Why do you have to wait until summer to eat the cold noodles with sesame sauce on the northern table?

This article was published in the "Sanlian Life Weekly" No. 37, 2019, the original title of the article is "Goodbye, Cold Noodles", it is strictly forbidden to reprint privately, and infringement will be investigated.

(Illustration by Zhao Yang)

I remember when I was a child, my mother always made tahini cold noodles for me to eat in the hot summer, and she put cucumber shredded, boiled soybeans, and diced cowpea on different plates to make the table look richer, and sat on the table with a fan waiting for the noodles to come out of the pot and cross the water, as if it always passed very slowly. This is once the most common summer scene in northern homes.

Grandma's family has always lived in Xidan Lingjing Hutong, her family's cold noodles are never associated with tahini, Grandma is an old Beijinger, she likes to fry diced meat with soy sauce, pour a few spoonfuls of balsamic vinegar when the fire is turned off, the moment the black liquid dips the pot, it immediately stimulates a sour smell of smoke, which is my initial impression of vinegar cooking. When I ate cold noodles, she would mix me with coriander, and as the vinegar flavor spread, the once-difficult-to-swallow herbal flavor finally dissolved with the starch of the noodles and turned into a refreshing fragrance.

At the northern table, cold noodles are divided into two distinct camps by spices. Tahini cold noodles dominate in the summer, I am curious about the love of northerners for tahini, which may be inextricably linked to its only dipping sauce as shabu lamb, after all, any ingredient wrapped in sesame sauce will become a similar taste, in Beijing, which loves shabu lamb, cold noodles naturally cannot escape the fate of being invaded by sesame sauce. The rest of the cold noodles have to fight for each other, with the taste of that little sauce to defend each other's attitudes and regional positions.

Delicious cold noodles are not uncommon, and the Area around Cow Street in The South City abounds. In the old soup ramen restaurant, beef bone soup ramen in the summer transformed into Xinjiang-style cold noodles, lye water hard noodles on the cold tomato slices, forming a classic hot staple food; Emei restaurant's chicken serrabi cold noodles accommodate the classic Sichuan flavor, the mixture of peppers makes the noodles and chicken shreds affectionately integrated, full of chewiness; of course, hard noodles also have opposites, in the famous Lin Jing spicy hot, noodles are almost boiled, sticky texture from the gluten to give off a similar "stewed" taste, tummy is a taste, some people love this soft glutinous, It is because the sauce is infinitely adsorbed on it and lingers.

Cold noodles and cold noodles, which sound like relatives, are really old enemies. Yanji, North Korea and South Korea are the hometown homes of most cold noodles, or yellow or gray soba noodles, stubbornly lying in a large bowl of soup, giving people a pleasant feeling when soaking in hot springs. Its taste is sweet and sour, close to the freezing point of the drink, and the smooth noodles are not the protagonists here, dominated by spicy cabbage, beef slices, and even boiled eggs and fruit slices. At the Sanquan Cold Noodle Restaurant in Wangjing, I tasted bubble cold noodles for the first time, and when the waiter poured the frozen soda-like soup into the bowl, I almost decided that this soup was the leader in the bowl. Pure-blooded cold noodles will also pass through the water, known in ancient times as "cold tao", this process is just to reduce the temperature of the noodles, by the way wash the excess starch on the noodles, so that it becomes firm and slippery. What really makes the two noodles antagonistic is the attitude of restaurant operators to these two noodles, cold noodles are considered to be salty and suitable for all seasons, and cold noodles can only be reduced to summer seasons.

My grandfather was from Shanxi, and after the Korean War, he stayed in Beijing and met my grandmother. I don't know if it is a nostalgia for the war zone, he has a special love for Yanji's cold face. After the end of the "Cultural Revolution", Grandpa had nothing to do at home, except to write calligraphy and smoke, that is, to go to the door of Huatian Restaurant not far from the north gate of Zhongnanhai, which was the grandfather's favorite restaurant before he died. Every time he ate the noodles, he chewed slowly and watched us arguing at the dinner table next generation, as if it were the most proud moment of his life. In the early 1990s, there were more private restaurants in Beijing, and the opportunity for the family to gather to "rub a meal" also increased, but Grandpa still insisted on going to Huatian to eat noodles. Grandma is not accustomed to sweet noodles, often because of the choice of restaurants with grandpa to get red ears, for this reason, located in Xinjiekou, The Shinkawa Cold Noodle Restaurant has become a compromise for the family.

I used to be in a chain semicolon, watched the process of the master making noodles in the afternoon, eight ripe noodles, into pounds were salvaged from the pot by the master fu, placed in a huge metal vessel, waiting for the residual temperature to play its final ripening effect, and then the master sharply poured raw oil on the noodles, so that each noodle was energetic and shiny. I can't remember the process of blending the sauce, but I vaguely remember that there was soy sauce, soy sauce, cotton sugar, white pepper and pepper oil, of course, the main ingredient here is still tahini. The fact that I was able to eat crushed peanuts or white sesame seeds from this noodle was probably after 2000.

When the noodles are taken, the noodles have been cooled for a long time, and the "state-run face" waiter skillfully sprinkles a handful of melon shreds on it, and a spoonful of the so-called secret sauce is served to the guests in front of them without expression, looking at the next one. When eating noodles, just stir them easily, and the noodles will become sticky and three-dimensional in the dish, and then show a less attractive shape.

Like cold noodles, the ingredients that play the most important taste are still sugar. Occasional bites of sugar granules, like surprises, give people a sense of pleasure, sweetness and stimulate the sense of taste, no wonder Grandpa often eats cold noodles without a single stick, and the sweet juice of cold noodles is also drunk. Yes, before the '90s, people's sugar intake was much less than it is today, and I can even imagine how tempting that sweetness could have been for people at that time.

In the impression, there is a congenitally stupid teenager in the Shinkawa noodle restaurant in Xinjiekou, and the children rudely call him "big fool". This fool was very fat, almost beyond the people's understanding of fat at that time, and the adults said that he was adopted in the store, so it seemed that he was even a little cute, like the mascot in the store. However, he always stared at the guests, and if anyone left the table, he would sit down and wipe them out. When I was a child, I was a little afraid of him, afraid that he would rob his own noodles, so when eating noodles, I always put my left hand on the corner of the table, as if to create a small garrison area. However, with the rapid changes in society, these people are gradually far away from our lives and can no longer be found, a friend who lives in the West Side said that the last time he saw him in the store was more than ten years ago.

Many years later, I often wanted to eat a bowl of tahini cold noodles in winter, after all, the heating in the north was too hot, and if I was not careful in life, I would catch fire. Nowadays, under the background of heating, ice cream, iced watermelon, and even ice porridge, herbal tea and other out-of-season eating have become winter foods for northerners to show their sense of superiority. Only this tahini cold noodles, until the summer, this year's friendship at first sight, it is enough to see the preciousness.

Cold noodles are a traditional Lu dish, and after the tuning of the northwest and Sichuan cuisine, it has become a popular practice in various places today. In the north, it was an appendage of tahini and a glimpse of my summer memory. In Beijing, when you can't find any trace of cold noodles with sesame sauce, you know that autumn is coming.