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People's Food World

Family Food and National Food

It is a southern custom that on the third day after the new daughter-in-law's arrival, the parents-in-law must test her cooking methods and recommend her tutoring. A certain scholarly family married two wives at the same time. The eldest daughter-in-law got up early and washed her hands and started cooking. As expected, she prepared a table of delicious food, and her parents-in-law praised her in unison. The eldest daughter-in-law said humbly: There is oil and onions, and the dung is also delicious when cooked. Everyone looked at each other. The younger daughter-in-law then also organized a table of gourmet food, and there was a lot of tut-tutting. The daughter-in-law was blessed, and she also said modestly: It's not that she is clever, but that she has more seasonings.

Victory and defeat are obvious.

After my old grandmother repeatedly taught me the above story in Zhangzhou dialect, I was able to understand that one element of the essence of cooking is seasoning, which also emphasizes the word "elegance" in Chinese food culture.

My grandfather therefore added: When he was a teenager, he came to Xiamen alone as a wanderer, ate two large cakes, and ordered a bowl of the cheapest soup on the menu, euphemistically called "Green Dragon Crossing the River", and it only cost a The copper plate is actually just a bowl of clear soup with two green onions.

People at the seaside have a special idea when it comes to eating fish: one shad, two squid, and three squid, with the shad being the highest quality. A certain wealthy family wrote an essay based on this topic when they wanted to take the exam for their daughter-in-law. The bride showed no sign of weakness and held out a plateful of steamed anchovies with both hands. As expected, the aroma was overflowing. As soon as the mother-in-law touched her chopsticks and saw that the fish's body was shaved smooth, her face dropped. It turns out that it is said that the value of anchovies lies in their scales. Only the fish scales can produce the special and fragrant golden fish oil. But when the fish was finished, I realized that the fish scales were pierced with silk threads and bunched up at the bottom of the plate. This makes it convenient to eat while maintaining the original taste. So the father-in-law exclaimed: "After all, this is a third-generation family!" This family finally got a Princess and Pea.

This story is one of my father’s most proud tutors. This shows that my father not only pays attention to the quality of food, but also pays attention to the form. Even for a small home-style dining table, he also requires a corresponding plate set. A few green vegetables should also be stir-fried until they have a name. When there was a family dinner, they dyed radishes and carved tomatoes. This extreme formalism made several children unanimously conclude that their father's joy in cooking was all in cooking, not in tasting.

In my father's spoon, except for human flesh, there is probably no animal that is off limits. When he fell from his position as a bank manager to become a rightist, he was sent to an opencast coal mine to dig coal. The food he specified in his letter was sent to his family like a stream. During difficult times, he caught field mice, peeled them and roasted them on branches; he picked chestnuts and simmered them in ashes; he picked sweet potato leaves, pumpkin leaves, and even fried locusts. If it weren't for the strange smell of bed bugs, it might have become a dish that doesn't have to worry about its origin. Everything that could be chewed by his teeth was absorbed into protein by his hungry intestines, allowing his father to survive the harsh labor. However, many of his companions who retched at the sight of field mice and locusts left one by one.

My mother died young, and my father has always dominated the kitchen. The three brothers and sisters were so happy that they opened their mouths. Although he doesn't cook at the stove, he has his own recipes at the dinner table. When they start their own families, they will make short-term raids, and they will all form their own systems. When it was the old man's turn to go from house to house to inspect the products, he still shook his head: green is not as good as blue.

The food at home spoils my tongue. If I go out for a business trip, I will definitely lose half a circle when I come back. China is indeed vast and rich in resources. Even in Fujian, there are different ways to eat them in every county. The sea oysters fried in Xiamen are different when they arrive in Quanzhou, but they are completely different when they arrive in Fuzhou. When they went abroad, they all started to share their hatred for each other, and they all missed the national food. Compared to sandwiches, not to mention the dumplings from the north, the spring rolls from the south, and even the Yangchun noodles that are popular in both the north and the south, they make people miss them so much that they grind their teeth. Even though I have tasted French escargots, Japanese raw fish, and Dutch grilled liver, my throat is always narrow, my stomach is empty, and I never feel hungry or full all day long. Whenever a foreign friend invites me to dinner and asks whether it’s Western food or Chinese food, I immediately point to the Chinese restaurant. Although I know that it is useless to not try exotic flavors in the West.

To apply myself to others, I came back from London and wrote to a good friend who works very hard and often eats sandwiches: "Take care of yourself and eat at least one Chinese meal every day."

Eat in the south and eat in the north

Perhaps not for all southerners, but for me, the food in the south and the north are so different that they are like two countries far apart.

In recent years, a lot of royal meals have been unearthed in Beijing and exposed, and the packaging has become increasingly exquisite. They are a bit more royal than the tributes to the emperor in those days. When you eat them, they are just a lot of flour and sugar. I admit that this is bias, absolutely. Please calm down our northern compatriots.

A group of military writers once came to Xiamen for a pen conference and stayed in the most luxurious Jinbao Hotel. They were worshiped with live shrimps, drunken crabs, etc. every day, but their faces were sad and haggard, and their poems and poems were malnourished and dystocia. . The hotel owner learned that he invited them to eat dumplings, and the men immediately became animated and shouted, showing their heroic qualities. I went to see a friend and it happened to be a dumpling party, shouting bad luck.

I don’t like dumplings in my life. Sometimes I go to Beijing for a meeting, and my old friend treats me wholeheartedly. He calls in five or six helpers to knead, cut and chop the shrimps, meat, ginger and so on. No expense is spared. The package is just a dish. In the words of my brother: a pair of chopsticks. There is nowhere to move around, and it is always on a big plate.

Last year, Tian Lin, Yang Mei, and Chen Suoju were waiting for their old poetry friends to come to Xiamen and treat them to Cantonese-style "morning tea." The breakfast served was a small steamer the size of a palm. Inside were three finger-sized shrimp dumplings or a pair of chicken feet. The guest didn't dare to say anything, and the bill was shocking. Yang Mei couldn't help but touch the general's belly, which was still deflated, and said: "Shu Ting, come to Xinjiang. I'll treat you to a watermelon, but you can't hold half of it with both hands. "It's ten or twenty kilograms." Chen Suoju whispered: "At least you can drink a big cup of tea." Everyone looked at each other and couldn't help laughing.

So I remembered that many years ago, Ai Momo and several other children from Beijing came to Xiamen for the summer vacation. When they got back, they wrote to me to persuade me: "I found that you are so thin because you only eat porridge." I dare them to drink it every day at my house. I got porridge phobia after drinking porridge. My father liked this group of small hired hands the most. They could drink three to five bowls of porridge and scrape the plates clean while eating vegetables. If we open the can, our whole family will always stare at the layer of oil slick and worry about it, but we never pick it up and drink it all. These northern youths were almost driven crazy by the light taste of the south. My father always thought it was because of his superb cooking skills.

I haven’t arrived in Xinjiang yet, but I did go to Inner Mongolia. Poets friends meet each other thousands of miles away, maybe only this time in their lives, and everyone is particularly enthusiastic. When I got up early in the morning, I saw two bottles of white wine waiting on the dining table. Pork, mutton, beef, dog meat, all kinds of meat are available. Stacked high to form an Arhat plate. He said honestly: "It's too extravagant. It's better to simply have a plate of green vegetables." Little did he know that during this season, even cucumbers were brought from a long way, cut into thin strips, and a few were placed on the side of the plate. Ornamental plants. When we arrived at Qiqihar, we were invited to dinner again, and this time there were very few fish. Have the courage to ask for a bowl of soup. My friend was in a hurry and carried a large steel pot to me in a moment. Even though it's just water, a cucumber and an egg, it's still delicious. After drinking again and again, my stomach felt like a drum and I couldn't finish it, so I sold it to the owner. The owner responded proudly: We northerners drink wine but don't drink soup.

Even when they go abroad, there is no confusion between overseas Chinese from the South and overseas Chinese from the North. I remember someone invited Zhang Jie home to eat dumplings. The bystanders who were from the north immediately left their seats and followed after him. I was the only one who was still playing with the fried chicken legs indifferently. Only at Chen Ruoxi's house, eating the porridge she cooked just for me for several days, using only Taiwanese pickles, I felt that I still had a stomach, which had been lost in steak and French fries for a long time.

The difference between Taiwanese food and Xiamen food is just from the street to the end of the street.

Otherwise, how could a song of roast pork rice dumplings be sung across both sides of the Taiwan Strait? Only Taiwanese and Hokkien noses can smell the aroma of roasted pork rice dumplings three blocks away.

There are so many famous brand flavors in the south, and we often criticize our northern friends, saying that they only specialize in dumplings. Last year I was a guest at my home in the North Island of England. To save time, I also had a sandwich for breakfast. Bei Dao handed me a tube of toothpaste-shaped caviar, which even Europeans find extremely delicious. Unexpectedly, Bei Dao and his wife were still disappointed: "I really want to eat Beijing's noodles with soy sauce again." Oh my God, What’s not to miss? I actually miss fried noodles!

Eating snacks

Today, we no longer have to rely on the two kilograms of pork supplied by ticket, shred it, mince it into pieces, stir-fry it and bake it. We only have to cut off our fingers. Come down and cook a New Year's Eve dinner in a different way.

Even on weekends, when the brothers go back to their old house for gatherings, the 70-year-old dad never tires of learning, and the recipes in his hands are always up to date. He makes fennel chicken and squid skewers on a sizzling plate, and always brings them to the table. Withdrew it full again. Only green vegetables are always in short supply. Nowadays, the tastes of southerners are so sophisticated that even southerners themselves feel guilty. Not to mention soft-shell turtles, lobsters, sea cucumbers, and fresh shellfish, even pig palate membranes and chicken feet have gained a high-sounding reputation.

Until one day, the seven-year-old son picked up a piece of pork and said with emotion: "Mom, are we already poor?" Everyone was shocked. The son added that on the way to school, he heard the neighbor's grandmother say: Nowadays, the rich eat kimchi. Poor people eat diced meat.

Even so, a university professor left a meal with four dishes and one soup on the table. The vegetables are real green vegetables, including cabbage, melon, lentils, and bean sprouts, and the soup is tofu soup. This professor does not work at the Buddhist College, but at the Chinese Department, which is well-known throughout the country. The reason why he was forced to become a vegetarian is simple and easy to understand, because his monthly salary can only buy ten kilograms of pork.

After Xiamen opened as a special zone, the restaurant industry became so developed that it completely controlled the market conditions.

The tourism industry suffered a setback in July and August this year, and many restaurants closed down. Citizens happily ate live shrimps. In the past, these fresh seafood were concentrated in the water tank facing the restaurant to show off their power.

Because I have gained some fame, there is always a chance that I will be invited to feast. Say no whenever possible. According to that professor friend who is a vegetarian, the current society should be about eating and being good at being an official. There are many people who are getting promoted and getting rich at the dinner table. It is also said that one of the reasons for the slump in the restaurant industry is the new regulations against the use of public funds for eating and drinking, which newspapers have repeatedly called for. Therefore, there must be many people who think that the bird will fade away.

I had no choice but to return from a banquet, so tired that the corners of my mouth hung by my ears and could not return to their original state. The worst part was that there was a half-baked diner sitting next to me. I had nothing to talk about, and it was hard to keep my head down while eating. The difficulty of finding a topic forced me to pretend to have a headache or pretend to be drunk. At this time, I most want to sneak out to the street, find a snack bar, squeeze in the steaming crowd, and dare to suck loudly and bang the plate and chopsticks. Once I was dining in a luxury hotel in Guangzhou. The last dish was pangolin. I knew it was to protect animals, so I refused to use my chopsticks. The next dish was fur seals, but I was still protecting animals. My heart was full. So I left the table angrily, and a young friend took me to a food stall. I leaned against the wall with a plate of fried escargots for 50 cents, and the sound of "tsk-tsk-tsk" sounded like a kiss. I was upright, unbridled, and happy. Along the way, we also bought some beef offal skewers wrapped in bamboo slices. The soup was dripping with water and looked delicious. People are coming and going on the street without caring about anyone. It's better than sitting in the Garden Hotel scooping out sesame paste with a small blue flower porcelain spoon and relishing it. Anyway, there are no orchid fingers like in "A Dream of Red Mansions".

I wonder if my love of snacks is related to my love of folk customs. There are many kinds of snacks in Xiamen. The most popular one is to use a pair of bamboo chopsticks to fry the tofu cubes yourself in a pan. Some men in the literary and art circles often squat under the pony lantern, their heads covered with oil and sweat, stretching their necks to sip sorghum wine, their eyes shining. Occasionally, when I pass by, someone will toast me and invite me. In the end, because I was too thin-skinned, from a distance I just saw greedy insects crawling around. Literary friends at the food stalls also took this as a sign of elegance. Research found that Lu Xun was also a veteran of this industry, so there was always a big spot of oil on the front of his clothes, which was a sign of being covered with fried tofu cubes.

I often go out, and whenever I go to a place, I often turn down meals, and go out in private to hunt for food in the streets. I am repeatedly deceived, but I never change my ways. Occasionally, I can discover the real thing and tell it to my friends, who sneer at me.

At the Sichuan Stars Poetry Festival, a friend invited me to eat Chongqing hot pot. My tongue was swollen and my lips were black and purple due to the torture. So I ate pea tips desperately and then had a stomachache. He was even helped to pay homage to the Leshan Giant Buddha. The big Buddha is looking at the opposite bank with a loving look on his face. On the opposite bank, there are a bunch of people sweating around the spicy tofu in the dim light.

I will never miss Chongqing hotpot from now on. But due to diarrhea, I finally couldn't taste Sichuan flavor. There was a restaurant opposite the hotel where I stayed called "Meimei Couple's Beef Slices Shop". I saw it every day and I will never forget it from now on. If someone asks me what is the most delicious snack in the world, the answer is: Husband and wife's beef slices.

Because I haven’t tasted it yet.