China News Service Nanning December 22 Title: Ancient Sauce Comparable to Japanese Sashimi: Guangxi Hengxian Fish Raw "Endless Fish Taste"
China News Service reporter Lin Hao Jiang Xuelin
"I didn't expect that eating sashimi is not only delicious, but also rich in culture." Ma Fei, a businessman from Xiangyang, Hubei Province, told reporters.
Recently, Ma Fei, who was on a business trip in Hengxian County, Guangxi Province, went to a local restaurant to taste raw fish. The main knife of this restaurant is Yu Fu, a master of Guangxi Gui cuisine, who has been engaged in fish raw production for more than 20 years, known as the "first knife of Hengxian fish raw", and the "Hengxian Fish Production Technical Specification" formulated by himself has been set as a local standard by the Guangxi Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision.
Yu Fu (left) selects fish for raw fish at xijin reservoir in Hengxian County, Guangxi Province, on December 19.
Yufu said that Japanese sashimi is only served with soy sauce and mustard dipping sauce, while Yokoyama fish is much richer. The way to eat can be described as raw and fresh, sandwich a large number of fresh ingredients, wrap a slice of raw fish, put it in the mouth, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty and other delicious overflowing, eat a bite of raw fish, such as taste life. "I represented Guangxi this year to participate in the 2019 Northeast Asia (Yanbian, China) Cultural Tourism Food Week and the National Ethnic Minority Cuisine Joint Exhibition, and many diners said that Hengxian fish is comparable to Japanese sashimi."
Hengxian is located in the southeast of Guangxi, the Upper Reaches of the Pearl River Yu River flows through the county, rich water resources, creating a rich fish species and fishery prosperity in Hengxian County, but also created a unique food culture of fish.
Hengxian fish is commonly known as two pieces, which is a traditional cuisine of Hengxian and has been passed down for more than 500 years. Eating fish fillet raw was originally a helpless move by Yujiang fishermen who were inconvenient to make a fire on the boat, and now "fish raw" has become the first delicacy in Hengxian County, and in September 2018, Hengxian fish raw was rated as one of the top ten classic dishes in Guangxi.
On December 19, in Hengxian County, Guangxi, Yu Fu displayed freshly cut Hengxian fish raw.
Yu Fu told reporters that the best embodiment of the skills of Hengxian fish production is the three essences: that is, fine knife work, exquisite decoration, and fine material selection.
The reporter saw Yu Fu's knife worker on the spot. Only to see him grab the live fish, knock it unconscious, cut off the tail of the cheek, bleed, purify the body, remove the bone and peel, quickly drop the knife to cut the fish flesh into only half the thickness of the toothpick, cut the second slice between the broken and the unbroken knife, cut off the two pieces of adjacent fish flesh into a piece, once opened, the fish flesh is like a butterfly, unfolding thin visible words, spreading wings to fly. The two pieces of fish are thick and even, commonly known as "Mandarin duck butterfly slices". From catching fish to fillings and toppings to serving, it takes only five minutes.
"The essence of production is to move quickly, gently, and when it is finished, each fish cell seems to be still jumping." Yu Fu said that the thinner the fish meat is cut, the more it can reflect the chef's skills. The top fish fillets are neat, smooth and beautiful.
The delicacy and richness of the ingredients for the raw fish are also the secret of the "delicious" fish raw in Hengxian County. After a long period of exploration, the people of Hengxian county will be more than 20 kinds of ingredients such as houttuynia cordata, perilla leaves, sour buckwheat, lemon, garlic, ginger, radish, coriander, etc., cut into hair-like fine, placed on a plate, dipped in peanut oil, soy sauce and pepper, and eaten with raw fish slices, to achieve the effect of defishing freshness, sterilization, heat and detoxification.
Yu Fu's unique skills are not only in knife work, but also in his creative skills in laying out plates. Only to see him place sashimi piece by piece in an orderly manner on the plate, "every year there is more than enough, Mandarin ducks playing in the water, welcome guests pine, dragon and phoenix xiangxiang, smooth sailing" and other themes of fancy platter, for diners to send food and visual feast, a beautiful picture, people can't bear to eat. Sashimi became a fine work of art in his hands.
Today, the fish making technology of Hengxian County has been included in the list of intangible cultural heritage by the People's Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Yu Fu has also been rated as the inheritor of intangible cultural heritage at the autonomous region level. Yokoyama yusheng also has a relationship with Japanese sashimi, and Yufu said that some Japanese merchants have ordered him the special ingredient perilla of the fish. He has exported this natural seasoning to Japan, changing the monotony of sashimi relying solely on soy sauce and mustard to enhance its flavor.
"Guan Feng five pipes have been for many years, every time the Nanning eyes suddenly opened, the spoon turned jade grain long waist rice, the catfish cut silver wire shrunk the bream, the scenery was in Si Yijia, and the Jia family was suffering from less Dengxian." Nong Minggang, deputy director of the Hengxian Cultural Center, said in an interview with reporters that when Zhou Mengzhong, a ming dynasty scholar, was appointed as the deputy history of Guangxi Tixue, he vividly described the cultural origin of Yusheng in Hengxian in the seven-law poem "Dengchun Yeting". (End)