On the night of returning to Nantian, you walked into a small restaurant. Look at the chopsticks on the table. Although they are extremely clean, they are wet and sticky when touched. The only thing you want to do at the moment is to find boiled water from the store and wash the bowl inside and outside again. What affectation, cleanliness, making tea first, and surrounding wealth with water can't offset the agitation of water droplets in the air on your mind.
Nzzhidao tells you why Cantonese people like to wash dishes before eating.
Disinfected tableware in restaurants. (Xinhua News Agency/photo)
A friend is from Zhanjiang. One day I asked her, "Do you like washing dishes?" The friend is puzzled: "What bowl are you kidding?"? I don't cook at home. " "I said go to the restaurant." I made it very clear. The friend smiled: "That's one of our religious ceremonies."
Friend, she's really not kidding. She looked it up on the Internet and found that washing dishes before eating out is a national habit in all parts of Guangdong. In Cantonese, the pronunciation of washing dishes is "lng bowls". When eating and washing dishes in restaurants, people in other places occasionally do it, but most of the time it is limited to people who love cleanliness. In other words, washing dishes before meals in restaurants is not a common phenomenon in China, but only in a corner of Nanling.
A way of life must have reasonable reasons for its formation before it becomes a habit of universal participation. The climate accounts for a large part of the reason why Cantonese people have developed the habit of washing dishes.
The miasma is hot and humid.
"I fell into the rivers and lakes in a short while, and it was quite awkward to sweep it." Nanling was called a wild land for a long time in ancient times. As a subtropical monsoon climate in Guangdong, modern people have understood that dysentery is a rotten smell mixed with moisture in an environment with high relative humidity. If a northerner is lucky enough to go to Guangdong, the first feeling of getting off the train must be that the air sucked into his nose is sticky, not for other reasons, but because the air is relatively humid.
To say that feelings are too subjective, you have to speak with objective facts. Here is a set of annual average climate data of Nanling National Forest Ecological Reserve:
"Nanling National Forest Ecological Reserve (11256 ~11304e, 2430 ~ 2448n) is located in the hinterland of Nanling in northern Guangdong at the junction of Guangdong and Hunan provinces, with an annual average temperature of 17.7 and a maximum temperature of 34. The annual average precipitation 1705mm, the highest year can reach 2495mm, the rainfall is concentrated in March-August, and the annual average relative humidity is 84%.
This ecological reserve is located in northern Guangdong, and the direct distance from the ocean should be the farthest in Guangdong Province. The relative humidity here is so high, so the farther south, the higher the relative humidity will be.
Another set of real-time data can support this speculation. Here is the climate data of Guangzhou on October 30th, 2065438+0765438+/kloc-0: "Temperature: 23 ~13; Somatosensory temperature: 25; Relative humidity: 94%; Air pressure: 10 17hPa ".
In contrast, the relative humidity in Shanghai is 85%, while that in Beijing is even lower, only 64%. Although the data of relative humidity is always changing, a day's comparison can't explain any problem, but there is no doubt that the air humidity in subtropical monsoon climate zone is higher than that in temperate monsoon climate zone. In addition, South China belongs to a typical maritime subtropical monsoon climate. From March to April every year, warm and humid air from the South China Sea meets cold air from north to south, forming a quasi-static front in Lingnan, which makes the weather in South China changeable and very humid. This is the return of Nantian, which Guangdong people hate very much. In the weather of returning to the south, some items or foods are easy to get wet and then mildew and rot. As a result, Guangdong has high humidity all year round, and with suitable temperature, it has become an excellent paradise for microbial crazy reproduction.
In a dishwashing factory, workers are packing sterilized tableware with equipment. (Xinhua News Agency/photo)
E.coli said that she likes Cantonese bowls.
Bacteria are everywhere, everywhere. So, can all bacteria settle and breed anywhere? That's not true. Different bacteria have different requirements for environmental conditions. For example, some bacteria can grow at a lower temperature (15 ~ 18) and even survive at -70℃. Some bacteria are suitable for living at 45 ~ 50℃, and some hot spring bacteria can grow at 90℃.
The suitable temperature for the growth of most bacteria is 20 ~ 40, which means it is suitable for living at room temperature or human body temperature. Like animals and plants, water is the main component of bacterial cells. Generally speaking, the water content in bacteria is 75% ~ 85%. Without water, bacteria can't grow and reproduce normally, so a dry environment is not conducive to the survival of bacteria. On the contrary, bacteria like it.
Seeing this, you can easily find that Cantonese people who love lng bowls are not melodramatic and tidy, but live in a hot and humid climate all the year round. When eating in public, they must ensure that the tableware is clean and hygienic. Especially in open-air food stalls and food stalls, the hygiene of tableware cannot guarantee absolute standards, so it is very necessary to wash the bowl with hot water before eating. At least there is a psychological hint that "the dishes and chopsticks have been disinfected with hot water". Therefore, the habit of washing dishes in Guangdong has a long history, which is not consistent with the general concern about food safety in society.
In fact, in 20 14934-20 16, the latest national food safety standard "Disinfected Tableware" was implemented, replacing the previous GB 14934- 1994 "Hygienic Standard for Disinfected Tableware". For example, the new standard stipulates that "dining (drinking) utensils should have a smooth surface, no attachments, no oil, foam and odor". At the same time, "the limit values of coliform fermentation method and paper method are unified as not to be detected". In the old standard, coliform and anionic synthetic detergent are limited to a certain extent, as long as they do not exceed the standard, they are qualified. However, the new standard clearly stipulates that these two items are not allowed to be detected, and there are no more restrictive provisions.
The regulations are strict, but in practice, there will always be non-compliance caused by non-compliance. According to media reports, in August last year, the US Food and Drug Administration in Wuhan conducted a random inspection of catering food (reusable sterile tableware) and found that 60 batches of tableware samples were unqualified. There are also some well-known catering chain enterprises, which are also on the list. Although this has not happened in Guangdong, negative reports about food safety often appear in newspapers. On the health level, people generally have no higher trust in tableware. This situation that the national food safety issues are so jittery will only aggravate the frequency of Guangdong people's love to wash dishes to some extent and will not let them give up this habit.
The hot and humid climate and environment lead to the natural phenomenon that bacteria are easy to breed, and the objective fact that tableware disinfection is not up to standard is prompting Cantonese people to increase the frequency of washing dishes. Especially if the two overlap, it is easier to form a psychological hint that the tableware in Guangdong is dirtier than other places (in fact, this is not necessarily the case). Therefore, the habit of washing dishes was formed earlier than the food safety awareness in other parts of the country, more because of the hot and humid climate.
Brush, brush culture
It is said that it only takes 2 1 day to form a habit, and the Cantonese people's dishwashing complex is far greater than these three weeks. When this habit becomes a national consciousness, people will not only consciously do it in life, but also consciously pass on their behavior to the next generation as time goes by. When it has evolved into a memory gene, it is no longer just a living habit, but a cultural tradition that is respected by the whole society. As a result, the "lng bowl" has become a belief in the hearts of Cantonese people.
When the living habits formed by the climatic environment evolve into beliefs, people will consciously contribute to its cultural heritage and constantly add new interpretations to it.
There is a cultural saying about the "lng bowl" of Cantonese people, saying that Cantonese people love to drink tea, but the tea brewed for the first time is just to wash away the tea dust, so it is a pity to pour it out, so it is a pity to kill two birds with one stone to wash the dishes with this first-time tea.
Another way of saying it is that Cantonese people think that "wealth around water" is a good omen. Water represents wealth, hot water scalds tableware, and wealth is surrounded, so you must surround wealth with water before eating. Although this is a superstitious idea, objectively speaking, the tableware scalded with boiling water is equivalent to disinfection again and is safe to use. Honesty shows people's yearning for security and happiness.
One night you go back to Nantian and walk into a small restaurant, feeling as wet as the surrounding area. Look at the chopsticks on the table. Although it is unusually clean, it is wet and sticky when touched by hand. The only thing you want to do at the moment is not to find boiled water from the store and wash the bowl inside and outside again? At this time, nothing hypocritical, clean, the first tea, and the water around wealth can offset the small water droplets in the air.
This is the living habit of one side supporting one side with water and soil, and one side supporting one side with climate.