Buckwheat was one of the important food crops of ancient China. The earliest known physical buckwheat was excavated from the No. 4 Han Tomb in Yangjiawan, Xianyang, Shaanxi, more than 2,000 years ago. In Xianyang Maquan, there have been excavations of objects from the former Han Dynasty. The most accurate record of buckwheat in the Agricultural Book is first found in the "Four Hours of Compilation" and Sun Simiao's "Preparation for Emergencies and Thousands of Gold". At the same time, buckwheat is also mentioned in the relevant poems. Therefore, it is generally believed that buckwheat began to be popularized in the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, with the popularization of buckwheat cultivation, buckwheat cultivation techniques were also summarized. The Miscellaneous Sayings are not long, but the record of buckwheat is very detailed. The Miscellaneous Sayings is the first to describe the cultivation techniques of buckwheat, with special emphasis on the right harvest. "Where buckwheat. May ploughing. After thirty-five days. The grass rotted and planted, ploughing three times. It is planted within ten days before and after the autumn. If you cultivate the land three times, that is, triple weight. The lower two are black, and the upper one is white, all of which are white juices, full of thick, that is, they must be harvested. But the answer to the top is laid. Its whiteness is becoming black day by day, and so it is for the sake of it. If the upper head is always black, half of the sunspot has been destroyed. "This shows that people at that time had some understanding of the ripening characteristics of buckwheat and its post-ripening effects."
Buckwheat is one of the main grains in northern Shaanxi, high in protein, low in fat, high in vitamins and quite rich in nutrients. Food made of soba noodles has therapeutic value such as softening blood vessels, protecting vision, clearing heat, reducing fire, strengthening the stomach, and preventing cerebrovascular bleeding, and is known as "longevity food". Northern Shaanxi is rich in buckwheat, and the local people use buckwheat as raw materials to create a wide variety of diets: soba dumplings, soba noodles churned dough, soba noodles, buckwheat noodles, buckwheat noodles, buckwheat cold powder, soba pancakes, soba noodles, soba enemas, soba bowl holders, soba steamed rolls, soba noodle oil dumplings, soba steamed dumplings, buckwheat wine, buckwheat vinegar and more than 10 kinds of famous foods. Chopped soba noodles are one of the most popular.
Chopped soba noodles is a delicacy that people in northern Shaanxi must eat during the New Year's Festival and celebrations, and is also a traditional snack famous in Shaanxi. The buckwheat flour used to chop soba noodles is made by selecting the highest quality buckwheat grits. When processing flour, take the flour produced twice or three times as the highest quality. The processing of chopped noodles with such high-quality flour is particularly white in color, extremely tough, and the taste is fragrant, plus the special soup, the taste is unique.
What is chopped soba noodles? This refers to chopping noodles with a special chopping knife, not cutting noodles. The chopping knife is about 2 feet long, inches wide, with a blade as thin as a kitchen knife, and two wooden handles at both ends of the knife back. How to chop it? It is to knead the soba noodles into a dough, put them on the dough and roll them out one by one with a rolling pin, roll out until they are slightly thicker than the white noodles, and chop the noodles. The shape of the chopping knife is special, the body of the knife is about 2 feet long, inches wide, thin and thick like a kitchen knife, and the back of the knife is equipped with two wooden handles at both ends. When chopping the noodles, the arms are dangling over the elbows, and the hands are held with two handles. Meet under the knife, accurate and symmetrical, the knife fell on the noodle case "oh and poof" as fast as raindrops, noodles flipped, like silver wire flying. The chopped noodles, as thin as fans, neat as mechanical noodles, can be called "Shaanxi's best".
Chopping soba noodles is a kung fu, it is not easy to cut noodles with a five- or six-pound chopping knife in both hands, it needs to be pointed out by the master, and it can be chopped out after long-term tempering to chop out noodles with uniform thickness and consistency. Chopping soba noodles is the housekeeping skill of the mother-in-law in northern Shaanxi, and the traditional chopping soba noodle handle is all women. In the past, more than 95% of women in northern Shaanxi chopped soba noodles. Because there used to be a custom in northern Shaanxi, when marrying a daughter-in-law, the first meal to test the cooking skills of the new daughter-in-law was to chop soba noodles. Therefore, there is a local saying that "the daughter-in-law is not strong, first look at the length of the buckwheat chop; the daughter-in-law is unfavorable, first look at the soba noodle chop is not fine". Therefore, unmarried women must learn to chop soba noodles. This is why the traditional folk snack of chopped soba noodles has been passed down for a long time.
Delicious chopped soba noodles must also be accompanied by a unique soup, and there are three main types of soup ingredients for chopped soba noodles: One is sour soup. This sour soup is heated with local high-quality sesame oil in an iron pot, added to the wild lemon (similar to leek flower plants) fried, until it turns yellow and stir-fried, then turned off, and then added with artichoke pickled sour soup, pour it in the chopped noodle bowl, suddenly fragrant, eat only the noodles soft and smooth, the soup is delicious, sour appetizers, refreshing. The second is lamb cheek soup. Locally raised goat meat is used as raw material, simmered and then added a little diced potatoes to cook. In addition to the usual seasoning, the leaves of a wild grass grown in the local mountainous areas, the ground pepper, are specially added as the seasoning, and this soup has a unique flavor. The third is air-dried mutton soup. Scrape the goat meat into strips, air dry in a cool and ventilated place, then chop and process to make a soup, cook through and add a little diced potatoes, the dried lamb in this soup is more and more fragrant. The northwestern beef and mutton are very famous local characteristics, which are different from the common southern bacon. Air-dried lamb does not lose its original taste at the same time, but also more natural fermentation ingredients, not salty, than the loss of water resistant to storage, the taste is more pure, especially with the small amount of noodles, much better than the effect of fresh lamb. The soup is also thicker, salty and delicious, and more importantly, there is a pot of oil with soup! In addition, there are mushroom soups, large broths, egg soups, tofu soups and other soups, mainly the three flavors of the previous three flavors. This is the traditional cuisine of the people of northern Shaanxi who entertain guests.
Today, walking into every market town in northern Shaanxi, you can see the shops of chopped soba noodles, often customers are full of doors, a prosperous scene. Some folk songs say that "buckwheat noodles are kept up with sheep soup, dead and alive keep up", which is a metaphor for loyal and unswerving love. The combination of soba noodles and mutton is indeed a "heavenly marriage". Buckwheat noodles are cooler, and mutton is warm, eating more easy to fire, the combination of the two to achieve neutralization, and rich in nutrition, both delicious and healthy, which is the reason why the combination of buckwheat noodles and mutton food in the local area has endured for a long time. Nowadays, the value of soba noodles and medicinal food is more and more valued by people, and the combination of soba noodles and local pepper and mutton has become a special and delicious food in northern Shaanxi, attracting visitors from all over the world.