"Zhenjiang pot lid noodles why cook the pot lid in the noodle pot?" One said to add aroma; two said skimming foam; three said to increase taste. The above statement is still inconclusive, please ask the rice friends to explain their doubts! One day, I brushed the social platform and saw such a question.
You are also welcome to leave your doubts about food in the comments section or backstage
"Mommy, the fat (selection) meat (question) sent to the door!" The inner ost began to stir.
As a non-professional science popularizer in the field of gastronomy, dismantling the metaphysics in the lid of the pot is not a matter of minutes? After some octopus-like research, my mood was unusual, low: the friendly neighbor account has done a detailed analysis of the relevant, about what effect the pot lid can produce in the pot, the answer is almost exactly the same as the rice friend's:
1. Pot lids made of old fir or ginkgo biloba wood can add wood aroma to the noodles in boiling water steaming;
2. The lid suspended in the soup noodles can inhibit the formation of foam, so that the noodle soup is clear and sells well;
3. The noodles are tumbled under the lid of the pot to increase the contact area with the boiling water, and cook quickly;
"Then make a yarn!" With a pout of my mouth and about to give up, a long story published in Jiangsu Local History in 2016 caught my attention. Don't read it, don't know, read it and be shocked: can I catch a big melon that can shake the core interests of the pot cover noodles?
Shun gua smear vine, obediently long li bang - my three views have been subverted.
As a native of Nanjing, the pot lid noodles in Zhenjiang next door are from snacks to large daily routines. In the late '90s, before social media existed, "What's going on downstairs today?" In soul torture, pot lid noodles are a regular option.
A bowl of pot lid noodles
A small storefront separated by an operating area. A large pot of boiling water is tumbled with the lid of the pot, and a bunch of bowls and various fresh ingredients are waiting to enter the pot. Some even face the roadside with a cauldron – the lid is made like a show, and the wooden lid suspended in the tumbling is the best sign.
Flat hand cut knife face, shake loose and throw into the boiling pot, the lid covered. Similar to a shabu-shabu hot colander, grab the shredded meat and waist flower and simply blanch it. In the bowl are the seasonings that have been prepared, pepper, boiled soy sauce, dried shredded, green bean sprouts... Blanch the raw loin flower meat shreds into the bowl, fold the noodles on top, add some noodle soup, and a bowl of pot lid noodles will come out of the oven.
Unlike the alkali noodles used to be in old Nanjing, the noodles of the pot lid noodles are more similar to the hand-cut noodles in the north, smooth and with a little toughness. Soup is the core of each family to attract diners, whether the bottom taste of boiling soy sauce is fresh enough, whether the layer is rich, and knowledgeable people can eat it as soon as they eat it.
Simmer soy sauce
Each store also has a counter-freezer filled with plates of cut crystal dishes – another of Zhenjiang's culinary business cards – topped with finely sliced ginger.
To eat pot lid noodles, you must have a portion of the meat: pour the Zhenjiang balsamic vinegar on the table in a small dish, put the ginger shreds into the vinegar, eat the meat with vinegar, and then eat the salty soup with a strong taste. A gluttonous eater can eat at least three layers of pot noodles.
Although I have not eaten pot lid noodles in nearly 10 years, I remember the crispness of the waist flowers, the fresh sauce of the soup and the tough and smooth noodles, and from time to time between the lips and teeth, as if they are within reach.
Unexpectedly, the origin of the entire pot lid noodles was a precision plan from the bottom up.
"According to Zhou Wenxiang, former deputy secretary general of the Standing Committee of the Zhenjiang Municipal People's Congress and manager of the Zhenjiang Jingkou Hotel, in the early 1980s, there was no pot lid noodles in the whole of Zhenjiang." In the "Jiangsu Local History", the reporter Pei Wei did in-depth research, interview and research.
At least until the mid-to-late 1980s, the most popular noodle shops on the streets of Zhenjiang were written with "fire noodles" (also called "Washi noodles" or "gang noodles"). In the local dialect, fire noodles mean "fight, open", that is, "eat under the bowl of noodles". It is a deformation of yangchun noodles and has no toppings.
Yan Qilin, a scholar of local history in Zhenjiang, remembers the noodle shop next door to the lime shop run by his grandmother, which sold fire noodles, "diners eat noodles mostly, there are two kinds of noodles with soup and dry mix, the noodles usually only have green onions, and the top of the pouring head is mostly scalded dried silk and scalded greens."
At that time, there was neither a lid nor a meat topping in the pot where the noodles were cooked. People who are particular about eating will bring their own fresh pork liver loin flower shreds to the store, let the master burn it, and the master also knows it and puts it on the noodles.
Zhenjiang in the 1980s
This is also in line with the tone of life of many people born in that era. I remember going downstairs to eat ravioli when I was a child, and I would carry a raw egg that my dad gave me in my pocket, because in this way breakfast I could eat eggs nutritiously and save 5 cents.
During the "fire noodles" period, the Zhenjiang people did not have a lid in the noodle pot. It is also not fundamentally different from the common toppings in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. People pass by noodle shops in the morning and casually order bowls of noodles to eat, which are good and cheap at the same time, and the heat is delicious. At that time, outsiders mentioned Zhenjiang and would not think of noodles, at most it was its balsamic vinegar, which was still famous in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai.
How did the fire noodles become pot lid noodles, and then become one of the three monsters of Zhenjiang?
The story begins on the morning of May 31, 1977. In Zhou Wenxiang's work notes, the details of the meeting he was called to the Zhenjiang City Garden Management Institute that morning were recorded.
In 1977, shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the whole of Zhenjiang was in a state of needing revitalization. Zhou Wenxiang was appointed deputy manager of the Jinshan Hotel (today's Zhenjiang Jingkou Hotel), which is a full-time reception for foreign guests and chiefs.
He hurried to the management office, and when he arrived, he learned that the meeting was about how to revitalize the cultural work in Zhenjiang. On that day, Yao Hesheng, director of the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Education, came to Zhenjiang on a business trip, and he was the first author to write the content of Zhenjiang's literature and history after the founding of New China.
Zhenjiang long-established Jingkou Hotel
This meeting was actually a brainstorming session, in addition to He Yaosheng, there are many local literary and historical experts.
Everyone expressed their opinions and shared various local legends and historical stories in Zhenjiang, hoping to find an entry point for publicizing Zhenjiang culture. The concept of "Three Monsters of Zhenjiang Morning Tea" was put forward at this meeting, and the source of inspiration was "Eight Monsters of Guizhou" and "Ten Monsters of Northeast China".
Everyone spelled out the content of the three monsters of Zhenjiang, "balsamic vinegar is not bad, the meat is not properly cooked, and the lid of the cooking pot inside the noodle pot is boiled." Because Lang Lang was catchy, basically everyone remembered the end of the meeting, and the heads of various newspapers and periodicals went back with this concept and began to think about how to publicize it.
The "Three Monsters of Zhenjiang" were compiled by the brainstorming of literary and historical figures at this meeting
It was also at that time that the lid of the pot changed from a tool that assisted the dough maker in picking up the dough and draining the dough to something that was boiling in the pot. I further investigated some of the materials of professional training on pot lid noodles, in fact, the pot lid has not been in the pot until today, as long as there is no noodles in the pot, the pot lid will be placed on the side of the pot, and only when the noodles are cooked will be thrown into the pot.
Local publicity is propaganda, what is the coincidence of pot lid noodles, becoming one of Zhenjiang's external business cards? This also requires an external force, that is, recognition at the national level.
In the third year of the popularity of "Three Monsters", the then zhenjiang catering company's key publicity colleagues published a legend about pot lid noodles in the national professional journal "Food Science and Technology". Although this article is completely fabricated, because it was published in national publications, it became a professional endorsement of Zhenjiang pot cover noodles.
I found this article. What story does it tell?
Published in 1980 in Food Science and Technology
A long time ago, a pair of Shandong brothers and sisters whose parents died depended on each other for their lives, and their brother fell ill, and the sister took the only white noodles left in the family to her brother to make noodles to eat. The noodles were made, she felt that her brother wanted to make up for it, so she went to the chicken coop to get the eggs, but the noodles in the pot were not opened, and she did not find the lid of the pot for a while, so she took the small cover for cooking soup and went in.
The egg was brought back, and my sister thought, "What if the noodles I make don't taste good", so she added spices to the bowl - boiled soy sauce, fragrant sesame oil, fresh shrimp... When my brother ate the noodles, his body was much better, and the noodles became his brother's favorite. Later, there was a flood in Shandong, the brother and sister fled and separated, the sister came to Zhenjiang penniless, and suddenly found a pot lid floating in a shop for cooking noodles, so she recognized her brother.
Leaving aside the logical problems of the story, because even with the endorsement of national publications, it has been eliminated. In its place was our famous Qianlong Emperor.
One year, Qianlong took the eunuch micro-service to Zhenjiang for a private visit, heard that the local noodles were delicious, and found the most famous sister-in-law Zhang. When Sister-in-law Zhang heard that the emperor was coming, she was so frightened that she dropped the small lid for cooking soup into the pot, and Qianlong ate the noodles, felt very good, and went into the kitchen to see, "Ah! It turned out that the pot lid was added when cooking the noodles", and the reputation rose.
*Pot Lid Noodle Training and Promotion Center
It seems that the best spokesperson for Chinese cuisine must be Qianlong.
Favorite to eat and eat!