what's the taste of Guizhou?

how to define "Guizhou flavor" is a difficult problem, because it is far more than the well-known "sour" and "spicy".

Geographically, Guizhou has been a "foreign land" far away from the central government for a long time in history, and most of the people who live here are non-Han people, so it is not an exaggeration to say that the background color of Guizhou flavor is ethnic minority flavor.

Guizhou is rich and unique in flavor, but it is not famous as "Guizhou cuisine", not only because its dishes are deeply influenced by neighboring provinces, but also because Guizhou cuisine has not developed unique cooking skills. The core and soul of "Cuisine" is the cooking method of handling ingredients.

Guizhou, which is located in the southwest border, is surrounded by several major cuisine provinces, although it is a place with poor cooking skills. Sichuan cuisine is spicy and delicious, Hunan cuisine is strong in roasted meat, and Cantonese cuisine is clean and light, and with the traffic in the mountains, it has formed a meeting of tastes in Guizhou. At the same time, Guizhou, as a big immigrant province, the interaction of immigrant tides in different periods has fundamentally created the characteristics of "Guizhou cuisine"-integration, which is a delicious taste regardless of its origin.

If you want to experience the "taste of Guizhou", which is born in the traffic, Anshun, located in the middle of Guizhou, may be one of your best destinations.

1. Anshun snacks with their own business aura

Anshun has developed commerce and trade, so the local snacks are complicated and diverse. Anshun was built in the Ming Dynasty, and its geographical position is in the "lock of Yunnan and Guizhou". It is the fortress of the main channel of Yunnan and Guizhou, and Anshun has gradually become an important commercial port in Guizhou Province, known as the "crown of trade". Wu Qizhuo, a Qing dynasty man, described the picture of that year in Journey to Yunnan-"Anshun Fucheng is surrounded by nine miles ... Jia people gather far away, far better than Guiyang".

In the Republic of China, Guizhou opened the ban on smoking and advocated opium cultivation. For this reason, Sichuan, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi and other big cigarette dealers gathered in Anshun, and Anshun became a large-scale material distribution center. According to the record of "Continuing the Annals of Anshun", "The merchants spread in all directions, and the silks and satins were bizarre; Foreign goods are full of head, competing for novelty; The prosperity of business is in the whole province. "

The active business has promoted the formation of the pattern of Anshun business circle, which is "from the city gate to the Grand Cross Bell and Drum Tower, the street is more than three feet long and more than three feet wide", with three points to the north, "one to Jiangya Street, two to Wangchuntai, three to Rulin Road" and four points to the south, "one to Caojia Street, two to Biyang Bay, three to Gufu Street and four to Tongzhi Lane". Anshun snacks are in the business circle.

2. "Dress in Guiyang, eat and drink in Anshun"

Anshun snacks are so dense that even Guiyang, the provincial capital, has to be courteous. Several seemingly low-key noodle stands on the streets of Gufu have been passed down from generation to generation, and each one is an old brand.

The best way to visit Anshun City is to eat there. Of course, this is not my idea alone. Every visitor who comes to the old city of Anshun wants to try "crossing the street", eating from one end of the street to the other, and eating from one street to another, which is carefree and free.

Wrapped roll is a classic cold snack in Anshun. Diners can choose four kinds of secret Chili sauce. When the tomato meat foam sauce is imported, the skin is refreshing and cool first, and then the stuffing. The wrapped sour radish, mung bean sprouts and crisp soybeans are all very crisp ingredients, and there is a little sour in the sweetness, which makes the lips and teeth feel relaxed and refreshing. The more spicy pickled pepper flavor is wrapped, and the overall taste continues the refreshing taste. The spicy Chili sauce is slightly overbearing, making people have to eat several times in succession before they can stop.

The size of the wrapped roll is suitable to be eaten in one bite, but with the market demand, large-size wrapped rolls are more satiating, and you can also match the side dishes and sauces of rice skin yourself.

In the corner of the road, there is always a frying pan boiling. The egg cakes were all golden and crisp, so people couldn't help picking up a steaming cake and wanted to send it directly to their mouth. But this egg cake needs to be eaten with hot sauce and broken ears, which is considered to be right.

The fried egg cake originated in Zhenning, and it is made like a sandwich: first, rice and soybeans are swelled and mixed with rice and vermicelli powder, then it is mashed into pulp, put into a metal hexagonal mold, filled with stuffing, then put into pulp, fried until golden, and taken out. The crispy shell is golden and the inside is white.

Anshun snacks are always rich in oil and spicy, but they are not angry or sticky. Due to the influence of the southeast monsoon, even in the coldest January, the lowest temperature in Anshun is maintained at 4 degrees Celsius. There is no harsh winter in winter and no cool summer in summer, which shapes the pattern of both cold and hot snacks in Anshun. Hot food is gathered and eaten, sweating profusely, and cold food is fresh and refreshing, and it is extremely enjoyable.

3. Combination of rice and spicy patterns

Anshun snacks have two souls-pepper and rice.

The original flavor of Anshun snacks can't be reproduced in other places, and one of the main reasons is that the freshness of peppers is damaged. In Anshun, if peppers are not cooked well, snack brands will not stand firm.

All kinds of seasoning derived from chili are the soul of Anshun snacks. It can be said that every time-honored Chili sauce is an exclusive secret recipe, and its taste is different. Homemade peppers are not difficult for Anshun people. Every August and September, every household in the city begins to make "bad pepper" by the most traditional method when the morning pepper and wild green pepper are listed.

"bad pepper" is the name of "chopped pepper" in Guizhou. Fresh pepper is taken, chopped by hand with ginger, garlic cloves, raw pepper and other auxiliary materials, seasoned with salt, sugar and white wine, and pickled in a jar. After half a year's static fermentation, by the end of the year, the bad pepper in the jar released a hint of hot and sour aroma, even if it was successful.

Anshun people's interest in pasta is always a bit poor, but they are interested in studying various rice foods. Whether it's rice paste or rice noodles, it's all about a fresh, locally developed food light industry, which runs around the clock and continuously supplies ingredients for every picky mouth in the city. Anshun has dozens of rice milling industries, such as rice flour industry, bean flour industry, tofu industry, etc. The rice milling industry uses stone to grind rice into rice, or uses hydraulic rice milling to feed more than a thousand rice workers in the city. The rice noodle industry uses rice mill to make rice noodles, and the made vermicelli is fine, even and clean, which is most suitable for snacks.

Ciba is the most common food in Guizhou. The raw material is glutinous rice, which can be roughly divided into three categories: instant eating, roasting and frying. Instant eating means that glutinous rice is made into Ciba, put it in an iron pot with temperature, and pulled into small balls, wrapped with sweet and salty stuffing, and eaten while pulling. There are white pieces of Ciba baked by fire, without stuffing, sliced and baked, and served with yellow bean; Bean paste cake, as the name implies, is oblate with bean paste stuffing inside; Deep-fried Ciba, there are pieces of Ciba, pieces of cake, and fried beans.

Qingming Ba is the local people's advanced display of Qingming grass and rice flour. The master brought glutinous rice flour and japonica rice flour, and Qingming grass and water began to mix flour. The combination of the two kinds of rice neutralized the excessive glutinous rice and brought a touch of gentleness to women. What I ate was the stuffing of bean paste. After biting half a bite, the smell of bean paste floated out and I ate it urgently. The aroma spread to the nasal cavity and was straight and sweet to people's hearts. It was a plain and lively sweetness. Southwestern people prefer salty stuffing, and use bad pepper with minced meat and dried tofu.

there is also a creative morning snack called "fried rice porridge", which mixes rice and oil artistically, and adds a spoonful of "starter", a special product in central Guizhou. The thick porridge and hot oil mixed with rice flavor comfort the empty stomach in the morning, while the fried rice porridge keeps its crispness and fragrance.

4. Anshun people's life, starting from the dining table

Consumption life makes Anshun's food more expensive bit by bit, and also cultivates Anshun people's enthusiasm for life. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the catering industry in Anshun began to develop rapidly. The "Continued Annals of Anshun" contained: "The market is prosperous, which is very different from the past. Businessmen make a lot of money and their lives are becoming increasingly extravagant; In terms of banquets, in the past, it was nothing more than dishes, eight bowls, and tendons. Now it is sea cucumber seats, shark fin seats, and barbecue seats. "

no matter what class, the hostess has a good cooking skill in any family that is willing to pay attention to it. All the year round, snacks should be prepared. On March 3rd, we make Qingming Baba, on April 8th, we eat glutinous rice, on September, we make glutinous rice on Chongyang, and on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, we should cook Laba porridge. The food is delicious and enjoyable.

Dai Mingxian once mentioned the sound of the street in Anshun town in "A Man's Anshun". "Before and after midnight, the street was silent, and there was a unique cry of" stir-frying rice and sugar ".In addition, a few noodle restaurants were open, quietly venting white steam in the long night, and when it was a little brighter," selling sweet wine "and" printing and spreading ". "Hot-pastry-la!" With the frequent hawking, the sky turned blue and white, and the sun gradually dazzled, and the old city of Anshun became more and more lively. Stroll around the East Street to find the sound and taste, and you can find an excellent breakfast restaurant.

Anshun people also have a set of funny breakfast jargon, which is called "manzi Zu" if you put more cooking oil, and "avoid red" and "avoid green" if you don't want spicy onion. Most soups are called "soup width", and even spoons and chopsticks have nicknames-"duck" and "Artemisia stick".

Breakfast in Anshun also has obvious fusion characteristics. Broken crispy buns are Yunnan snacks, but they are also blooming everywhere in Anshun. Only by catching up early can you buy freshly baked buns. When you take a bite of them, you can see layers of crispy skin, which will melt in your mouth and taste delicious with the salty pork stuffing. Wrapped rolls are also the most common snacks on the streets of Anshun. Generally, they are sold by boxes. You can buy a box on your way home and take it home to Xian Yi, old and young.

It is always a good choice to have breakfast at Rulin Road every morning. The bluestone pavement on the old street has been polished by time. As long as there are colorful snacks, the town will always maintain a calm, simple and peaceful attitude, just like the years themselves.

The original text is taken from Authentic Scenery of Guizhou, with additions, deletions and changes.