In the hearts of Chaoshan people: the right time and place are natural gifts, and eating well and drinking well is the complete merit.
Where is Chaoshan?
More than a thousand years ago, Chaoshan was one of the most feared places for officials in the Central Plains to be demoted. Han Yu of the Tang Dynasty was demoted by the emperor to Chaozhou on the coast of the South China Sea (called Chaozhou in ancient times) for his persuasion. "Eight thousand people are demoted to Chaoyang Road in the evening", and they usually never return.
Han Yu was frightened when he first entered Chaoshan. People take the horseshoe crab (hòu) with blue-blooded eyes on its hard shell, the catfish with a tail like a snake, the octopus with many legs... These are the top seafood in Chaozhou cuisine. But Han Yu was persuaded to give up, and he wrote a poem to complain to his friends:
The horseshoe crab is like Hui Wen, and its bones and eyes support each other.
Oysters stick to each other to form a mountain, and hundreds of them grow independently.
The tail of the catfish is like a snake, and its mouth and eyes are not in contact with each other.
......
The other dozens of species are amazing.
More than a thousand years later, Chaoshan has become popular because of its food. During the holidays, Chaoshan’s congestion level once ranked first in the country. People who came here were as surprised as Han Yu, "Can this be eaten?" After some research, they all patted their round bellies and said, "It smells so delicious!"
What is curious is that, With today's convenient transportation and frequent logistics, it is difficult for food and cooking to interact with each other between places. Gradually, their regional characteristics will become less and less prominent, and regional cuisine will gradually become blurred.
Chaoshan is like an exception, as if it has not been disturbed by the outside world. Like an isolated island, it maintains the stability of taste and the traditional flavor of food.
Chaoshan is an isolated island of gourmet food. The lonelier the place, the more exquisite and ancient the food.
The right time and place are natural gifts, good food and good drinks are the perfect merits
Chaoshan is not a city, it is Chaozhou City, Jieyang City, Guangdong and Shantou Special Economic Zone, with Chaoshan dialect It is the cultural area of ??the language family.
"The sea is in the south, and the mountains are in the north." Geographically, Chaoshan has more than 500 kilometers of coastline on the southeast coast. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides, including the intersection with the Tropic of Cancer, and plains with irrigation. down the river.
They eat mountains, rivers, and seas. Chaoshan is delicious because it is the right place at the right time. There are hundreds of kinds of "miscellaneous salty", including raw pickled fish, shrimps, crabs and clams, fried, deep-fried and baked oysters, boiled conches and shrimps. Don't just think of it as just some pickles, lobster, abalone and old goose heads, they are also called "miscellaneous salty".
But perhaps the most attractive thing is that Chaoshan is more "people-friendly". I once chatted with an aunt from Chaoshan: "You guys love to eat so much!" "No, we just know how to cook."
This cooking is not cooking, but understanding.
Raw pickled crab
The ultimate freshness is that crab only tastes like crab
They use raw pickled crabs to make them. When the fishing boat returns in the afternoon, the merchant buys it back from the fishermen, washes it clean, and throws it into the freezer of the refrigerator. The crabs are frozen to death in a hurry. Under the ultra-low temperature, the crab meat and crab paste quickly become firm before they have time to react.
Cut it into pieces after freezing hard, and immerse it in the juice of soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, sesame oil, cilantro, minced garlic, ginger, tangerine peel, and chili pepper. When diners come in the evening, the crab meat will melt and become delicious. If soft, it's ready to serve.
When you tear open the crab meat, it is clear in color and has the texture of lean meat. It feels like eating smoothies in your mouth. The bright red crab paste is even semi-solidified. People who are feasting will pause for a moment, pout their lips and inhale, and the slippery and cold liquid passes through their throats. In an instant, it is as vast as the sea, and their stomachs are filled with gas and intestines.
The whole process does not need to go through fire. To outsiders, it looks like "rubbing hair and drinking blood" in primitive society, but this practice is very popular among the locals. Because crabs originally only have umami flavor without any taste, they don’t need to be cooked over fire, they just need to be pickled to remove the fishy smell.
Beef hot pot
The fresher the taste, the more lively it is
Another delicacy that pursues freshness is "beef".
When you walk into Chaoshan Beef Hot Pot Restaurant, you can see the chef arranging the beef in the glass kitchen. They are divided into different parts of the beef, such as neck kernels, hanging dragons, five-flowered toes, key kernels, and chestnuts. , beef tongue, yellow throat...
From slaughtering the cow, to cutting it, to serving it, Chaoshan people are rushing to get it. Because after an animal dies, blood circulation stops, but most cells are still metabolizing.
At this time, the meat is still hot and fresh, but the best time to taste it is only 3 to 4 hours. By the time the muscles contract, the meat will become hard and aged.
For the sake of freshness, the authentic Chaoshan beef hotpot will be served to the table immediately after slaughtering. In some large-scale old restaurants, the slaughterhouse is even not far from the hotel, and the butcher lives nearby.
Only Chaoshan people can eat delicious food. Know what the most delicious ingredients are and when to eat them to be the most fresh. This attitude of being willing to try their best to explore the freshest taste of the ingredients may mean that they never regard eating as half a job, let alone eat superficially.
Just as there is no similar life, for them, there is no similar food. Eating well and drinking well is the complete merit.
The lonelier the food is, the more it can give people a sense of belonging
To this day, the older generation in Chaoshan still say that they are "the corner of the country at the end of the province", a corner at the east end of An. The closed environment has its disadvantages, but without the "intersection", the food can better retain the most traditional diet and stick to the most authentic flavor.
When I stayed at a friend’s house in Chaoshan for a few days, I bought food and cooked food and went to a street in the old city. There are families living all the way, but almost every house has a stall in front of them. Cut a piece of paper and write down what they are selling. Some sell salted beans, bamboo shoots cakes, fish rice, oyster baked, or late-night casserole porridge... ...
Each household really only sells one or two kinds of food, just like a person's taste, only preferring one or two kinds of delicacies, as if they only share the best of their own. Going from shop to shop, the taste of Chaoshan people and the taste of this city gradually become the memory of the body.
Family flavor is the most memorable flavor. Especially today with frequent logistics exchanges, such as the big city Shenzhen, where people from all over the world come, a restaurant always hopes that one dish can satisfy everyone's taste, and gradually the food becomes popular and homogeneous.
For example, for braised goose, during Chinese New Year, festivals or important days, they will pick out a lion-headed goose and then kill the goose, pluck the feathers, clean it, etc., and finally use firewood to make the marinade. People who save trouble will Buy directly.
In theory, they are all braised goose, and you can eat it from any restaurant, but in this Chaoshan friend's mind: "The one that sells it in my village is the best, and the marinade is sweeter."
Each family has different tastes, some are saltier, some are sweeter, and some are more fragrant. If I like to eat Chaoshan, what I like is this unique and unpopular flavor.
For those who leave their hometown to go to other places, it is often more able to evoke people’s memories of their hometown. If you are lucky enough to eat unique food at this time, it will be a kind of comfort and you will have a short-term sense of belonging.
Nowadays, maintaining faith in tradition may be a kind of pride
Chaoshan is delicious, but despite this, after knowing that every household in Chaoshan likes to worship gods, it is inevitable that there will be no prejudice.
I have never seen a city so dedicated to traditional culture. Every household believes in gods. During the Spring Festival, they will go to temples to worship gods, and the ancestral halls in each village will also hold "noisy events", that is, "wandering god games". (Temporarily suspended after the epidemic)
Young adults dressed in colorful clothes, carrying eight-carat sedans on their shoulders, took the "master" through the streets and alleys of the village. "Master" is the name given to gods in Chaoshan, such as God of Heaven, Earth God, King of Three Mountains, Jade Emperor, Mazu, Sanbaogong...all of them are called "Master".
Surrounded by Chaoshan people who believe in it, they believe that the place where the "master" swims will be protected, and sincere people will have success in the next year. There are also 15-year-old children "going out of the garden", that is, adult ceremonies; worshiping the moon girl and burning ant kilns on the Mid-Autumn Festival...
The emphasis on gods seems a bit out of date in today's scientific age. , a bit earthy. However, when you actually see it, you feel a kind of intimacy that you haven't seen for a long time. Like Mu Xin's slowness, "The sun has become slower in the past. Everyone talks diligently, and the shop selling soy milk is steaming..."
Chaoshan people really treat "noisy" slow. The students in each village would start rehearsing performances half a year ago, playing the erhu, dancing, or playing dragon games; the housewives at home would make homemade rat shell cakes, knead the prepared fillings into portions, knead the skins and wrap them in For the filling, knead it into the shape of a peach, then press the rough-processed cake into the mold, making sure it is flat enough, the pattern is clear and delicate enough, and finally steamed and fried.
In a world of renewal and iteration, Chaoshan seems to have a barrier, slowly and painstakingly preparing for ancient rituals.
Their meticulousness and persistence are not only their thoughts towards gods, but also their sincerity towards life.
They believe that no matter how difficult life is, God will take care of it. Just say "Master's Protection Number" and it will all pass...
In an age when it is easy to lose oneself, maintaining a sincere belief may be the key to success. A rare and valuable thing.
Modern people’s lives and food have greatly intertwined. Chaoshan beef hotpot has gone out, and Chongqing hotpot has come in. In the same city, you can eat delicacies from different places, and people Different lifestyles interact.
But living habits have their origins, and food has their roots. "Many things don't taste the same if they leave a place." No matter how inclusive the food is and how modern the life is, a little bit of change and loss will no longer be the same as it once was.
What I like about Chaoshan is perhaps the traditional flavor, traditional rituals, traditional fireworks and slow life that we once had but have lost.
I like Chaoshan. I like to smell a burst of incense candles here, which will remind me of the memories of celebrating festivals at home; smell the aroma of food, and I will think of the red fire burning at the mouth of the wood-burning stove in my hometown.
Being in Chaoshan will give people a sense of belonging.