-Wind, scenery and words-
Every time I eat at the dinner table,
If there is a Sichuanese on the table, someone will always laugh.
"You Sichuanese can really eat spicy food."
But in fact, the taste of modern Sichuan cuisine
Not "authentic" Sichuan food.
It is accompanied by the immigration history of this place.
1?o'clock
shape up
This article is selected from the June issue of China Heritage 20 16.
Nowadays, Sichuan cuisine is popular at home and abroad. Except for hot pot restaurants, there are no fewer than 100 kinds of stir-fried dishes (home cooking) in every city. Even Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong, which have never eaten spicy food, are not as "eating" as they were more than 200 years ago, which is very intriguing.
1? Is the original flavor of Sichuan cuisine really spicy? I come from Shandong and have only been to Sichuan and Chongqing several times. I have friends from Bashu who don't know much about Sichuan food. My taste enlightenment came from my Sichuan neighbor next door to my mother's old house. According to some recent opinions on the internet, it is called "humble origin", but I stubbornly believe that Shandong cuisine has influenced the formation of modern Sichuan cuisine and is worth mentioning.
Nowadays, when we look up the recipes of Sichuan cuisine, most of the high-end and exquisite dishes are not as spicy as ordinary Sichuan cuisine, but they have the shadow of Shandong cuisine and Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine.
▲ Nine bowls are nine kinds of leek banquet dishes on traditional mats. The characteristics of the nine bowls are steamed vegetables, mainly steamed: the first bowl, steamed whole chicken, steamed whole duck, steamed elbow, salted boiled shredded pork (meat buckle), sweet boiled shredded pork (meat paste), steamed shredded pork with rice noodles, bamboo shoots, taro, sweet potato, kelp and seasonal vegetables.
This reminds people of the classic dish "Nine Bowls" at the beginning of the formation of modern Sichuan cuisine-nine dishes are packed in a "bucket bowl", including hodgepodge, braised pork, casserole chicken, roasted bamboo shoots, steamed elbow, steamed pork with rice flour and so on. Except for ginger chicken and sand meat, most of them are Shandong cuisine, which looks like a simplification of Shandong cuisine at the Manchu-Han banquet. Historian Meng also mentioned this influence with great interest.
▲ Ginger chicken
Let me start with a boiled cabbage. In the delicious but crystal clear soup, there is a tender cabbage core. This elegant and delicious dish is not spicy, but it is also a famous Sichuan dish. To say that the method of hanging soup clearly comes from Shandong cuisine.
▲ Boiled cabbage
Sichuan cuisine pays attention to spicy, which is another misunderstanding. Because spicy food is not the original flavor of Sichuan food at all.
2? Sichuan modern Sichuan cuisine, delicious in all directions, probably formed in the middle and late19th century to the early 20th century. Before that, specifically, before the mid-Qing dynasty, Sichuan's diet was not famous at all, and it didn't even form its own style. Of course, some people want to say that as early as the Qin and Han Dynasties and the end of the Song Dynasty, Sichuan cuisine had formed its own unique system. Then, the war in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties pushed the Sichuan natives to the edge of society, and the ancient Sichuan style system they inherited had little influence on modern Sichuan cuisine.
If there is a vacuum on one side, it will attract winds from all directions.
In the early Qing Dynasty, the well-known "Huguang fills Sichuan" happened, and the feelings of Hunan and Hubei came, of course, with preferences and delicious food. There is a staple food Guo Kui in the "Nine Bowls" banquet, which is a replica of Shaanxi flavor from name to reality and gradually refined in the subsequent development.
What is particularly worth mentioning is the "sauce flavor" contributed by mainlanders. Zhuo was a cabinet scholar during the reign of Jia Daoxian in the Qing Dynasty. He was a Hakka who moved to Sichuan from Jiaying County (now Meizhou) in Guangdong in the early Qing Dynasty. After the veteran of the Three Dynasties ended his official career, Zhuo Jia resumed his old job in Chengdu and opened the most famous "Guangyi" sauce garden in Sichuan in the Qing Dynasty in front of the "Xiangfu" in Huamian Street.
▲ Nine bowls of banquets are waiting for the meat dishes on the table.
Coincidentally, another sauce garden, Yuan Lizhen, also opened in Huamian Street. The initiator of this sauce garden is Hu, an immigrant from Fuzhou, Jiangxi. Brewing spices and pickles also brought changes to Sichuan cuisine. At the same time, the pepper introduced into Bashu from other places also enabled ordinary people in Sichuan to fight against the shortage of oil and salt.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Li Huanan, a native of Luojiang, Sichuan, who traveled in Zhejiang, collected the cooking experience of chefs and housewives in his spare time, which was later sorted out by his son Li Tiaoyuan and carved into a gourmet classic "Wake Up the Garden Record", which was widely circulated in Sichuan catering industry. Gourmets in Sichuan began to understand the cuisine in Jiangnan and beyond.
▲ Mapo tofu
If nine bowls give people the impression of "humble origin", Sichuan cuisine has changed since the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods in Qing Dynasty. Sichuan became the leading granary and tax source in China, and dignitaries and elites began to enter Sichuan. As a result, "Southern Tang Cuisine" naturally appeared.
The so-called South Restaurant, or South Restaurant, is a restaurant with Jiangnan flavor, which is good at steaming vegetables in a steamer, cooking in a red pot and cooking fish, shrimp and seafood. Before the appearance of Nantang, red pot cooking has always been a shortcoming of Sichuan cuisine. Even the "Sichuan fried chicken" recorded in the Complete Works of Household Necessities is only fried to 70% maturity, and then "grind pepper, Sichuan pepper and fennel with a spoonful of sauce, put a bowl of water and cook in a pot".
In the first half of last century, Sichuan cuisine ranked first among the four major cuisines in China, and modern Sichuan cuisine spread all over the world in another century. When people are feasting, they seldom investigate the introduction history of this taste.