Chinese classic lines on the tip of the tongue (2)

Classic Chinese lines on the tip of the tongue

An enjoyable process. Everyone can break out steamed buns of different sizes and shapes according to their own taste, and then cook them with them. The soup that has been aged for more than ten hours, a bowl of mutton steamed buns that looks bold and simple, is actually delicate and complex inside.

Almost all Chinese people know a concept: northerners like to eat pasta, while southerners cannot live without rice. This is because of the two major agricultural layouts formed a thousand years ago. One is the Yellow River Basin. Dry farming is mainly based on millet and wheat, while the other is rice farming in the Yangtze River Basin. Therefore, China’s unique staple food pattern of “rice in the south and rice in the north” emerged.

Jiaxing, located in the Taihu Lake Basin, is in the oldest rice-growing cultural area in China. For a long time, Jiaxing has been known as the world's granary. However, for Jiaxing people, who are famous for their exquisite lifestyle in the south of the Yangtze River, a day of peace of mind begins with a hot meat rice dumpling.

On the modern assembly line, the ancient food Zongzi shows a different vitality than the traditional way. Liu Guangrong, a rice dumpling wrapping technician who came to Jiaxing from Sichuan to work, has to complete more than 3,000 rice dumplings from 8 am to 4 pm every day. On average, 7 rice dumplings are wrapped per minute. Each rice dumpling takes less than ten seconds, and the accuracy of the portion size is 100%.

In such a workshop, about 1 million rice dumplings are produced every working day.

Every year when the late rice matures, it’s time for Ningbo people to make rice cakes. The children had made an appointment to return to the village from Ningbo to visit their grandparents. It was only a rare two or three times a year that four generations of a family sat together like today. On this rather sumptuous table, the children’s favorite rice cake is naturally indispensable.

Making rice cakes is a tradition for Ningbo people to celebrate the New Year. In the past, Ningbo families would make tens to hundreds of catties of rice cakes before the New Year, soak them in winter water and store them, and eat them from the twelfth lunar month until the next year. .

Ningbo Shuimou New Year Cake is made from late japonica rice newly produced that year. After soaking, grinding, steaming and pounding, the molecules are reorganized and the taste is improved. After pounding the rice flour dough, knead it vigorously on the paving board, and then knead it into long strips. The most common base rice cake is formed.

The happiest thing for five-year-old Ning Ning is to make rice cakes with her great-grandmother. When Ning Ning grows up, she may not remember how to make rice cakes, but the soft and chewy texture, carrying the taste of family, will remain in Ning Ning’s memory throughout her life.

The Spring Festival, for the Chinese, is a family festival. During the Spring Festival of 2012, Bai Bo celebrated the New Year in Beijing with his whole family. As a professional photographer, Bai Bo works in film crews all year round. Only on rare days like the Chinese New Year during the year can the children return to their father.

Dumplings are the most important staple food among Chinese people. Especially on the eve of the New Year’s Eve, eating dumplings means the New Year’s Eve. According to Chinese people’s habits, no matter how the year goes, the family gathers together on the Spring Festival and New Year’s Eve. Eating dumplings at a reunion is the highlight of a feast that cannot be replaced by any delicacies from the mountains and seas. Today, when almost all traditional handmade foods have been put on industrial assembly lines and copied, the Chinese, the group that values ??family values ??the most in the world, are still repeating the same story year after year.

At this time, in the hearts of Chinese people, there is nothing more important than eating together with their families. This is the Chinese tradition, this is the Chinese people, and this is the Chinese story about staple food.

Episode 3: Inspiration for Transformation

In the rules of eating, flavor is more important than anything else. The Chinese have never tied themselves to a boring food list. With an understanding of food, people seek inspiration for transformation through constant attempts.

The ancient city of Jianshui, located in the Red River area of ??Yunnan, was called Lin'an in ancient times. It is a multi-ethnic settlement, and the mixture of various cultures has formed a unique atmosphere and pattern. Beside Jianshui's most famous Dabanjing, women built a tofu assembly line with just the cooperation of their fingers.

Built in the early Ming Dynasty, Dabanjing has an astonishing diameter of three meters and still retains its vitality hundreds of years later. The Chinese believe that water can nourish people’s spirituality and consciousness. This is like how water shapes tofu. There is an indescribable connection between the two.

The lives of Yao Guiwen and Wang Cuihua surrounding Tofu are light and hard. The husband’s biggest wish is to go fishing in a large lake far away, although he has never fished before. In the eyes of this couple, every piece of tofu is precious. They can help themselves provide for their children and live a happy and stable life.

In late September, the green color of Ujimqin grassland has faded. Meng Ke and his family seized the time to make their final grazing trip before the harsh winter. Milk tea is always the star of breakfast. Brick tea, butter, fried rice, and fresh milk are the important contents of a pot of milk tea.

The milk tofu was made a few days ago. People on the grassland cannot live without milk tea and milk tofu.

Vitamins and minerals that cannot be supplemented by vegetables and fruits can be obtained here. Continuing south, thousands of kilometers away in Yunnan, the situation is almost the same. Bai people use similar techniques to transform the milk here. The breast fan was left to dry in the courtyard, like a huge wind chime.

This kind of tacit understanding across thousands of miles may be traced back to the time when the Mongols opened up territories. More than 800 years ago, the Mongols during the Kublai Khan expedition to Yunnan. The Mongolians who settled here also brought the taste of dairy products from their distant hometown. They would not have thought that this method of transformation has been handed down and is full of vitality.

In terms of protein supply, soybean food is the only plant-based food that can compete with meat. For vegetarians, this is perfect. Ancient Chinese people praised tofu for its harmonious virtues. People who eat tofu can be content with poverty, and people who make tofu also know how to "let nature take its course".

In southern Anhui, the unique geographical environment and mild climate have contributed to people’s indifferent and conservative temperament, and also gave birth to a unique food? Hairy tofu. Fang Xingyu would not make hairy tofu in the hot and humid summer. On sauna days, it is difficult for people to control the fermentation direction of tofu. But in other seasons, Huizhou's warm and humid environment can guide microorganisms to get on the right track of fermentation. She hopes that her daughter can learn and understand everything related to this.

The smart Chinese are very good at using these tiny creatures. In fact, this kind of transformational wisdom has been shining brightly in older times. Rice wine is one of the oldest wines in the world. Wine should be the earliest example of people using microorganisms. In the early morning of the beginning of winter, light rain began to fall in the sky in Shaoxing. This is a good sign for winemakers. Yeast likes the long but not severe cold in Jiangnan winter. Shaoxing has been a prosperous and prosperous place since ancient times. Today, people in Shaoxing are still happy to live by the river and enjoy the leisure. In the sauce garden, hundreds of huge sauce jars are lined up in the open air. Fifty-six-year-old Ding Guoyun is still very strong. The sauce is thick and viscous, and requires manual labor to turn it up and down regularly so that the fermentation in the sauce jar will be even. In these sauce jars, the world of microorganisms is one that ebbs and flows and restricts each other. ?Chinese sauce? is unique in the history of human fermentation. For thousands of years, it has formed the basis of the taste on the Chinese table.

In northern China, the meaning of sauce is more direct. In three months' time it will be time to make a new sauce, but the preparation has to start now. Making sauce is a big deal for people in the Northeast, and neighbors also come over to help. The cooked soybeans are mashed directly in the pot. In the northeastern region of China, people only use soybeans to make sauce. Such singleness is also a luxury. On the warm fire bed, six hands worked together to shape the mashed beans. The taste of sauce can even become a criterion for measuring whether a housewife is qualified or not. Finally, wrap it in breathable yellow paper and tie it into a strong sauce base. The sauce base was hung on the wall. Over the next two months, they ferment quietly. Wait until next spring to start a more in-depth transformation.