Shen Jialu said that everyone has different standards for the food that best represents the taste of old Shanghai, but he is willing to wear the "crown" on fried steamed bread. "Because fried steamed bread is attached to the teahouse, the teahouse is like this in the past. Above is the teahouse, and below is the tiger stove soaked in boiling water. The place where the tiger stove is located is not very big, and there is a half-open facade next to it, which is used to make fried steamed bread. It can be used for breakfast or snacks. Dim sum in the afternoon and breakfast in the morning. Talking about books, people listen to books, and when they are hungry at three or four o'clock, they are called raw fried steamed buns. Residents nearby can also come here to buy food. To make fried steamed bread, you need a stove and sometimes boiled water. Tiger stoves can provide a lot of convenience. So in some places, the boss of Tiger Stove is boiling water, and the proprietress is making fried steamed bread. There may be a bookstore upstairs. "
The so-called old flavor mainly refers to the flavor that has disappeared or is disappearing. They include classic Shanghai cuisine and Shanghai snacks. They reflect the living conditions of an era and the cultural environment of Shanghai citizens.
Starting with grassroots food, understanding the characteristics of the times, and then expressing our nostalgia and yearning for a better life, is the starting point for me to write this book.
From the perspective of grand narrative, Shanghai's flavor food actually witnessed all-encompassing urban characteristics from one side. Most of Shanghai's local flavors are mainly farm dishes in suburban areas such as Chuansha, Songjiang and Jiading, and Gao Qiao muffins, Yexie soft cakes, Caotou stalls and Zhang Ze meat dumplings are all branded as agricultural society. The historic turning point occurred after the opening of Shanghai. With the entry of foreign missionaries and businessmen, western culture has also been influenced by this southeast metropolis. Eating is best perceived by ordinary people in a vivid way and accepted as a fashion. At the same time, a large number of farmers from other provinces entered Shanghai to seek survival and development, thus forming the first immigration tide in Shanghai. Its unexpected arrival is directly reflected in food, that is, the introduction of provincial flavor. The second wave of immigration should have happened in Xianfeng period of Qing Dynasty, when Taiping Army moved to the south of the Yangtze River and the war spread to Shanghai. Small producers and farmers from neighboring provinces flocked to Shanghai Concession to take refuge, once again bringing in the flavor of other provinces. The third wave of immigrants occurred in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, and its objective effect on Shanghai cuisine was the same as the above two times. It must be pointed out that the "species diversity" of Shanghai cuisine caused by the immigration tide is not active and planned, but passive. It is precisely because of the survival needs of immigrants that they choose this low-threshold format, and also because the expanding urban population has formed a huge market target, and the interaction has formed a colorful food pattern. It can be said that at present, if we want to trace the source, most of the flavor foods we can taste are from other provinces. There is blood behind the glitz of every city, and so is the flavor food in Shanghai.
Since the 1980s, with the reform and opening up in Shanghai, a greater wave of immigrants has formed. The main body of this immigration tide is the intellectual class and elite management class, but more of them are groups who make a living by physical strength. Some people in the manual labor class brought local delicacies, some inherited the inherent flavor of Shanghai, and some were unique. Judging from the scale of operation and mode of production, there is no essential difference from more than a century ago. In today's IT era, the format of flavor food is still extensive and rough. It is worth pondering to spy from the interface of folk customs.
Every time the times change, especially when turning sharply, some people are thrown out of the original track because of the strong centrifugal force, and they will no longer follow the inertia and move at a constant speed, which will have a short-term mental impact, nostalgia for the past culture and tradition, and even a lament that "those who fall into the water leave the spring". On the level of material life, it is to miss the lost urban scenery, such as the mutual affection of Shikumen dwellings, the gossip in the kitchen lid, and various world situations such as teahouses, restaurants, bathhouses, bookstores, theaters, tiger stoves and cigarette and paper shops. Natural, delicious food is also in the nostalgia of inducing people's desires and comforting themselves.
A person's memory is also the common memory of a generation. Flavor food enriches our sense of taste and regulates our cold life, especially the one person, one thing, one feeling and one environment maintained by home cooking, which is the internal reason for our obsession. It belongs to the spiritual level, and it is more worthy of being treasured and passed on to the next generation than the taste provided by the food itself.