Speaking of the origin of "the first dish in the world", we have to mention a figure in history, that is, Chen.
Chen, a native of Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, was famous for shielding the revolutionary party leaders from the military and police in Shanghai during the national defense war. During this period, he met Chiang Kai-shek and became close friends. After 1927, he became one of the leading figures of Nanjing National Government. Chen grew up in a wealthy family and was sickly since childhood, so he paid great attention to cooking nutrition. In his early years in Hangzhou, he ate two kinds of dishes, one was fried shrimp with tomato crispy rice and the other was fairy chicken, so he thought of combining the two kinds of dishes into one and transforming them into a new dish. However, his experiment failed many times, and he had to give up, but the matter haunted him all the time.
At the end of 1933, Chen was appointed as the chairman of Jiangsu provincial government by Nanjing National Government. At that time, the Jiangsu provincial government was located in Zhenjiang. After Chen took office, he became interested in Jiangsu cuisine and cooking after work. At that time, although "Su cuisine" had a certain reputation in the whole country, there was no certain evaluation standard for a long time. Moreover, it is mainly based on several folk cuisines in Suzhou, but it does not include many famous cuisines in Jiangsu, such as the well-known Zhenyang Cuisine, Nanjing Cuisine, Wuxi Cuisine and Xuhai Cuisine. , can not represent the essence of Jiangsu cuisine, there is no system. This is a great pity for the development of Jiangsu food culture.
Chen held a "Jiangsu Commodity Fair" in the autumn of 1934 after serving in the Jiangsu provincial government for more than half a year. In this exhibition, he saw that Jiangsu counties are rich in products, including almost all kinds of specialties of food and cooking. When Chen was overjoyed, it suddenly occurred to him: If the essence of food specialties from all parts of Jiangsu were collected, certain standards were set, and after comparison and selection, dozens of the most exquisite and representative dishes were finally selected, wouldn't it be "legitimate" Jiangsu cuisine as a representative of Jiangsu cuisine? Once the idea was established, Chen ordered to select and determine the most delicious and local famous dishes in all counties of the province, or one, two or three kinds, and recommend them to the whole province as "county dishes". County officials and businessmen believe that this is a good opportunity to publicize and promote the county's specialty products, and their enthusiasm is also very high. Soon, all the "county dishes" were reported to the provincial government.
Chen took some cooking experts and celebrities to evaluate, analyze, compare, select and even redesign hundreds of "county dishes" reported by various counties for more than half a month, and finally determined more than 30 dishes as the standard "Jiangsu dishes". Among them, the most famous ones are: Nanjing salted duck, Suzhou smoked fish, Wuxi meat bones, Nantong shark's fin, Taicang meat floss, Rugao ham, Zhenjiang herring Yao meat, Yangzhou lion head pickles, Changzhou fermented dumplings, Huaiyin eel, Gaoyou double yellow eggs, Yangcheng Lake clear water crab, Liuhe Longchi crucian carp, Changzhou sauce chicken, Fengjing tendon, Jiangyin chicken wrapped in chicken and so on. This is a magnificent sight.
In this selection process, Chen can't help but think of his early attempt to combine tomatoes, crispy rice, shrimp and fairy chicken. When famous chefs from all over Jiangsu gathered in Zhenjiang, and all kinds of raw materials and seasonings were readily available, they brought up the past and put forward their own ideas. Many people responded immediately, tried their own skills, constantly summarized and improved, and finally successfully tried a new dish.
In this process, Chen personally tasted the instructions for many times with great interest. At first, this dish had no official name, commonly known as "a thunder on the ground". Chen is very dissatisfied. He thinks this dish is great, and it comes from Zhenjiang. There are "the first mountain in the world" (Beigushan) and "the first spring in the world" (the middle cold spring) in Zhenjiang. Why not name this dish "the first dish in the world"? The name of this dish has been decided, and Chen specially wrote an ode for the first dish in the world.
After the birth of "the first dish in the world", it quickly swept the country and even overseas because of its many advantages. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, people who ate this dish also called it "bombing Tokyo" to express their desire to crack down on Japanese invaders and make it more popular in the rear area. Now this dish has naturally become one of the famous dishes in "Su cuisine". Wuxi cuisine consists of 7 parts and 325 entries, including 104 famous dishes, 47 famous snacks, 10 famous banquets, 46 famous raw materials, 63 historical materials of Wuxi food culture, 25 famous shops and 30 famous chefs. It is the first dictionary that comprehensively reflects Wuxi's food culture in the history of Wuxi.
Wuxi cuisine has strong local characteristics. The dishes collected are all original by Wuxi chefs or Wuxi catering enterprises, and the raw materials are produced in Wuxi, which is widely circulated in Wuxi and enjoys a good reputation among the citizens. There are not only traditional dishes in Wuxi that have been handed down for thousands of years, but also innovative dishes in Wuxi since the reform and opening up, which fully embodies the characteristics of Wuxi's food culture that keeps pace with the times and continues to develop.