But when you ask a Cantonese what is the most impressive snack, his answer is probably-beef offal.
(via network)
Cantonese people are keen on beef offal. It was so hot that an enthusiastic netizen even set up a beef offal association and vowed to fight for the cause of tasting beef offal for life.
(Enthusiastic netizens' explanation of joining the beef offal association)
For many Cantonese people, beef offal may be a street snack to accompany them when they grow up. Although they can't explain why they are so obsessed with this thing, it doesn't affect Cantonese people's love for it at all.
What magic is hidden in the giblet?
The long history of beef offal
Beef offal, full name "beef offal". Eat beef offal, eat beef offal.
There are different opinions about the source of beef offal.
It is said that a king in ancient times plowed the field to worship the god of agriculture when it suddenly rained heavily. Seeing that the local people were hungry, the king immediately ordered the cattle to be slaughtered and put their beef, tripe, heart, liver, shutters, intestines and radishes into the pot. After eating it, the people thought it was delicious and it was handed down.
There is another saying. According to legend, during the Qing Dynasty, there was a severe cold in Lingnan one year, and the demand for beef and mutton increased greatly. A Hui chef has finished eating beef, and there is really nothing to entertain guests. So the chef used his quick wits to stew the remaining beef offal and radish in a pot, add star anise, fragrant leaves, dried tangerine peel and other seasonings, and then add Lingnan special sauce. As a result, this pot of stew, cooked all the fragrance, floating all over Xiguan.
(via network)
Although it is a legend, it reveals two things: first, the beef offal is likely to come from Xiguan, Guangzhou, and second, the beef offal tastes really good.
In fact, the raw materials of beef offal are all cow scraps. Meat used to be used by the poor to supplement nutrition. In the eighties and nineties of last century, self-employed people such as stalls and trolleys began to appear.
At that time, a group of people who were not afraid of hardship, fatigue and dirt started the business of selling beef offal by cart. It was said that it was fresh at that time? It costs only 4 cents a catty to put cattle into the water, but the cooked tripe can be sold for 2 yuan a string, and the cart for transporting miscellaneous beef that can swim around is not rented, which seems to be a very profitable business.
However, people who made beef offal at that time rarely passed on their skills to the next generation, because only they knew how much effort it took to make a delicious pot of beef offal. Buy fresh beef offal at three o'clock every morning, clean it up at home and cook it with seasoning. There are no steps to being lazy.
The beef offal stall has a history of 40 years, and now many young people in Guangdong have grown up eating the beef offal stall in the alley downstairs. The aunts and grandmothers of the beef offal stall used to watch their children look for their parents to buy beef offal, and now they also take their children to visit.
For the younger generation in Guangdong, they eat not only delicious beef offal, but also the feelings they have established with their aunt beef offal for more than ten years and the years when they secretly bought beef offal from home with a spoonful of Chili sauce.
(via network)
What's in the guts?
As the saying goes, "there is braised pork in the north and beef offal in the south", "beef offal rolls three times, and the gods are unstable". Where is the beef offal that fascinates Cantonese people?
If you ask a Cantonese where there is authentic beef offal to eat, they will tell you, "You see a crude cart, which looks a little old. There are one or two iron pots on it, and the stall owner holds a pair of scissors. If someone is standing by to eat, then this beef offal is 99% likely to be authentic. "
In that pot of beef offal, there are refreshing beef lungs, beef hearts, beef louvers, tender beef tripe and intestines with tough tendons, crisp beef tendons and teeth, as well as beef tongues and brisket that taste strange but some people are crazy about.
(via network)
These raw materials, which could not be served on the table in the past, are mixed with all kinds of spices and herbs, fresh ingredients and sufficient calories, and one side of the materials forms a delicious taste, so the taste of Guangdong beef offal takes root on the tip of the tongue of Cantonese people.
In addition, Cantonese people use beef offal soup's pot to the extreme. The preferred way to eat Guangdong beef offal is radish beef offal. The radish that is not easy to cook has been cooked in the pot for a while, and the essence of beef offal soup has been boiled into large radish pieces. Sweet and soft radish with the fragrance of beef offal soup is a must. The white radish itself has the functions of clearing away heat, promoting fluid production and promoting digestion, which can just neutralize the excessive internal heat caused by beef offal.
(via network)
In addition to radish, there are often gluten and Chinese cabbage that are good at absorbing soup, and fish eggs with elastic teeth. Some stalls can also order rice noodles and pork rolls as staple foods, which are cheap and full. This is a delicacy whose per capita income in Guangdong is less than that in 20 yuan.
(via network)
Every beef offal stall has its own secret sauce. To eat Guangdong beef offal, you should match these homemade Chili sauce or bean paste, either sour or spicy or sweet. Every Cantonese has his own perfect proportion of beef offal sauce.
(via network)
There is a China writer in Canada who is also a son-in-law in Guangdong. Every time he goes to Guangdong, he eats a bowl of beef offal.
When he has eaten beef offal with similar taste abroad, he always feels that something is missing. Finally, once in Guangdong, when he advised an old man who was eating beef offal to sit next to him, the old man's words made him suddenly enlightened: "When eating beef offal, you must eat the best taste!" (Eating beef offal means standing and eating delicious) "
This most grounded snack in Guangdong is the most authentic when eaten in the most grounded posture.
Today's giblet
Many people know that there is a kind of online celebrity beef offal in Guangzhou, called Apo beef offal.
The frequency of eviscerating granny's beef offal varies from once a week to once a month, which is irregular now. And every time grandma opens a file, the queue gets longer and longer.
(Grandma giblet | via network)
With grandma getting older and worse, everyone is concerned and worried that maybe one day, grandma's beef offal will never be eaten again.
Not only grandma's beef offal, but also authentic beef offal stalls in Guangdong are disappearing.
Have a plenty of moved into a fixed store, continue the good craft before.
But more, either because of the loss of craftsmanship or because of the continuous improvement of operating costs, gradually disappeared at various hutong intersections.
Forty years ago, there was an ox cart stall called "Ji Liang giblet". Because the products are good, the business is so good that it only takes one or two hours to sell all the beef offal at a time. But because the boss knew it was not easy to sell beef offal, he didn't pass on the secret recipe until his death.
(via network)
Later, his children grew up. Because they missed the smell of their father's beef offal, they tried their best to make it, and named it "13 beef offal" after the landmark where his father once set up a stall in Hong Kong.
Nowadays, Guangdong beef offal is still an indispensable snack in Guangdong people's life, but what we see in the streets and alleys is more chain-type beef offal shops. Their storefronts are bright, and their kitchen utensils look cleaner than those in the tram period, but they don't seem as delicious as those in Little Square when I was a child.
(via network)
But for Cantonese people, the location of the best beef offal restaurant is still stable. The rising steam in the beef offal pot and the neat sound of scissors are still Bai Yueguang in my heart forever.
-The end-