Ten years ago in the winter, I was in an alley on Yuetan North Street in Beijing. I was surprised to find for the first time someone pushing a pushcart and selling sauced sheep heads, livers and lungs. , sheep intestines, sheep hooves, etc., all the parts of the sheep are available, which is something you can’t see in my hometown in the south.

I remember I bought two lamb faces and some lamb intestines. Take it to Brother Huang Ke's house in Wangjing, slice the lamb head meat, heat a 50% hot vegetable oil pan, first add the chopped pickled peppers, soak the ginger and stir-fry until fragrant, then add the lamb head meat and stir-fry until the flavor is absorbed, and finally add the garlic sprouts and stir-fry a few times. When you put it in the pot, it becomes a soft, crisp and delicious thing with white wine. As for the lamb intestine, I cut it into shreds and served it with a salt and pepper dish for dipping.

It is said that in the alleys of old Beijing in the past, hawkers sold mutton by carrying a small round wooden basin with a clean white cloth on it and a kerosene lamp hanging next to it. Every winter, At dusk, you will hear the cry from a high-pitched beginning to a low-pitched ending: "Sheep Head - Meat"... The way to eat it is that the vendor puts the sheep head on the cover of the small wooden basin and cuts it into thin slices, then Eat with salt and pepper.

In fact, in the "Tokyo Menghua Lu" written by Meng Yuanlao of the Song Dynasty, eating sheep head meat includes "burning the sheep head", "putting the sheep head into the furnace", "cutting the sheep head", and "burning the sheep head". "Wait for the record. There was a very poetic palace dish in the Yuan Dynasty called "Sheep's Head with Flowers". It was one of the 94 main dishes eaten by the Yuan Palace emperors recorded in "Yin Shan Zheng Yao· Gathering Treasures and Different Foods" by Hu Sihui, the imperial physician of the Yuan Dynasty. , stir-fried with sheep head, sheep waist, sheep tripe, sheep lungs, eggs, radish and other seasonings.

I think the highlight of Mr. Yuan’s sheep head cooking is that he uses old fat hen soup to cook the sheep head, which traditional cooks would not dare to imagine, and also adds mushrooms and diced bamboo shoots to enhance the flavor. The mutton of the sheep and the freshness of the chicken are intimately combined in the "four liang of sweet wine".

In 2004, when I opened Ermao’s private restaurant in Ganjiakou, Beijing, one day my female friend Liu Yuanping came to the store with her own materials and made a private dish for her boudoir using sheep heads: a peanut oil pan , put the ginger, garlic and pickled radish slices into the pot and stir-fry until fragrant, add pickled water, salt, sugar, a little white wine, pepper, tomato slices, braised (sauce) mutton slices, bring to a boil over medium heat, and then grab a large amount Scatter in the garlic sprouts, scoop them up and serve after two minutes of boiling. I remember that I scooped up a big bowl, took a sip of the fragrant soup, then added a piece of lamb head meat and chewed it slowly. Oh my God, it was so wonderful!

Sheep head meat is not only liked by old Beijingers, but also by the great poet Yuan Mei from Jiangnan. I heard that even former South African President Mandela, who is in his 90s, also likes it. According to Mandela's personal chef Ndoiya in the book "Home Cooking - Nelson Mandela's Private Dishes", Mandela's favorite food was lamb head meat and tongue, followed by dishes made from animal offal. .

What is very delicious is that the variety of dishes made from sheep head meat is unmatched by other animal heads, and the names of the dishes are full of poetry and genius imagination. For example, a sheep's ear alone can be divided into three sections for cooking: the upper, middle and lower sections. The tip of the sheep's ear is made into a "facing fan", the middle section of the sheep's ear is made into a "double wind green", and the root of the sheep's ear is made into a "gantry horn"; Use the meat on the nose bridge of the sheep to make "Wangfeng Slope", the upper part of the sheep's chest to make "Ladder to Heaven", the upper half of the sheep's tongue to make "Yingcai Xiang", the upper and lower eyelids of the sheep to make "Mingkai Yehe", and the sheep's upper and lower eyelids to make "Mingkai Yehe". Brains are made into "white cloud stew", sheep eyes are made into "night pearls" and so on.

One day in November 2012, Li Ming (Big Dog Brother), the owner of Beijing Pony Galloping, led the famous director John Woo and his wife, the famous actor Tong Dawei and his wife, Sohu editor-in-chief Liu Chun, the famous writer Kong Ergou, etc. Come to Beijing Nanxincang Tianxia Salt to eat the sheep head feast that I specially designed and made for them. I used 24 sheep heads to make 24 different sheep head dishes. When one after another "goat's head with flowers", "peach kernels with sheep's eyes", "noodles on the ladder to heaven", "wash sheep's face with soy sauce", "gongbao sheep scalp", "stir-fried sheep's kiss with green onion", "steamed sheep scarf with rice flour" , "Mingkai Yehe" and so on were served one by one. At that moment, I saw Big Dog Brother's eyes, Director Wu's eyes and Tong Dawei's eyes all shining together. Director Wu, in particular, didn’t stop using his chopsticks for the first half hour, and he kept nodding to me, smiling, and raising his glass while eating. I think this is the highest compliment for my sheep’s head feast tonight.