This July, Yi's new movie "Send You a Little Red Flower" came to Wulian for filming! We'll have to wait for the movie to air to find out how much charm this smoky town exudes, but the town's smoky Lunan delicacies can't be hidden any longer?

All kinds of food in the mountains of south-east Shandong Province will make you discover new treasures anytime, anywhere

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Photography/Wang Yunfei

Wulian is a county in south-east Shandong Province, which you may not know much about, but for those who really love food, Wulian is a fascinating place to visit. , which has enough mountain feasts to appeal to everyone: pasta, tofu, goat, roast pork ......

The people of Wulian have an unrivaled love of food, and even bugs can't escape being deep-fried. Today, we'll introduce you to some of Shandong's most unique mountain delicacies▼

Part 1

Jujube cake called jujube mountain, pasta by the pound

The low mountainous terrain has made Wulian's diet in many ways very different from that traditionally eaten in northern China, but some of the basic eating habits are the same, such as eating noodles.

▲ The food on the stove in the picture is jujube cake, also called jujube biscuit, but Wulian people prefer to call it ? The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on some of the most popular products in the world. , which means early hair and high yearly. Photo/Liu Xianhui

Eating noodles is a traditional diet in northern China. And Wulian's predominantly hilly landscape is not conducive to large-scale cultivation of wheat, so the total wheat production is extremely low. Even if there is a certain area of plains in the country that can produce wheat, the yield determines that wheat cannot be the most common staple food for local people in Wulian, especially those in the mountainous areas.

But what influences the Chinese diet is not only the ecological environment, but also the folk belief that food needs to be used to offer sacrifices to ghosts, gods, and ancestors, and that some sacrifices accept only specific offerings. At this time, food has a value and meaning beyond nutrition and satiety. The sixth day of the sixth month of the year is the time for harvesting new wheat, which is used by the people as the boundary between new and old wheat.

June 6 every year is the harvest of new wheat season, before June 6, Wulian people to make new flour into snake or dragon buns into the grain, meaning? Dragon hold hoard?

▲Flowering claw photo/Wang Yunfei

Noodles are also a must for Wulian people at banquets, such as wedding ceremonies. The first time I saw this was when I was a student at the University of California at Berkeley. The food includes small pastries such as tumble claws, drop cakes, and fish cakes. Flip claw is a ring-shaped grid of deep-fried pasta, a palm-sized, with a knife in the dough drawn claw-shaped twisted out of a variety of styles looks like a slender claw, hence the name? Flipping Claw?

▲Pancakes made from white potatoes, how do they taste? I'm sure the expression on the little girl's face in the picture says it all. Photography/Wang Yunfei

Wulian's large, low-hill landscape is not conducive to wheat cultivation, so that instead of wheat, sweet potatoes, corn, soybeans, sorghum and other coarse crops are commonly grown. Among them, sweet potato plays an important role as an alternative staple food. The Wulian people call sweet potatoes groundnuts, and there is a local native groundnut of the white potato type, which is so large and sticky that it is often used as an ingredient in pancakes. White potatoes are washed and peeled, then ground into a paste, and the ground paste is kneaded into a ball and rolled directly on a hot griddle. Pancakes rolled with scallions are of course good, but Wulian people prefer to serve pancakes with fresh tofu and chili peppers.

Part 2

Soybeans are put to good use in Wulian

Chinese people love tofu, and believe that eating tofu is eating ? The Chinese believe that eating tofu is a sign of good fortune. Wulian people must make tofu for important festivals, and Wulian's tofu is made with brine, which is yellowish and less watery, but has a strong soybean flavor. Wulian people must make tofu in case of important festivals, but also the good tofu slices with salt marinade, in order to prepare for later consumption.

In Wulian, tofu can be stir-fried, fried, boiled in soup, rolled in pancakes, and made into tofu rolls. After chopping the tofu, it is wrapped in a large semicircular pastry. Then mix some cabbage, green onions, minced meat, and then roll it up like a nori roll, and then cut the long roll into small pieces to be a tofu roll, pan-fried, steamed or boiled.

Soybeans in Wulian can be used to their fullest potential. A basket of soybeans, first made into soy milk, and then drink soybean brain, and then eat fresh tofu, tofu dregs used to stir-fry, and finally drink tofu soup, a whole set of processes down to do a variety of soy food together is the Wulian people called? Tofu feast. A group of people around a table tofu feast, eating and chatting, is a pile of joy in Wulian people.