But every time I stay in a hotel near the West Lake, I always think of the lake, the mountain, the building and the dike, and miss the past when Su Taishou built a dike on the lake. At lunch, there is usually a "meat dish". This is a famous traditional dish-Dongpo Meat.
I want to avoid greasy meat and vegetarian food in Hangzhou, and I began to decline this red, bright and greasy Dongpo meat. Then, the receptionist told the origin of this dish ... Listen, she was a little curious and wanted to try the taste of Philip Burkart.
Any romantic celebrity can always leave a clear footprint between famous mountains and rivers. This mark reflects the style and integrity of the walker. Dongpo is one of them. He not only left heroic ci poems in famous mountains and rivers, but also left a dish worth savoring for future generations.
Dongpo's life is full of food that forms allusions. The authoritative monograph of food culture "Food Code" describes why it is crisp, steamed puffer fish, flower cake and so on. However, Dongpo meat is perhaps the only one that can be passed down to this day and is familiar and talked about by people. Tracing back to the source, it is not only that Dongpo meat is excellent in color, shape and taste, but also that this "hangzhou dishes" is linked with the deeds of Su Dashi and Su Taishou who served as officials and benefited one side.
That year, Su Shi met Hangzhou as a college student in Longtuge. One day in early spring, he stood by the West Lake and was about to sing a few words. Suddenly, he saw that the inside and outside of the West Lake had been flooded with weeds, blocking the waterway. Therefore, I have no interest in poetry. He resolutely organized the people to clear weeds, dredge the mouth of the lake, and built a "dike in the lake" with silt and weeds, which was quite aesthetic and crescent-shaped. Since then, it has not only made the West Lake look brand-new and its water conservancy unobstructed, but also left two famous scenic spots, namely "Su Causeway Xiao Chun" and "Liuliu Bridge".
The people of Hangzhou are very grateful to this new satrap. When he learned that he liked to eat braised pork, he came to the door with pork one by one. When Su Shi saw it, he laughed and accepted it all. The next day, instruct the chef to cook the braised pork in pieces according to his own unique skills and put it in a small altar for a long time? The finished products will be distributed to migrant workers who dredge the West Lake. Everyone praised it after tasting it, so it was called "Dongpo Meat".
I remember when I was writing about food culture in Hangzhou, I heard of many "follow-up versions" of Dongpo Meat after it went on the market. When the first edition was published, Song Renzong heard the rumor of "Dongpo Meat" and praised Dongpo for dredging the lake and having fun with the people. In the second edition, "Dongpo Meat" was "fried" together with its origin, and the confidants of the imperial court took the opportunity to advise Song Renzong that Su Shi accepted gifts in Hangzhou for personal gain and against public opinion, and the people wanted to eat the same flesh and blood. Therefore, a meat dish is called Dongpo meat, and it "chews quickly". The soft-hearted emperor listened to rumors and moved Su Shi. ...
As far as China's officialdom habits and indifference for thousands of years are concerned, I'd rather accept the latter. As far as the names of dishes are concerned, I always feel that writing names on the menu will make diners feel entangled. Therefore, in the face of the multi-version story of "Dongpo Meat", I just want to indulge in the plot of "building a dike".
A more convincing historical story is Zhupo Poetry written by Zhou Zizhi, a writer in the Southern Song Dynasty. The book describes Su Shi's pursuit of delicious food, especially his love for pork. Jupo, a layman, said that after Master Su was demoted to Huangzhou, he wrote "Ode to Pork", which recorded in detail the skills and materials used to cook pork: "Clean the pot, lack water, firewood can't afford to smoke. Don't hurry when it is ripe, it will look good when the fire is enough. Huangzhou pork is fresh and cheap. Noble people refuse to eat, and poor people don't know how to cook. I got up in the morning and played two bowls, so I was too full to care. " Now the chefs in restaurants have simplified the ode to pork, and set "slow fire, lack of water, and full fire is beautiful" as the 13-character formula for cooking Dongpo meat. Although times have changed, the firing process described in the recipe is still almost the same as that taught by Dongpo.
Different from the West Lake in Hangzhou, it is several spring and autumn in a blink of an eye. On that day, I lived in the scenery of Daoxiang Lake in Beijing, which was similar to that of the West Lake, with blue waves, flower diameter stone bridge, lotus pond Liu 'an, phoenix tree leaves, mountain temple and shop view, and saw the same "canned meat" as Dongpo meat. Through consultation, I learned that this kind of meat-brewed wine is Danyang sealed wine. This famous wine is characterized by "sweetness, softness and richness" and the dishes "slightly enter the altar?" As an element. When diners taste it, if they look at the waterscape by the window and think of Su Dongpo, it can be regarded as bringing out the best in each other.
This year, the curtain of spring just opened. I walked into the outer building of the West Lake, picked up the lion peak Longjing tasted by Dongpo, studied the Dongpo meat in the menu, and leaned against the window to overlook the looming West Lake on the balcony. I'm thinking, in the "landscape painting" of "a thousand miles of birds singing green and reflecting red", I don't know which tourist can stop and recall: dozens of days and nights more than 800 years ago, the warm and cold lake wind repeatedly dried the sweat stains of the embankment builders? Have any tourists lamented: how can a mere anecdote of burning meat spread the reputation of being an official to this day?