Traditional Sichuan cuisine can be roughly divided into several categories: feast dishes, folk dishes, home cooking, light meal dishes and flavor snacks, which represent the highest level of Sichuan cuisine, while flavor snacks reflect the grassroots diet. But just as the so-called prince will be phased, Ning has a kind of hu? Not all Sichuan dishes are born as feast dishes, or can only be flavored snacks, they have also had interesting transformations and counterattacks before, pearl yuanzi and husband and wife lung slices are two typical cases.
Pearl Yuanzi, also known as pearl dumplings, is a flavored food made of glutinous rice with meat filling or sweet filling, which was found in many places in the early years, and has been recorded in Sichuan cuisine, Hui cuisine, and E-cuisine, and was also a popular snack in Chengdu and Leshan, Sichuan. However, the Sichuan version of pearl Motoko was originally a qualified feast dish.
The earliest record of pearl yuanzi in the Sichuan Basin is in a table in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the time is about 1838, when it appeared as the main dish of the table, and the same table also had thorny ginseng hoof flowers, fish belly, chestnut chicken, watercress pigeon eggs, whole fish, cherry meat, roasted white, cabbage duck, etc., plus pearl yuanzi a total of nine products. There are also four hot meals, namely ginseng tendons, fish skins, mullet eggs, shrimp, a medium plate, twelve saucers, a midpoint and three snacks.
Doesn't it feel familiar? Chestnut chicken, cherry meat, roasted white these dishes, are still active in the original name of the Sichuan people's table, 181 years, even the name has not changed, the history and inheritance of Sichuan cuisine, both complex and simple.
Although the specifications of this table are not the most advanced, from the perspective of the raw materials and dish structures such as sea cucumbers, fish maws, mullet eggs, and shrimp that appear inside, they are at least above medium, so the status of pearl yuanzi at that time was still relatively high. The ins and outs of this list will be recounted in a separate article.
Until the end of the Qing Dynasty, pearl yuanzi was still recorded as beets in large dishes, and most of the big dishes recorded at that time were all kinds of sea vegetables and chicken, duck and fish and mountain rare game, and the same kind of sweet dishes were lentil puree, sweet roasted white, eight treasure rice, fried cold powder, fried lamb tail, small soup yuan soup, etc., and many varieties can still be seen and eaten.
Later, with the gradual simplification of Sichuan cuisine feasts, some dishes slowly disappeared, and some dishes continued in the form of field mats, light meals, or family dishes, and Pearl Motoko continued to write its story in another capacity.
In 1910, the Guanxian Rongyuan Hotel (Guanxian is now Dujiangyan, the name of this Rongyuan is earlier than the Chengdu Rongyuan founded by Blu-ray Jian in 1912) A white cook named Zhang Herong made a steamed tangyuan that was two or three times larger than the average boiled tangyuan, as a feast dessert for guests, because of the rich form of this product, it looks like people feel pity, eat moist and sweet, very popular.
A few years later, at the suggestion of others, Zhang Herong went to Chengdu to start a business, opened a shop in Huifu West Street (now Zhonglieci Street near Taisheng South Road), specializing in Zhang's steamed tangyuan and Eight Treasure Porridge, with its unique flavor, attracting many diners to watch the lively taste fresh, and then officially hung up the "Pearl Dumplings" signboard, and the business was particularly prosperous.
Zhang Herong's pearl balls, made of 70% of the fine glutinous rice and 30% rice mixed with fine grinding pulp powder to make the skin, with bean paste, black sesame seeds, date paste, preserves, rock sugar residue, osmanthus flowers, roses, lard mixed well to make the filling, wrapped into a large tangyuan, wrapped with a layer of soaked glutinous rice, on top of a cherry preserve, steamed for 45 minutes, after opening the cage, the aroma is overflowing, the balls are shiny, the glutinous rice is crystal clear, the cherry is bright red, the entrance is delicate and soft, sweet and refreshing.
In addition to sweets, Zhang Herong also used fresh pork, cloud legs, golden hooks, mushrooms to make fillings, creating salty pearl balls, double flavor, salty and sweet collocation, the effect was doubled, and even attracted Xiong Kewu to come to the door to taste, celebrities praised, big v blessing, a time pearl balls orders increased greatly, since then, from the feast to convert pearl balls, it will be red as a flavor snack.
After liberation, Zhang Herong handed over the shop to his son Zhang Guangli and daughter-in-law Zhou Guorong to operate, after the joint venture in 1956, Pearl Yuanzi merged with Yongxiang Sweet Shop, integrated into its signature product Ye Erzhuang, and later moved to Zongfu Street, Daci Temple Street and other places, and was managed by the third generation of Zhang Xingtao, and later closed due to the transformation of Chunxi Road and other reasons.
Unlike pearl Motoko's path from feast to dessert to folk snacks, couple lung slices are a typical counterattack case from folk to the table.
In the old days, the meat dishes of the Sichuan cuisine feast, in addition to the high-grade mountain treasures and seafood, were basically the world of chicken, duck, fish and pigs, the mutton was very small, the beef could not be served, and in the Qing Dynasty's high-end table list, there was almost no beef figure. I don't know if it was because niugu was too imprisoned, or because of agricultural needs, or because of special customs or other reasons.
In the early days, cattle products were sold as pot meat or basket meat, which was said to be meat, but in fact, there was almost no meat, it was cow scalp, face meat, beef heart, beef tongue, tripe and other sewage, called beef offal or beef offal. For example, the pot meat, is to first cook the scalp and cow face with brine, slice into a palm-sized transparent flake, mix well with marinade, oil sea pepper, peppercorns, full of solid in the basin, red tongtong, bright Zhengzheng, diners with long chopsticks to clip a piece into the mouth, eat spicy and fragrant, while looking straight to the basin, while using a round mouth slightly breathless, while constantly using chopsticks to send, there is a crisp and crisp sound, focusing on an extremely cute.
Pot meat and basket meat are sold in pieces, and eating many pieces is a lot of money, which is a snack that satisfies the toiling masses. And a little identity of the person passed by, saw the pot of spicy cowhide overflowing, want to eat and embarrassed, afraid of acquaintances to see, slow down the pace slowly forward, insectivorous brain, really can not withstand the seduction, hurriedly turned back, clipped two pieces into the mouth, while eating while looking forward to the left and right, afraid of people to find, so the pot meat is also jokingly called "two heads look".
In the 1930s and 1940s, a couple named Guo Chaohua and Zhang Tianzheng moved this street snack into the store and officially named it husband and wife lung tablets. Prior to this, the chefs of some restaurants in Chengdu also learned from the practice of mixing beef offal on the street and improved it into dry mixed beef offal and brought it to the table. With the improvement of business operations, the lung slices of husband and wife have gradually evolved from street snacks to popular snacks, and continue to appear at the dinner table in the form of dishes, and even many high-end banquets, and have become one of the most well-known Sichuan dishes.
Similarly, there are mapo tofu, mao belly hot pot, boiled beef, etc., which originated from the Mao belly hot pot on the Chongqing dock, and it is from the riverside boatman snacks into the restaurant, and now it has become independent of Sichuan cuisine and has swept all over the place.
Whether it is the pearl yuanzi under the ground, or the husband and wife lung pieces staged a counterattack, no matter which way of development, Sichuan flavor snacks must abide by the solid foundation laid by the predecessors, and carry out reasonable innovation in the root of Sichuan flavor, real materials, real talents and practical skills, in order to make good goods that have been passed down for a longer time, and can not be better and better, but the skills are getting less and less.
【Pay attention to today's headline number "Sichuan flavor culture"】
See the old tradition of Sichuan cuisine and listen to the Sichuan flavor of the Dragon Gate Array.