When Richard Nixon visited China for the first time in 1972, rumor had it that the main course of the state banquet set by Premier Zhou was white-cut chicken.

The rumor has its validity: for thousands of years, the East and West, farming people and nomadic people on the matter of eating meat have natural differences, cattle and sheep, or pigs and dogs, this is a problem.

Only the chicken, as a domestic animal that both consumes excess food and accompanies humans on their migrations, has reached some kind of reconciliation at the Eastern and Western tables. Bringing out the chicken to serve foreign guests seems natural and respectful.

But on closer examination, Chinese white-cut chicken doesn't fit in with foreigners' eating habits. Authentic white cut chicken is only authentic if there is blood in the marrow, and while Western beef and lamb are also eaten raw, eating red meat raw and white meat raw is not the same thing.

In addition, in English-speaking countries, most people eat only what goes in. Painstakingly picking, nibbling, tearing, biting, and spitting out a few bones from time to time is seen as behavior that doesn't conform to Western table manners.

While traditional Chinese etiquette has similar requirements, such as the "Book of Rites" commandment "not to gnaw on bones," the Chinese are the type of people who, for the sake of their mouths and stomachs, have never been constrained by a moral framework. Birds, fish and insects are all part of the cuisine, not to mention a plate of flavorful white cut chicken, which is enough to make the Chinese dare to risk their food.

The more national, the more global. Chinese white-cut chicken is about the most iconic example of this. It highlights the paradoxical unity of the Chinese people's quest for food that is both elegant and down-to-earth, yet full of fireworks, and also reflects the simple quest of all mankind for a gastronomic structure of proteins, fats, and sodium-containing flavorings.

No:1 One

Darwin believed that the origin of the modern domestic chicken was the Red Grouse, a fowl that lived on the South Asian subcontinent and in southern East Asia, was first domesticated by the Indians and, 3,400 years ago, was introduced to China.

What Darwin didn't know was that a lot of food waste shaped like chicken bones had been unearthed in Henan, Hebei and Shandong, where the Central Plains civilization began, and that they were 8,000 years old.

To this day, it's hard to tell whether China consumed captured wild chickens or consciously raised poultry in captivity. What is certain, however, is that the ancestors of the Chinese, at a very early age, began to eat chickens and to cook them in fancy ways. And its key catalyst was, well, pottery.

While the birth of pottery was a widespread invention around the world, it was only in China that pottery eventually evolved into porcelain, a testament to the superior craftsmanship of the Chinese pottery makers. As we all know, pottery is difficult to withstand the long-term baking of the flame, cracking and bursting into pieces is the final destination of most pottery in the era of substandard craftsmanship, so most of the pottery in the West was born in the form of handicrafts, storage tools and tableware.

But in China, cooking utensils are an important category of ancient pottery, the invention of retorts, cauldrons, li, 򓬶, tripods, realizing the basic cooking functions such as steaming, boiling and frying. This allowed the Chinese to make the earliest transition from the stage of barbecuing over an open fire to the existence of multiple forms of cooking ****. Instead of acting directly on the food, fire was transformed into water, steam and other energy to catalyze the cooking of the food.

Accidentally, chicken was again present in Chinese recipes at a very early stage. Steamed, stewed, simmered, and stir-fried chickens all appeared in succession after the invention of the ceramic stove. There's also reason to believe that white-cut chicken, in which immersion cooking is the main process, is also an ancient invention of that era.

No:2 II

But in the Flood era, for the farming civilization that valued the seasons, chickens had an important role to play besides food - telling the time.

In the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, where rituals and music flourished, the rooster, as an alarm clock-like being, was treated as an extremely valuable offering, and even mythologized as a god, gradually leaving the realm of everyday ingredients.

Even today, chickens remain an important object of worship in Taoism, a religion native to China. According to the Taiping Yuban, when heaven and earth began, Nuwa created the chicken on the first day; only on the seventh day did she use yellow earth and water to make a human being in her own likeness. The Pleiades, modeled after the chicken, the great god Vermilion Bird, referenced in the image of the chicken, and the Chinese dragon totem, which references some of the chicken elements, are all active in various Chinese folklore.

But by the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, the status of the chicken took a crashing downward turn. The Zuozhuan classified chickens as one of the "six animals," along with horses, oxen, goats, guinea pigs and dogs; and in the story of King Goujian, the king of Yue, there was even a large-scale chicken farm in Yue, which provided war supplies for Goujian's attack on Wu.

This phenomenon has been interpreted by Han Confucian scholars as a breakdown of the rites and music caused by the war. However, the essence of this phenomenon was the invention of more advanced timekeeping tools such as the gui watch, the sundial, and the funnel carving. Although limited by the technology of the time, these tools have shortcomings, but compared to live chickens, is clearly more accurate, less affected by external timekeeping appliances.

So, once again, chickens were reduced from tools to food.

No:3 III

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, China, for the first time as a united nation, began to move into a period of great development in step with thousands of years of conquest and killing of the nomadic peoples of the north.

In that agrarian era, when all national interests were paramount, chickens, as poultry with little meat and high breeding requirements, were in markedly short supply and prices remained high. But the chicken itself, and the technology to raise it, spread from east to west into Central Asia during the wars and trade between Han civilization and the nomads, and in the millennia that followed, along with silk and ceramics, along the Silk Road to the Middle East, the Near East, and ultimately to the West.

The long flux has changed the breeds of chicken, but not the love of chicken. When the white-feathered chicken from the United States traveled back to Japan after the lifting of the meat ban, and became a standard dish at izakaya in the form of yakitori, the chicken also completed its millennia-long journey around the world.

But on the other hand, after Han, Chinese chicken slowly distanced itself from the smoke and fire. It went in a very different direction from most of the world's chicken - natural flavor.

Even Japan, which has never been known for the natural flavor of its ingredients, is far behind China in its approach to chicken cooking.

Shirakiri chicken is the ultimate in natural flavor.

No:4Shokudani

After the Tang and Song dynasties, the chicken became a symbol of the abundance of food in a household.

Meng Haoran said, "The ancients had chickens and millet and invited me to their field house." Lu You said, "Don't laugh at the farmer's house, the wine is muddy, in the year of abundance of guests enough chickens and dolphins." These sentences reflect the customary use of chickens in hospitality at that time, and chicken and rice cooking to highlight the rusticity of the field; it is a kind of fish and shrimp and river freshness, the grassy rivers and lakes of the baked meat baked cakes are different from the spirit of the temperament.

If we have to compare, the chicken after the Tang and Song dynasties represents the taste aesthetic of the Chinese literati, who were "poor and alone".

To the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this tendency is more and more obvious, the late Ming Dynasty Li Yu said, "chicken is also meritorious things"; to the Qing Dynasty, Yuan Mei in the mouth of the chicken's status is further elevated to become "the chicken's work is the most huge, the dishes rely on, such as the good people accumulate virtue and people do not know.

At the same time, Yuan Mei also put "white slice of chicken" as the first of all chicken dishes, he said: "fat chicken white slice, since it is too soup, Xuan wine flavor. Especially suitable for the countryside, into the hotel, cooking less than the time, the most convenient. Cooking time can not be more."

This is probably the first time ever that white-cut chicken has entered the pen of the literati for detailed depiction. It was not Yuan Mei's original creation, but a dish that began at the grassroots, and after a thousand years of change, eventually merged with the national **** with the aesthetic sentiment of praise.

It is an advanced rendition of Meng Haoran's "Ancient people with chicken and millet, invite me to the field house." The first is a kind of advanced rendition of Meng Haoran's "the ancients have chicken and millet, invite me to the field house.

In recent times, white-cut chicken has spread further throughout the country, and with the improvement of the process and the further enrichment of seasonings, many schools of thought have emerged.

While gourmets, represented by Shen Hongfei, regarded white-cut chicken as a grassroots delicacy that had no chance of making it to the grand hall of fame because "the chicken was not found in any mainstream recipes before the 1970s."

But the truth is that white chicken is a grassroots dish with a grand vision that is rare in grassroots cuisine, representing the country's vast diversity and the spiritual wholeness of the country's fusion.

Jiangsu and Zhejiang: Shanghai's white-cut chicken - bad chicken

|Jiangnan scholar's aesthetics

In the Wu language, "cut" is the same as "eat", so Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the word "white-cut chicken" can easily be misinterpreted as "eat chicken".

Authentic Jiangsu and Zhejiang museums on the menu, all to "Shanghai white chicken" for the label. "Chop" is a common word in Wu language, "chopped heel", "crucian carp bag chopped meat", and the stock market term "chopped warehouse "Chopping" is a common word in Wu language. In addition to the large regional influence, the more important reason for the title of Shanghai is that the old Shanghai "Xiao Shaoxing" has made important improvements to it. In fact, today in the Wu-speaking areas of Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou, Hangzhou, Jiahu, the taste of white chicken are very similar.

It is said that during the Republican period, the Shanghai police were jealous of the prosperous business of "Xiao Shaoxing", and often came to the door to eat and drink for free, so the owner, who was full of the temperament and wisdom of the small people, soaked the white boiled chicken in ice-cold well water in the hope that the policemen ate it and had diarrhea, but did not realize that the chicken tasted even better after such a process.

This story makes people subconsciously feel that no matter what era, the temperament of law enforcement officers is somewhat similar.

In fact, the production of Shanghai-style white chopped chicken wastes little, and is not as elaborate as Cantonese-style white cut chicken, which is boiled with green onion knots, ginger slices and plain water. But the ice-water immersion, invented by Xiao Shaoxing, is undoubtedly a huge leap forward in cooking technology: the chicken skin shrinks in the cold and becomes very Q-bouncy, and the chicken meat instantly locks in moisture, keeping it tender for a long time.

Today, the practice of boiling and soaking in cold water has spread so widely, probably because of its simplicity, that many Cantonese and even Szechuan restaurants have copied the Shanghai style of white chopped chicken, so much so that many people think it's an innate custom of the local way of eating.

The bad chicken of Jiangsu and Zhejiang is actually a kind of white chopped chicken. It's just that there's an extra step at the end of the process of soaking the dregs.

The dregs are actually the puree left over after people in the south of the Yangtze River brew Shaoxing yellow wine, which smells and tastes like wine and can be intoxicating. Shanghai people add sea salt, rock sugar, chili peppers, cinnamon, star anise, allspice and other spices, called it fragrant lees, the proportion of which is different, determines the flavor of lees chicken towards, some people like salty, some people like fragrant, some people like spicy, each to take what they need, the taste by people. In general, the taste of Suzhou and Wuxi is sweet, Hangzhou and Shaoxing are salty, and Shanghai restaurants are accommodating, allowing the two schools of taste to be reflected in different restaurants.

Traditional bad chicken is very delicate, first put the mud-like aromatic lees into a large mouth tank, lay a clean gauze, then cut the white chicken into pieces, rubbed with fine salt and placed on the gauze, a layer of lees a layer of chicken, gently pressed. After leaving it like this for two or three days, the flavor of the lees slowly seeps into the chicken, and the bad chicken is ready.

In the fast-paced nowadays, most people are too much trouble, so supermarkets sell clarified and concentrated bad marinade, without processing, directly immersed in the chicken, but also to do the wine flavor, do a eight or nine. But for the more sophisticated, it's a little less interesting.

Fujian: Hakka white cut chicken - red leaked chicken

|Babu red dress Langjun|

Fujian white cut chicken between Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong, called is not uniform, also known as "cut", also known as "cut", probably originated relatively late, so it is not a good idea to say "cut". It probably originated later, so it relies on both sides of the naming issue.

While the dish is late, the flavor is not backward. Fujian's most famous white-cut chicken is from Changting County in Longyan City. The area is home to a large Hakka community, and is even known as the "capital of the Hakka", so the process of making the chicken is imbued with a strong Hakka flavor.

Practice than the Jiangzhe white chicken is much more complex, with castrated cockerel chicken net system, salt marinade; and then dry steaming, can not be boiled, the Hakka people believe that boiled will make the flavor of the dissipation; and finally cooled naturally, to take the onion and ginger juice poured on the table after the cut pieces.

This kind of white cut chicken is not as exciting as Jiangzhe's iced-water immersion, but the dry-steamed chicken is chewy, and the stimulation of green onions and ginger is just right, so it doesn't overpower the main event, and it makes the chicken more flavorful.

This white-cut chicken is delicious eaten straight without dipping, especially the wing tips and claws, which are great for under the table. As the Hakka people say, "A pair of chicken claws is good for drinking a pot of wine".

Like the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the people of Fujian also have a tradition of deep processing white cut chicken with wine lees. The difference is that the byproduct of brewing Shaoxing yellow wine in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is lees, while Fujian brews green red wine, a rice wine made from red currant rice with a natural red coloring, which comes with lees that are known as red lees.

The use of red dregs in chicken, in addition to increasing the aroma of the wine, also has the effect of coloring. If the chicken can be compared to the graceful and introverted Jiangnan scholar; then the red dregs of the chicken, is a red dress, the valor of the children of Labuan.

Guangzhou Qiong: Cantonese-style white-cut chicken - Hainan chicken rice

|South China's a past|

Guangzhou-style white-cut chicken, in the spectrum of the country's white-cut chicken, belongs to the most complex and sophisticated type of workmanship. What was originally a refreshingly simple preparation becomes incredibly elaborate in Cantonese cuisine.

White marinade is necessary, an old soup made with chicken bones, pork spine, dried ginger, licorice, cinnamon and other spices, and is the secret of every chicken store. When cooking, use high heat and carry the chicken "seven up and eight down" to prevent the skin from bursting. When the water boils, turn off the heat and simmer, soak and simmer for a few minutes, until the brine naturally cools, the chicken is also cooked.

Fish up, spread on the cilantro, smeared with sesame oil, not only to increase the aroma, but also to prevent immersion in the chicken brine out of the water, so that the meat becomes firewood. In recent years there have also been stores that refer to the practice in Jiangsu and Zhejiang and use cold water to agitate the chicken, which tastes good but is no longer the traditional Cantonese practice of white-cut chicken.

If the fire is well controlled, the meat of white-cut chicken made this way is extremely tender, with the meat around the chicken bones slightly peach-colored, the marrow still tinged with blood, the skin of the chicken soft and palatable from the immersion, and the subcutaneous fat slightly congealed from the natural cooling. Teochew hometown master Alan Choi, who certainly knows his way around, describes it as follows: "White cut chicken should never be fully cooked. Fully cooked meat is like rotten cloth, and the flavor of the chicken is completely gone; those who know how to eat chicken enjoy the skin the most. The so-called chicken skin is not fat and tasteless, and the layer of curry-like glue between the skin and the meat is the best. Eating the skin of the chicken and sucking the marrow from the chicken bone, great joy."

Cantonese white cut chicken on the dipping sauce is also extremely elaborate, authentic old Guangdong people are not love to eat soy sauce, that is, soy sauce point dipping white cut chicken, that is the least elaborate, the most homely common dipping sauce.

The authentic Guangzhou way of eating is garlic sesame oil dish; with red onion and soy sauce hook into the onion oil dish is also good; more niche has a small clams and mustard made of clams mustard dish, with chicken to eat with a slight sense of excitement and the sea smell; there are also popular in the stalls of the sand ginger dish, sand ginger is not ginger, but a root spice with a strange flavor, after crushed, and mixed with garlic, with hot oil! "After being crushed and mixed with garlic, the dish is stir-fried in hot oil, giving off one of the most appetizing flavors on the streets of Guangzhou on a summer night.

Hainan, which is just across the water from Guangdong, actually has a tradition of eating white-cut chicken, and the practice is much the same. More special is that Hainan people like to add orange juice in the dipping dish, a look is full of Southeast Asian flavor of the tropical atmosphere. Now popular tourist attractions, "Hainan chicken rice" is not the invention of Hainanese people, but the overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia and other places, in order to miss the taste of their homeland, improved Cantonese white chicken white marinade, adding lemongrass, spotted leaves and other spices of the South Pacific style, made out of Southeast Asia version of the white cut chicken.

This white cut chicken is unique in the dipping sauce, known as the "soul of the three sauces" black soy sauce, chili sauce and ginger and garlic paste is essential, black soy sauce with coconut sugar, thick, sweet in the mouth; chili sauce made of garlic, white vinegar and sugar and fish sauce modulation, and sour, sweet and spicy, these three sauces together, the common chicken into a star-horse chicken.

In addition, the Nanyang Chinese are generally of humble origins, and although they have been passed down for centuries, they cannot change their simple nature. It is a pity to pour away the brine used to cook the chicken, and it is easy to go bad if left in the hot climate of Southeast Asia, so it is just right to use it to cook the rice. The cooked rice is wrapped in chicken oil, and the grains are so bright and flavorful that you can easily finish off two bowls of rice even if you don't have any food.

Sichuan-Chongqing: white chopped chicken, white slaughtered chicken

|When chicken meets red oil|

The word "cut" is too weak, and the word "chopped" has a strong Jiangnan flavor, not "chopped" or "slaughtered". It's not a verb like "chop" or "slaughter" that expresses the Sichuan people's taste and attitude toward white-cut chicken.

In fact, white boiled, diced, dipped in juice of the chicken, in the Sichuan Basin called a lot of ways, Chengdu has a "stick chicken", Chongqing has a "mouth watering chicken", but the most widely circulated or "white slaughter chicken

Sichuan, the most widely spread is "white slaughtered chicken", "white chopped chicken".

Sichuan Guo Moruo described it this way: "teenage years in his hometown of Sichuan to eat the white chopped chicken, white pieces of meat, red Yin Yin oil chili sea pepper, and now that I think about it also drooling long flow ......."

In fact, the practice of Sichuan-style white chopped chicken is pretty much the same, with the chicken boiled and cut into pieces, accompanied by spicy and numbing seasonings such as vinegar pepper oil, red chili peppers and white sesame seeds.

But the Sichuanese break down the way they eat the seasonings into "drenching, mixing and pouring". "Dripping sauce" applies to the hotel, in front of the guests on the face of the red seasoning on the chicken, full of ceremony, good-looking; "mixing sauce" is mostly seen in takeaway cooked food, now sold now mixed, suitable for soliciting customers; "pouring sauce The "pouring sauce" is a way for diners to dip food into a flavor dish and taste it, somewhat like the Cantonese and Shanghai styles of eating.

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Whether it's white cut chicken, white chopped chicken or white slaughtered chicken, the quality of the chicken itself is of course the most important, but it may not be as many people think, can only use free-range grass chickens to qualify.

In fact, the beauty of the white chicken is in its tenderness, free-range chicken once grown to edible size, the meat inevitably becomes coarse and hard, soup is good, white cut is inferior. The best is the fast-growing, delicate meat of the three yellow chicken, famous such as Qingyuan chicken, Wenchang chicken, Longgang chicken, Xiaoshan chicken, are in this category.

Shu Guozhi, in his book "Eating in the Poor," says that an American restaurant boasts that its chicken comes from a mountain farm, but Chinese gourmets bite into it and realize that "it's a million miles away from good Chinese chicken."

The truth is that, in addition to its flavor, Chinese white cut chicken is also a reflection of the Chinese attitude to life: no carving, no dipping, and no matter how you eat it, it's always flavorful and enjoyable.