Bell cake, vat stove, sachima, honey offering, puff pastry, beef tongue cake... These are all Beijing-flavored dim sum.
Article | LASIA
The image comes from the Internet
In the New Year, I have to visit the door of the New Year, and I always have to carry something in my hand. There is one thing for old Beijingers, if there is less, it is the lack of etiquette, which is said to be old Beijing dim sum. Especially if the married girl returns to her mother's house, the aunt must send a snack box to the old man and the old man's mother, one is not enough, it must be two, which means that good things are in pairs.
In the old days, the economic situation of each family was not good, and dim sum was also an unattainable food for ordinary people. The process of making dim sum was still very cumbersome in that era, kneading dough, and stuffing, steaming on the pot, baking in the oven, no mechanized assembly line operation, all by hand, less than half a day, more than two days. And the raw materials of dim sum, fine white noodles, eggs, lard, salad oil, are not often eaten by families, and in some years, they also need to be rationed with tickets, and money cannot buy them.
So the Spring Festival is also known as the New Year's Pass. The adults in the family not only have to worry about their own New Year goods, but also worry about the dim sum boxes that Li Shang exchanges. I always hope that someone will send a box of snack boxes first, and then give them to people. However, just being a "karate man" still doesn't work, and you have to buy at least three or two boxes at home in order to participate in the new year snack box cycle. When the old people recall, they always have to mention such a thing: the snack box sent by themselves has been separated by a little half a year, and after a circle, it has returned to their own hands, but the weight has been reduced, and when they open it, they are either hard and chewy, or they can't eat moldy.
Dim sum in the memory of old Beijingers
Since ancient times, the city of Beijing has been inhabited by five major ethnic groups of Han, Meng, and Manchu, and Tibet, each of which has its own dining culture and production skills. Old Beijing dim sum since the Liaojin period has begun to take shape, the Yuan Dynasty brought butter milk flavor dim sum from the western region, the Ming Dynasty brought southern flavor dim sum after moving from Nanjing to Beijing, the Qing Dynasty built the capital of Beijing and brought Manchu dim sum, the flavor varieties of north and south dim sum are different, thus forming a variety of "Beijing flavor dim sum" such as meat vegetarian sweet and salty oil crisp honey.
Corresponding to the "wet snacks" in the south, the northern snacks are all "dry snacks" that are easy to store. The two kinds of dim sum, Bell Cake and Bee Cake, are the best done with halal food shops (dim sum shops). Bell cake, steamed with eggs and flour, is named after its resemblance to a tea cup and has a red mark on it. In the impression, Gui Yingzhai in the east of Houmen Bridge Road did a good job, Gui Yingzhai was formerly known as Jinlan Zhai and was dedicated to the palace in the evening.
Bee cake has yellow and white points, according to Chongyi's "Miscellaneous Notes on the Dynasty and the Wild Since Daoxian": "Furong Zhaiye, East Simashi Street Dim Sum Shop also ... The yellow and white bee cakes made are not caught elsewhere. The cake is not made of noodles, the noodles are made of rice, plus balsamic oil, walnut kernels, etc., the food is loose and greasy, and it is named after its thick inner hive. "Unfortunately, there are still shops selling bee cakes from time to time, but the quality is far less than before, especially wasp cakes, which have been extinct for many years.
Bee cake
Cylinder stove, a kind of mixed sugar, noodles, baked dim sum unique to Beijing, there are round cylinder stoves, missing edges of the cylinder stove. The round cylinder furnace is round cake shaped, about 5 cm in diameter, and is baked about one by one; and the missing edge cylinder furnace is to bake the prepared cylinder furnace agent yard together, and in the baking process, they are crowded with each other and stick to each other, forming a high pile shape, but the connected cylinder furnace is opened when it is broken, so it is called the missing edge cylinder furnace. Old Beijingers who bought cylinder stoves at that time paid attention to going to Dashilar to celebrate the festival. The cylinder stove is also a must-eat for women to produce.
Round shallot pot stove
Missing edge cylinder furnace
Sachima, originally a confectionery for the Manchus, was brought to Kannai after entering the customs and became famous throughout the country. Mr. Wang Shixiang, a cultural scholar, once consulted Professor Qi Gong, an expert in the Qing Dynasty, for Saqima, and later wrote a special essay on "Raopu and Saqima", which said: "According to Yuan Bai's brother's teaching: "The Qing Wen jian has this name, which is interpreted as 'dog milk sugar dip'. Sachima uses eggs, grease and noodles, finely cuts and frys, and then stirs with caramel and honey, so it is called 'sugar dip'. Only dog tits are incomprehensible. If it is really dog milk, how many dogs do you need to keep to use it? Originally, there was a wild berry in the northeast, named after the shape of a dog's tits, which was originally used as the fruit of Sachima. After entering the customs, it was gradually replaced by raisins, hawthorn cakes, green plums, melon seeds, etc., while dog tits were less known. This is by far the most authoritative explanation of Sachima's origin and form.
In the past, there were two kinds of sachima, cream and osmanthus flowers. Today, the two have long been one. The production process has also been improved, that is, the finished sachima is placed on the rice paper and the bottom is covered with sesame seeds. Sprinkle fine gold cake strips, melon strips, raisins, walnut kernels, melon seeds, green and red silk, etc. If you want to talk about Sachima, it is still the best to make it in Beijing.
Sachima
Honey offerings are special shaped honey juice snacks introduced from the Manchus and Mongolian regions in the Qing Dynasty to offer in front of the gods and Buddhas, and the "Miscellaneous Records of the Dynasty and the Wild Since Daoxian" records: "Honey offerings, vegetarian food, are also used for the buddha at the end of the year." With noodles as bricks, masonry into a floating butcher shape, or square or round, or octagonal; the large one is several feet high, the small one is a few inches, and the outside is evenly covered with honey. Most of them are posing and inedible. Broken offerings are another, specializing in food. That is to say, there are two kinds of honey offerings, one is specially made for the table, both are tower-style shapes, and the other is broken honey offerings, which can be eaten as a snack. Mr. Lao She once mentioned in the novel "Zhenghong Flag" that "ta ru honey offering".
All kinds of honey offerings
Although the production of honey offerings is inseparable from sugar, oil and noodles, when eaten in the mouth, if you want to be loose and crispy, you do not stick to your teeth, and you are particularly particular about craftsmanship. Honey wrapped on the outside must be mixed with fine rock sugar in a certain proportion, the dough should be fried over low heat, and each honey offering strip should have a ditch and a thin red wire. This kind of broken honey offering, now some snack shops in Beijing, are still sold in autumn and winter.
But the most authentic and popular dim sum is kyohachi. Jingba'er is a big road goods paved in Beijing, and it is also the most commonly used gift in interpersonal communication in old Beijing. There are eight pieces of Beijing, including big eight pieces, small eight pieces and thin eight pieces. In the early years, it was called the big eight, the middle eight and the small eight. The best system was made in the East Four South Hefang Building, and after the change of Gengzi State, it was moved to the East Fourth North and renamed RuifangZhai ( Ruifangzhai ) .
Kyo eight pieces
The so-called big eight pieces include the Fuzi Cake, which symbolizes happiness, the Taishi Cake, which symbolizes the high-ranking official Houlu, the Shou Peach Cake that symbolizes longevity, the Shuangxi Cake with the Double Happiness Character, the Silver Ingot Cake that symbolizes wealth, the Roll Shortbread like a book, the Chicken Fat Cake that is harmonious and auspicious, and the jujube flower cake that symbolizes the early noble son. Eight kinds of composition, the year used sixteen two scales, each piece of two two, eight pieces of one pound. The small eight pieces are composed of eight kinds of yuan cake, Taishi cake, sac cake, almond cake, chicken fat cake, hard skin peach, white skin cake and egg yolk puff pastry, which is also eight pieces and one pound. The eight pieces include jujube squares, almond crisps, small peaches, small apricots, small pomegranates, small apples, small walnuts and small persimmons, each one or two, eight and a half pounds. To this day, the dim sum shops in Beijing still retain the custom of discussing the two names of the jin and the pound.
Eight pieces of symbolic significance
Eat more than just snacks
After the snacks are selected, you have to decorate the snack box. The packaging of old Beijing dim sum is also quite exquisite, especially for gifts. First wrapped in oil paper, the outside is wrapped in straw paper into a square bag, and the package is stamped with a "ticket" of the dim sum shop (that is, a leaflet printed with the shop name and dim sum), such as the purchase of a long time can be loaded into the "pu bao" or "dumpling box" (dim sum box), this color cardboard box is rectangular, about a foot long, about five inches wide and high. If the buyer is far away, there are wooden boxes in the shop for gifts to be brought out of the port. Such "pu bao" has been seen by Beijingers over the age of 50. Compared with the kind of rectangular snack boxes that have come back in recent years, compared with the pure straw board paper snack boxes in the past, the old people still feel that there is a difference in psychology.
Vintage oil-paper-wrapped snack box
Full box, i.e. "save the plate". "Saving" has the meaning of gathering and aggregation. A combination of plates divided into several pieces, combined by a number of plates containing items, is a kind of box containing various preserved fruits, dried fruits, and snacks in ancient times. Beginning in the late Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, the rise of Kangqian was one of the artifacts rich in the style of the Kangxi Period.
Since the emergence of the late Ming Dynasty, by the time of the Kangxi Dynasty, it has developed into a variety of compositions, a set of plates, as few as five, as many as more than twenty. Most of them are composed of two layers and three layers inside and outside, forming different shapes, which can be formed into circles, squares, hexagons, eight squares or leaf shapes, sunflower shapes, peony flower shapes, lotus shapes, fans and so on. Therefore, the plate can also be called "five sons", "seven tricks", "eight immortals", "nine sons", "ten percent".
During the Kangxi Dynasty, the multicolored depictions of golden flowers and butterflies were plated
Each compartment contains a small porcelain dish, which is combined to form a tray box. The outer or round or square mahogany box, there are also porcelain, more are lacquerware products, the natural color of the lacquer is red, black two colors, and then there are other colors, is derived from the offspring. The ornamentation is mainly based on the themes of flowers and birds, characters, landscapes, auspicious words and so on.
Old Beijing flag bearers and old Beijingers with good families will have several boxes or plates of one kind or another in their homes, but the best full boxes are not affordable by ordinary people, or only prepare one or two for the New Year. The reason for this is that it is more difficult to form the process of saving plates, and the inability of ordinary people to use as daily consumption is inseparable. Each group of plates is composed of dozens of pieces, which requires a very strict design and accurate grasp of the size of each part in order to make the individual combination of firing tight and leave no gaps.
But with the whole box, it is more like having a kind of etiquette and rules. Whether it is the New Year or a normal day, as long as you eat snacks, you must buy them back and put them in the box first, and then take out a small plate to eat, you can't open the snack sachet to eat, the so-called "eat to have a eating picture." Eating dim sum is a unique taste.
- the end -
You can try clicking on the image below ↓↓↓