"Son, I have a very good life in Hainan, and someone sent me a lot of oysters before the winter solstice." While writing to his son, Su Shi recalled the oysters he had eaten the other day.
"I peeled all the meat out, and the small oyster meat was boiled, and then I put some wine and juice in the shell, and it was called a delicious one." The large oyster meat is cooked over the fire, and the meat quality is q-bomb, and it is more delicious than the boiled one. Oysters are truly a rare delicacy in the world. Su Shi rushed to share his oyster eating experience with his son.
"Oh, yes, don't tell anyone what I said, I'm afraid that those delicious ghosts in the DPRK will make mistakes and be relegated to Hainan in order to grab oysters with me." Su Shi repeatedly instructed his son at the end of the letter, afraid that his son would release the news of the delicious oysters and attract a group of "hungry wolves" to compete for food.
After being relegated to the "end of the world", there is still the heart to make such jokes with his son, I am afraid that only Su Shi, an open-minded "old food" is born.
Su Shi loves to eat and can eat, and it seems that the food gene is engraved in his DNA, allowing him to have a pair of eyes that are good at discovering food. For example, others looking at the magnificent city surrounded by the turbulent Yangtze River will think that it is safe to rely on natural dangers, while Su Shi will think that the flesh of the river fish living here must be tight and elastic.
He once wrote about his favorite delicacies in "The Old Food": "Taste one of the top of the neck, two before chewing the cream." Fried honey with rotten cherry beads, steamed lamb with apricot cheese. The clams are half-cooked with wine, and the crabs are slightly raw and bad. Cover the beauty of the gathering, to feed my old food. ”
Source: Photo Network
Su Shi had a fondness for pork, which was not looked up to by the nobility at that time, and many dishes in the Dongpo cuisine were made of pork. After years of cooking practice, Su Shi found the most delicious piece of meat on the pig, located at the back of the pig's neck, and the meat was tender and slightly chewy. This piece of meat was later called "Golden Six Twos" because it was scarce.
Su Shi not only knew which piece of meat on the pig was the best to eat, but also mastered a variety of cooking methods for pork. In the early years of the flood fight in Xuzhou, he commanded his family to make the pork sent by the people into a fresh and mellow "gift meat" and give it to the people involved in the flood fight.
Although the people who have eaten the "return meat" are full of praise, the "old food" Su Shi is not satisfied. After repeated attempts, he finally cooked the salty, sweet, soft, fat but not greasy "Dongpo meat", and became a household name dish that has been passed down to this day.
However, Su Shi's favorite pork method is actually cooked with bamboo shoots. Because he loves bamboo very much, "it is better to eat no meat than to live without bamboo", but "no meat makes people thin", only bamboo shoot stewed pork can be "not bad and not thin".
Su Shi also applied his love of pork to quarrels.
One day, Su Shi, who was still in exile, received a letter from Bi Zhongju, who had long since parted ways. In the letter, Bi Zhongju advised Su Shi to read more Buddhist scriptures, because he believed that it was enough to live a life of "peace and disease, rough clothes and full food, and no unjust karma."
This angered Su Shi, who had always been diligent in government and loved the people, so he angrily wrote the "Reply to Bi Zhongju Book" to reply: "The public talks, for example, the diet of dragon meat, and the servant's learning, pork, pig and dragon, there is a gap, but the public says dragon meat all day long, it is not as beautiful as the servant's pork and really full." ”
Translated into the vernacular, what you Bi Zhongju said seems to be eating "dragon meat", while what I learned is eating "pork". Although it seems that your "dragon meat" is more gorgeous than my "pork", after all, the dragon only exists in mythology, your "dragon meat" can not be eaten at all, and my "pork" can be made into a delicacy and can make everyone full. You will only talk about imagination, and what I do is to solve problems for the people and improve their happiness index.
After Su Shi finished his lifting, his body and mind were comfortable, and he continued his comfortable life of eating and drinking.
As a foodie, Su Shi not only understands the ingredients, but also pays attention to the cooking methods of the ingredients.
Autumn is here, and it's the best time to eat crabs. Su Shi began cooking crab. He has a special insight into the cooking method of crabs, only chooses crabs before the frost falls, puts the clean crabs in the cage drawer, sprinkles some wine, and when the crab meat is slightly raw, he takes it out, and gets the tender and delicious crab meat with wine aroma.
One year in the middle of summer, he went to Yuzhou (present-day Chongqing) to visit his friend Wang Daoji. Wang Daoji, who knew Su Shi's preferences, invited him to eat the popular hot pot fish at that time.
Wang Daoji chartered a riverboat by the riverside, invited Su Shi to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the river, and ordered the chef to prepare lunch. Just before the chef turned to leave, Su Shi stopped him and asked him to adjust the method of hot pot fish, first through the process of frying, stir-frying, graining, boiling and other processes to deal with the fish, and then add hot pot ingredients to season, and finally put the cooked fish in the pot and bring it out.
After the chef retired, Su Shi explained to everyone that although the hot pot fish was delicious, but now the sun was hot and there was no wind on the river surface, if you use an open fire to eat while shabu, you will inevitably sweat, affecting everyone's mood of tasting food and enjoying the scenery.
The improved hot pot fish was well received, and the taste of the fish was as spicy and delicious as the hot pot fish. Since the pot containing the fish is cold, this dish was called "cold pot fish" by Su Shi.
Although Su Shi traveled all over the country in his life, as a Sichuanese, Sichuan cuisine has always been a love on the tip of his tongue, and the food he cooks also carries the taste of his hometown. Sichuan cuisine has been popular throughout the country since the Song Dynasty, and Su Shi can be called "Sichuan cuisine promotion ambassador".
Good wine pairing can add a lot of color to the food, so Su Shi loves both food and wine. However, his alcohol consumption is not very good, in modern times, it is at most the amount of 1 bottle of beer. However, fortunately, the Song Dynasty winemaking was limited by the process, and the degree of wine generally did not exceed 10 degrees, and Su Shi was not enough to pour a cup.
Su Shi likes the feeling of "slightly drunk" and drinks a glass of wine at every meal. Before he wrote and painted, he had to drink alcohol, and after drunkenness, masterpieces and famous sentences appeared in an endless stream.
Thinking of his brother, he asked the wine to Qingtian and wrote "I hope that people will be long- and thousands of miles together"; he sighed about life, looked at the cup of sorrow, and sighed "The world is a big dream, and life is cool in autumn"; expressing his attitude toward life, he wrote down after waking up from the steep spring wind and drinking, "Looking back at the place where it has always been, returning, there is no wind or rain and no sunshine."
However, Su Shi also brought himself a lot of "trouble" after drinking, after all, it is easy to let go of himself after drinking.
Once, when Su Shi returned home after a banquet, because it had been three days, the domestic servant slept so loudly that he could not hear his knocking at the door. Su Shi, who had no one to open the door, had to stand by the river with a stick, listening to the sound of gushing water, and lamenting when he would be able to get rid of the eunuch and get rid of the life of competing for fame and profit. At that moment, he really wished that a small boat would immediately appear on the riverside, and then he would escape from here by boat and spend the rest of his life carefree in the rivers and lakes.
Su Shi naturally thought that there was no problem, but it was inappropriate for him to write this idea into "Linjiang Immortals Drinking Dongpo Wake Up and Get Drunk", that is, "The boat has passed away from here, and the river and sea have been parasitized for the rest of their lives." So there was a rumor that he had written the poem and escaped by boat overnight. This frightened Huangzhou Taishou, after all, Su Shi was a degraded criminal official and could not leave Huangzhou without permission. He hurried to Su Shi's house to check it out, but found Su Shi snoring in bed like thunder.
Su Shi, who lived a tight life, naturally did not have spare money to buy and drink alcohol often, and he began to make wine when he was very addicted to alcohol.
Su Shi's hometown of Meishan, which was close to the wine capital Rong prefecture (present-day Yibin, Sichuan), had tasted the famous Rongzhou wine Yao Zi Xuequ made of a variety of grains, and was impressed by its delicacy, so he stopped by to learn the winemaking method from the people of Rongzhou. The smooth sailing in making food made Su Shi mistakenly think that he also had a talent for brewing.
The first time to brew wine, Su Shi did not challenge the difficult Sichuan famous wine "Yao Zi Xuequ", but chose to brew the honey wine that his friend Yang Shichang was good at, and also specially asked Yang Shichang for detailed advice on the secret recipe of winemaking.
On the day the honey wine was brewed, Su Shi, who was full of confidence, invited his friends to taste it. However, the friends who came to taste the wine happily were all knocked out by Su Shi's honey wine, not because the wine was strong, but because the people who drank the honey wine all vomited and diarrhea, and they were too weak to come.
The failure of a winemaking did not stop Su Shi from continuing the pace of winemaking, and learning the lessons of this winemaking failure, Su Shi continued his winemaking business.
In ancient times, Hainan was full of miasma, snakes, insects, rats and ants were everywhere, and there was a lack of medicine, so Su Shi borrowed the method of resisting miasma from the ethnic minorities in Rongzhou to brew medicinal liquor. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" records that Tianmen Dongjiu can tonify the internal organs and make people less sick. It just so happened that Hainan was rich in Tianmen Dong, so Su Shi tried to brew Tianmen Dong wine, and this time he was very successful.
After the success, Su Shi was in high spirits, while filtering the liquor, tasting it, sipping from small mouth to large mouthful, not surprisingly, Su Shi, who had a poor amount of alcohol, was drunk again.
Despite the upheaval of half a life, Su Shi ate, drank, played and had fun, saved himself with rare optimism and appetite, and also left a rich literary treasure and interesting soul for future generations. Lin Yutang once said: "The mention of Su Dongpo always causes people to smile with kindness and admiration in China. ”
A thousand years later, it is also memorable to remember the fine wine Yao Zi Xuequ that Su Shi favored. However, today's Yao Zi Xuequ has been renamed Wuliangye because of the "collection of the essence of wuliang into jade liquid", this wine has a long aroma, mellow taste, luscious entrance, clean throat, harmonious taste, just right, especially known for its comprehensive wine taste.
The Sichuan cuisine that Su Shi cherished has changed several times and has become a representative of Chinese cuisine. Wuliangye is also acting as a typical representative of strong aromatic liquor, through the creation of "Chinese wine + Chinese cuisine" golden CP, with wine as the medium, so that Chinese culture to the world.
Author: Zhang Yanjun
Coordinator: Li Yaowei Yan Mei
New Media Editor: He Miao
Producer: Liang Yanhong