang, and I really want to taste the mystery and taste of the tofu dumplings." After inquiring around, the comrades who received him finally found Lei Guoqing, the third generation of the Lei family, and took him to the Jinqiao Hotel to elaborately make a plate of "Lei family tofu dumplings". After tasting it, Premier Zhou said with admiration: "Ah, really good! I think that people only know the beauty of Jiangnan Water Town, but they don't know the magic of Guiyang snack tofu dumplings! ”