However, if Guizhou people are present, they will definitely smile without saying a word: Sichuan cuisine and Hunan cuisine are famous, but the best-selling hot sauce in the world is Laoganma in Guiyang. Moreover, this is a hot sauce that Guizhou people don't eat themselves: "We Guizhou people think Laoganma is not delicious enough."
There is quite a master of walking around and sealing his throat with a sword.
Number: 1 one
Why did Guizhou become a master of spicy food? One of the most popular explanations is that the humidity in mountainous areas is heavy, and eating spicy food can get rid of dampness.
But in fact, this is a completely wrong concept.
Fujian, which belongs to the humid mountainous hills, is almost spicy. If you don't believe me, you can try the Chili sauce of Shaxian snack. Xinjiang, which is covered with endless deserts and has little precipitation, is almost completely melted by snow-capped mountains, but it is extremely spicy.
In fact, Guizhou is the driest province in the whole southwest. Because it is located in the monsoon region of Southeast Asia, the annual precipitation in Guizhou changes greatly, and the karst landform features make rainwater easy to infiltrate and the surface water storage capacity is weak.
Coupled with the mountainous landform of "the land is not three feet flat", the local farming foundation in Guizhou has long fallen behind.
In Liu Zongyuan's story "The donkey is at the end of the road", it is described that there are no donkeys in Guizhou, and some people send them in, but it is useless and can only be idle. The local tiger was afraid because he had never seen a donkey, but after several temptations, he found that the donkey had only this skill and finally ate it.
This story reveals three states of Guizhou in the Tang Dynasty: traffic is blocked, there is no arable land, and large beasts are walking everywhere.
But in the Ming Dynasty, the invasion of tomatoes, potatoes, corn and peppers in the New World completely changed the planting environment in Guizhou.
These magical plants are unheard of in China, and generally have low requirements for soil water content. On the contrary, hardened land and wetlands with large water capacity will lead to root rot and plant death due to insufficient oxygen content. The rainy and humid environment in the southwest mountainous area, but the soil can't keep water, which gives pepper a unique breeding soil.
This makes the planting amount of tomatoes, potatoes, corn and peppers in Yunnan-Guizhou area comparable to or even surpass the traditional agricultural areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Today, crops from the New World play an important role in the dining table of Guizhou people. Tomato is the soul of Guizhou flavor sour soup; Potato is the protagonist of potato Baba, potato tuotuo and potato casserole in Guizhou. Pepper is the most important condiment in Guizhou.
The most basic objective material conditions for Guizhou people to eat spicy food have been laid and completed.
Number: 2 er
Guizhou people actively choose spicy peppers, not because peppers are good and delicious. In fact, most people are very resistant to spicy food when they first come into contact with it. Capsaicin does not provide taste, but stimulates pain, which is a self-defense weapon that plants are born for self-protection.
People in Guizhou choose to eat Chili because there is a lack of salt here. In this magical place, no food salt is produced!
Let's take a look at this map of China Salt Mine. Although many areas seem to have no salt, most of them are developed earlier in the east and the transportation is extremely convenient. Moreover, there is a larger salt source in these places-the ocean. The high-quality sea salt is superior to most well salt and mineral salt in both color and edible value.
Guizhou is the only inland province lacking salt and inconvenient transportation.
If there is no salt intake in food for a long time, it will cause hyponatremia of leg weakness, nausea and drowsiness; It will also affect the production of gastric acid, unable to digest food normally, and cause malnutrition.
Before pepper was introduced, Guizhou people came up with various ways to supplement sodium salt. For example, plant ash, which is soaked in water after burning, is filtered and used as a seasoning dipped in water. Although this potassium salt-based seasoning tastes bitter, it can make the diet less boring and prevent hyponatremia.
Another example is the "shepherd's purse" pickled with meat and plant ash water, which is the popular sour soup and sour food in Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau today. Animal meat will produce sour taste in fermentation, which can increase people's appetite and is much more delicious than fresh food. Effectively extend the shelf life, especially in areas with inconvenient transportation; More importantly, fermentation can also bring nitrates such as potassium nitrate, which can supplement human electrolytes.
After the introduction of pepper, Guizhou people found that this stimulating vegetable can not only stimulate appetite, but also increase the flavor of food; After eating, the legs and feet are strong and the head is not dizzy, which is similar to eating salt-this is because the sodium content in pepper is extremely high.
It is cheap, can be planted everywhere, can add fragrance to food, and can also replace the role of salt. The popularity of pepper in Guizhou has finally brought about a wide range of soil. According to the records of Guizhou local chronicles, everything in northern Guizhou was seasoned with pepper during Daoguang years, but during Tongzhi years, it was "eating sea pepper in all seasons".
From the discriminatory name "sweet pepper" to "sea pepper"; From "Downton" to "four o'clock". Throughout the Qing Dynasty, the status of pepper in Guizhou soared like a rocket, and the process of fans from the small crowd to the whole people was clearly discernible.