When I went to Quanzhou, the one who heard the most and saw the most was the frost of the soil shoots. Whether it is a palatial star hotel or a quaint and lonely street, it has its presence, and the love of Quanzhou people can be seen.
Most star hotels are more intelligent, often cutting the soil shoots into slices and processing, people can not see the original appearance, only eat fresh and crisp, very happy.
But the soil shoot jelly scattered in the alley is not so exquisite. It was often served with a saucepan the size of a palm, and there were a few scary "bugs" condensed inside. First-timers, if they are not mentally prepared, must be difficult to swallow.
(i)
Quanzhou is an amazing city.
As the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road, during the Song Dynasty, Quanzhou was one of the most prosperous cities in the world. Zhumen Hua House, the four roads. Large ships full of cargo were parked in the harbor, and horse-drawn carriages full of screws were comparable to today's Mercedes-Benz BMWs, and the streets were full of streets.
Nowadays, walking in the streets and alleys of Quanzhou, you can still feel the heavy historical and cultural charm. Coupled with the warm climate and simple folk customs, it is a city that people do not want to leave when they arrive.
But if you're used to the spicy and sour taste, you'll feel sorry for the city at first. After all, Quanzhou is near the sea, and the locals are good at seafood, and the taste is quite light.
If you look carefully, you can still find several kinds of cuisine that are eaten from north to south and suitable for both local and foreign cuisines, such as noodle paste, and then such as soil shoot jelly.
(ii)
In the old days, the earth shoot jelly, in the eyes of the locals, was a city snack that was difficult to climb the elegant hall. This can be seen only from the raw materials used to make it.
Outsiders often think that the soil shoot jelly is made of bamboo shoots, in fact, the raw material for the production of the soil shoot jelly is a small animal shaped like an earthworm, and the scientific name is "star worm".
This insect grows on the tidal flats where rivers enter the sea and brackish water, and has a rough appearance, a dark brown color, about the length of a thumb, thick as a finger, and as thin as a rice stem. He also dragged a "tail" that was one or two inches long, as thin as a matchstick, and stretched freely, because it was shaped like a cylindrical bamboo shoot, and the taste was better than the winter shoots on the mountain, so the coastal area of southern Fujian was called "earth shoots".
Whether it is the appearance or taste of the jelly, it is very similar to the common meat skin jelly, which may be the reason why it can be easily accepted by outsiders.
The method of soil shoot jelly is very simple, catch the "star worm" out of the sand, first stock it for a day to spit out the debris in the stomach, and then use a stone mallet to continuously grind it to make it roll out all the internal organs, and then rinse it in clean water, and when it is white, it is fished into the pot and boiled. Because it is as rich as collagen like pork skin, the soup is sticky and sticky, and after it has cooled naturally, it solidifies into pieces of soil shoots.
The jelly of the earthen shoots is as crystal clear as the best meat skin jelly, and surprisingly, the worms in the jelly of the earthen shoots are even more crisp and delicious, with chewy heads. If you add garlic, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and other sauces, the taste will be more subtle.
(iii)
Among the many earthen shoot jelly in Quanzhou, the most popular is undoubtedly the soil shoot jelly produced in Anhai, Jinjiang. On almost every street, there is more than one shop dealing with the jelly of native bamboo shoots from Anhai.
The manager of the Wu uncle's clay shoot jelly shop on the food street in Licheng District told me that Anhai's soil shoot jelly has long been very famous, and his family's history of making soil shoot jelly has been more than a hundred years.
He had heard from a generation that the invention of the earthen shoot jelly was related to Zheng Chenggong.
In that year, when Zheng Chenggong led his troops to attack Taiwan, he once garrisoned Anhai. For a while, Zheng Jun was in short supply of grain and grass, so he used the "soil shoots" dug up from the sea to cook soup for the soldiers to eat. Unexpectedly, the soldiers felt that the taste was very good after eating, and the fire of the northern soldiers to the south was magically eliminated. When it was cold, the soldiers often had to warm the soil shoot soup and drink it again, and once, the soldiers heated the soil shoot soup to delay military affairs, and then simply ate the frozen soil shoot jelly directly, and did not want to be more delicious. The earthen shoot jelly was born unexpectedly.
However, the legend belongs to the legend, if you study it carefully, you will find that in fact, there are records about the jelly of the earth shoots as early as before Zheng Chenggong.
Tu Benjun of the Ming Dynasty described in the "Minzhonghai Fault" written in the twenty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar: "Its shape is like a bamboo shoot and small, and in the middle of the river, the shape is ugly and sweet, a native bamboo shoot." ”
Moreover, Zhou Lianggong, who is older than Zheng Chenggong, also recorded in his book "Min Xiaoji": "Yu often eats soil shoot jelly in Fujian, and the taste is very rare, but he smells that he was born on the seashore and resembles earthworms, and he finally does not know what it is like." ”
In fact, there is also a saying that the soil shoot jelly was invented by Qi Jiguang when he resisted the Wu. Its plot is also very similar to Zheng Chenggong, where the soldiers are in short supply, and they mistakenly hit and bump into the soil shoot jelly.
Behind the food, there are often unclear historical origins. Zheng Chenggong or Qi Jiguang, no matter what the truth is, the delicious is not false, and people's admiration for heroes is also not false.
In Quanzhou, eating seafood is naturally indispensable
Wen | Li Hongjiang
Editor| Jiao Meng
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