Life is inseparable from food, clothing, housing and transportation. Everything else can be done, but only this appetite is the satisfaction that everyone is striving for, regardless of status or wealth.
Even those literati who are committed to the pursuit of spiritual prosperity will inevitably be attracted by human fireworks and become "high-end foodies."
Life is too short to have another bowl, which contains the food essays of 20 cultural masters in the 20th century. In this book, you can read Wang Zengqi's salted duck eggs, Liang Shiqiu's sour plum soup, Zhang Henshui's barbecue, Zhou Zuoren's bitter tea, Su Qing's braised eel and Zhu Ziqing's white water tofu. ...
These artists not only strive for perfection in knowledge, but also have a meticulous attitude towards food. For a kind of food, some of them will go to restaurants all over the country, just to compare the characteristics of different places and find their favorite taste; Others simply collect their own recipes and cook, collect the strengths of each family and explore their own unique flavor.
In these stories, we can not only discover the characteristics of local cuisine and learn many authentic secret recipes, but also understand the historical background of literati and appreciate the unique feelings brought by cuisine.
0 1 Food and snacks, exquisite taste
Don Sun Lu is known as "the first person to talk about food in China". He is the nephew of Emperor Guangxu's consort Zhen. He has been in and out of the Forbidden City since he was a child, enjoying all kinds of court delicacies, calling himself "gluttonous", and with this hobby, he became a professional gourmet.
Take the most common wonton as an example, it must be the kind of excellent soup with egg white kneaded into a cool and crisp messy skin, a fleshy and clean meat stuffing, two chickens and a duck hanging out.
As a popular dish, burning elbows, Manchuria also has its own ancient and unique practice: put the whole bottle of rice wine and dried Songhua River white fish at the bottom. When the elbows are stewed into slurry, the wine and fish are sucked into the elbows, and the fat oil of the elbows is sucked away by the dried fish. The elbow made in this way is fat but not greasy, and it smells like fish.
Similarly, Zai Tao, the last uncle, was very strict about food. When he was eating in a restaurant, he found that the chef didn't cook well enough and didn't fry the essence of "crispy", so he personally went to the kitchen to guide the chef to fry the duck gizzard and duck belly separately and oil them separately, so that the two kinds of ingredients with different temperatures could be fried to the best state.
There are also Zhengding's unique meatballs and Xi 'an's mutton buns. It is said that its fragrance once attracted Cixi who fled in the Boxer Movement to stop and taste.
For Tang and others, all kinds of food may not only be a high standard cultivated since childhood, but also a kind of nobility and taste engraved in the bones.
02 drinking tea, slightly drunk.
Feng Zikai, known as "the most artistic artist in modern China", dislikes white wine and prefers yellow wine. His reason is also very simple: white wine is easy to get drunk, and yellow wine is not easy to get drunk.
He believes that drinking is for fun and enjoyment: drink three glasses of wine with two or three like-minded friends, open your heart, be honest and comfortable.
And if you drink too much and drink too fast, you will get drunk easily. When you are drunk, it is easy for you to lose your mind, talk nonsense, and even curse and fight with each other.
Therefore, you must never drink too fast or get drunk. The taste of "half-blooming flowers and slightly drunk wine" in Caigen Tan is the most depressing realm.
Wine can't relieve troubles, but it can make people forget them temporarily in a short excitement. But after waking up, I still have troubles and even have to endure the pain of a hangover. There are many reasons for the decline and decline of Indians in history.
In contrast, the sensory stimulation brought by drinking tea is much milder than drinking.
The essence of tea ceremony is meditation, temporarily getting rid of chaos and focusing on the natural fragrance in front of you. It can also be called "taking time off, having fun in pain".
Under the pen of Mr. Zhou Zuoren, an essayist and pioneer of folklore in China, two or three friends * * * gathered under the paper window of the tile-roofed house, sipping qingquan green tea with elegant ceramic tea sets, and stealing leisure for half a day can be worth ten years of dusty dreams.
Living in this world, it is inevitable to pursue fame and fortune, but at least leave a pure land for the depths of the soul. In the workplace and shopping malls, we should also leave some leisure and free moments for ourselves to appreciate the fun of life.
The collection of gourmet prose "Life is short, one more bowl" compiled by 20 cultural masters, including Liang Shiqiu, Wang Zengqi, Zhou Zuoren and Zhu Ziqing, takes us into simple living behind the bright spots of literati.
Like ordinary people, they searched all the restaurants in order to find the authentic taste, improved their cooking many times for an extreme delicacy, and ate all over the country for a different way of making ingredients.
In their essays, we can learn about the dietary characteristics of various places, the authentic cooking methods of various foods, and the historical and cultural stories behind various diets.
This collection of food essays combines our food beliefs that we have never lived up to under the changes of time. Try three meals in four seasons, and pour wine in brew tea in time. "Human fireworks can touch the hearts of ordinary people best."