Essays on tastes and life of Yangzhou people

After reading Mr. Wang Zengqi's "Chinese Taste" recently, I was impressed by his broad knowledge and almost exhausted the five flavors of the world, which made my tongue full of addiction. Savoring his words carefully, I couldn't help but think of the dishes in my hometown of Yangzhou, and I was already salivating...

One of the biggest characteristics of Yangzhou people's taste is that it is light, even if it is sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, it is just light. , just a little bit, like a dragonfly touching the water, never like a cormorant diving into the water.

The taste of Yangzhou people is most particular about the word "fresh". The local people use local materials. The fish is fresh and is still jumping when you put it on the chopping board. The meat is fresh and the residual warmth of the pig is still there when you touch it. The vegetables are fresh, with the smell of earth still clinging to the roots. The melons are fresh. They are fresh, with residual flowers still on their navels; wild rice is fresh, with dew still on the green leaves; snails are fresh, with a layer of moss still growing on them. With fresh ingredients and the chef's careful cooking, every dish is delicious and delicious. For example, eat noodles with crucian carp soup. After a few "instigations", all the noodles have been eaten. Then drink the slightly hot soup. The fresh feeling is really refreshing!

In addition to being fresh, Yangzhou people also taste a little sweet. In early spring, green malan grows on the ground, and fresh and tender leaves of wolfberry emerge from the bushes on the river bank. The locals pick the malan heads and wolfberry leaves, blanch them in boiling water, and then fish them out. , squeeze out the excess water, add an appropriate amount of salt and sugar, pour some sesame oil and mix it, it is sweet and fragrant, and it feels so good to eat it with white porridge! The snacks made by Yangzhou people are also sweet, such as Dajingguo, Xiaojingguo, Taosu, Jingangqi, and various kinds of steamed buns, whether meat buns, vegetable buns or tripe buns, all have a sweet taste.

Yangzhou people don’t like sour food very much, and only the bean paste made by local methods is a bit sour. In midsummer, housewives would boil the soybeans, wrap them in flour and store them in a dark place. After a few days, a layer of green mold would grow on the bean dough. Then they would pour the soybeans into a pottery vat and add an appropriate amount of brine. Put it in the sun to burst, and after two weeks, a vat of sour and sweet earthy sauce will be made. Earthen sauce often attracts flies, and sometimes if precautions are not taken, slender white maggots will turn over in the sauce jar, but this does not affect the taste at all. Put the cucumbers and eggplants in the pottery jar, and after a week, the sauce will be made. It is sweet and sour, crisp and refreshing, and you will not let go even if you are slapped. Bo Yang's talk about China's "sauce vat culture" may have been inspired by Yangzhou people's sauces and sauce products.

Yangzhou people are very hard-working. An aquatic plant called the mushroom grows in the local paddy fields. Its rhizome develops into an egg-shaped mass. This is the mushroom. The mushroom is sweet in nature and bitter in taste. It is a vegetable commonly eaten by Yangzhou people in the mid-winter season. When you walk into the market, you will see peasant women with their heads wrapped in blue cloth shouting loudly: "Buy mushrooms - sell mushrooms - fresh mushrooms -" and go home after buying mushrooms. Cut the skin into white slices, cut two pieces of dried tofu into strips, wash three green onions and cut them into several sections, add authentic rapeseed oil to the iron pot, wait until it boils and releases a pungent aroma, Add the dried tofu and stir-fry for two to three minutes. Add the mushroom slices and stir occasionally. After four or five minutes, add the green onions and add some soy sauce, salt and sugar. Pour in enough water to cover the mushrooms when boiling. After five or six minutes of cooking over medium heat, a fresh aroma of mushrooms filled the entire kitchen. Place the dish on a plate, put a few green onions on top to break the color, and a delicious dish is ready to serve. A kind of white radish produced in Yangzhou also tastes a bit bitter. It is said that this ingredient is used to stew pork rib soup. It has a very nourishing effect, so Yangzhou people especially love to eat this white radish.

Nowadays, Yangzhou people also eat spicy food. When braised crucian carp, add one or two pieces of chili pepper to give it a unique flavor; the thirteen-spice lobster also has a spicy taste, and Yangzhou people also eat it with gusto. Yangzhou people eat spicy food incomparably with Sichuan people. The former eat spicy food like a beautiful lady playing the bamboo flute and singing "Willow bank, dawn wind waning moon", while the latter is like a Kansai man holding a bamboo board and singing "Great Jiangdong" Go, let the waves run out, and you will be a romantic figure through the ages.”

Yangzhou people pay great attention to saving. Even if the ingredients have changed or even stink, they are not willing to throw them away easily. The tofu is ground a year ago and kept in a pottery jar with water. It can be eaten until the "dragon raises its head" in the second year. As the temperature gradually increased, the tofu water turned into turbid yellow water, and the tofu was sticky in the hand. When the green vegetables in the field grow sprouts, they are cooked with tofu. This aminated tofu smells bad and tastes particularly fragrant. The soup is also very good with rice.

In early summer, duck eggs were marinated in brine and stored in earthen jars. Sometimes the eggs were accidentally broken when moving the jar, and brine seeped into them. The yolk of this kind of cracked egg turns black when cooked and exudes a smell of protein. When eaten together with barley porridge, it has a special taste that leaves a fragrant aroma on the lips and teeth and an endless aftertaste.

The taste of Yangzhou people focuses on nature and ecology. Every Yangzhou resident living in a foreign country feels so warm and friendly as if he has met the girl next door when he tastes Huaiyang cuisine...