If you don't eat the "Three Thousand Banquets" when you come to Kunshan, it is equal to coming for nothing.

all the food in kunshan is interesting. "Crab, fish, shrimp and duck" on ordinary dining tables are pronounced as "ha, um, hoo, ah" in Kunshan dialect. Obviously, it's about eating and drinking, but it's like singing a gentle tune that unfolds slowly, with hundreds of feelings.

Several towns in Kunshan City are only a few tens of kilometers apart from each other, but each town can have its own unique food classics. Food is particularly easy to be the introduction to the story of a small town, and foreigners like to go there regardless of the horses and chariots to explore the story and true taste of a certain food. In the prosperous days in the south of the Yangtze River, the wanton journey of finding food is often an important pleasure for ordinary people. In Zhouzhuang, stories and topics can't be separated from Shen Wansan, a rich man in the south of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty. Master Shen not only changed the wealth ecology of Zhouzhuang, but also left clues about food, clothing, housing and transportation in history, which became a blueprint for future generations to enjoy recreating. The "Three Thousand Banquets" is one of them.

Shen Wansan's story is neither true nor false, and most people laugh it off. However, Shen Jufu has married thirteen wives all his life, and he is partial to Li Niang, who has a high value, a good family and is knowledgeable, but it is a story that everyone has been talking about. In the version circulated among the people, this Li Niang is a good cook, and her skillful cooking skills usually please the squire officials of all parties, paving the way for the official and business of Shenyang with a banquet. Today, the signature banquet set of Shenting Restaurant is Li Niang's specialty "Wansan Banquet"-Wansan hoof, ancient-cooked mandarin fish, stuffed meat with river snails, stuffed meat in farm oil, garlic-flavored eel, pastoral eel and carp dishes, fragrant fried golden bricks, three-flavor round soup, and eight full bowls on the mahogany four immortals table, all of which are representative works of the family banquet in Shenyang's water town.

There is no need to divide the order of eating in a country banquet, and it is the best sincerity that a country chef can show by measuring enough materials. When several bowls of hard dishes are served on the table, most people can't help but be cruel to the "three hooves". Look at that big pig's trotters, the color is attractive. It is said that it is necessary to choose pig's hind legs with more than 2 kg and 22 liang, and 18 kinds of seasonings such as salt, ginger, soy sauce, clove and cinnamon. Only by simmering for 5 hours can we burn a deep sauce red that can fully show its connotation. Wansanhoof is a legendary dish that served Zhu Yuanzhang. It is a little fancy to eat it: because you can't divide "pig" (Zhu) with a knife, you should extract two long bones that run through the pig's hoof, use the bones as a knife, cut the stewed hoof smoothly, and then let people divide it and eat it. People who eat well live with wisdom. The ideal of the Shen family is that everyone in the world has meat and the rich and the poor share it equally.

Squirrel mandarin fish with thick bright red sauce is also the focus that everyone can't wait to eat chopsticks. The ruler held the long mandarin fish head high in the plate, and the fish body was boneless. After frying with a skillful flower knife, it was poured with tomato juice, which was sweet and sour, crispy outside and tender inside, and a piece of fish-flavored juice generate with warm entrance. The whole table was immersed in the pleasant sensation of sizzling and intoxicated.

A black snail stuffed with meat shows at a glance that it has gathered the wisdom of many peasant women. In the slack season, the village women dig fresh snails in the field water, take out the snails, add pork leg meat and chop it up, add onion and ginger as seasoning, then put it back into the snail shell, and stew it in an iron pot with a big fire until the taste penetrates. The appearance is black, but the taste level is delicate. The snail meat adds a fresh layer of monotonous pork flavor, but when it is stained with sauce, it thinks that at the end of summer, it has been sunned and watered by a rainy rice field, which is full of rich harvest flavor.

Eel carp dishes are actually steamed pickled amaranth. In spring, fresh Chinese cabbage is picked, washed, salted and put in an urn for natural fermentation. It takes Fang Chen 365 days a year, and then it is taken out after the autumn harvest and stored in winter, sprinkled with white sugar, vegetable oil and yellow wine and steamed. After cooking, the amaranth is black, red and purple. After absorbing enough oil and water, it is plump and moist, and it has a light bite, which has contained the sweet and sour of the whole year.

And the braised eel tube, fragrant fried golden bricks (stinky tofu), stuffed meat in oil, and Sanweiyuan soup are all out-and-out simple and rich. Holding chopsticks and holding a bowl, a white wall of Uwa is coming in front of you, flowing, and the entrance is both greasy and clear. With a table of dishes to show off wealth, everyone is happy, and there is probably only Zhouzhuang in Shenyang.

Some people say that this is a menu that doesn't match the identity of the super-rich family. Both the ingredients and the names of the dishes are too vulgar, lacking the elegant accent of the big families in the south of the Yangtze River, which can be said to be right. If Suzhou cuisine represents the exquisite charm of Jiangnan, then the taste of Kunshan, which pays attention to tradition and ingredients, just reflects the rural flavor and human feelings of Jiangnan.

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Wensi Xiaole

Editor | Hu Ti

The original text is taken from Authentic Scenery Kunshan, with some additions, deletions and changes.