Outside yanmen pass, in Yingxian County, there is not only a well-known Yingzhou wooden pagoda at home and abroad, but also a traditional food called beef loin, Shanxi Yingxian Han special snacks, which belong to noodles. It is a Kind of Yingxian Cuisine that originated in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and its color is like coffee, soft and sweet. Quite prestigious.
Ying County once became an important economic and military town in the north after the Fifth Tang Dynasty, and during the Liaojin Dynasty, it belonged to Xijing Province, and its economy was very prosperous. After several wars, it was desolate and withered year by year. But by the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the economy here had improved again. At that time, YingXian was a necessary place for Buddhists in the northern provinces and regions to make a pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy site of Wutai Mountain, and there were many tourists and merchants in the past. At first, there were twist flowers, yellow cakes, and noodle cakes, and the restaurant business was very light. At that time, there was a hotel manager named Yu Yi in Ying County, who was very anxious due to the business downturn. One day when he was making dough cakes, due to absent-mindedness, he accidentally turned half a bowl of syrup on the noodle case, and he was in a hurry to sum up the white noodles and the syrup and make it into a dough, but when he was reconciled, he could not steam, nor was it easy to bake. He tried to knead the cake into a frying pan and fry it in a frying pan, and fished it out to eat it, which tasted sweet, more fragrant the more chewed, and the color resembled a cooked beef loin. So he tried to make a beef loin shape again, fried it together, and served it to the guests to taste, which was immediately well received. Since then, Yu Yi has specially made this kind of food, and his restaurant has flourished, and his skills have been passed down from generation to generation.
In the eighth month of the lunar calendar in 1900, the prefect of Ying Prefecture learned that the Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi lived in Huairen City, and specially gave them a tribute to the ox loin to taste, which was well received, and Cixi really thought it was a ox loin! In the early years of the Republic of China, the skill of making beef loin was passed on to Mr. Yu Zilin, and guests from Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Taiyuan arrived in Ying County. To this day, it is still a taste of YingXian beef loin.
Ma Shijie, Editor