China people who dare to eat.

Cultural monosodium glutamate

China people eat concept. Or more popularly: eating culture. This makes the diet problem social (even artistic), not just a physical activity.

Japanese people are full of food all day long, and naturally refine the process of drinking tea into a kind of tea ceremony close to philosophy, which means seeking truth in the cool breeze, bright moon and flower arranging utensils. China people are even more remarkable. They regard three meals a day as their conscientious homework and tirelessly pursue that amazing artistic effect. "It's delicious!" This is a popular compliment. Therefore, gourmets are as pious as painters or sculptors, and their experience of beauty is even more comprehensive: color, fragrance and taste-even hidden tongues are mobilized and become tools for appreciation.

When a big dish is put on the table in an orderly way, it is like opening the curtain on a work of art, and one or two heartfelt cheers can be heard from time to time-of course, this is what the chef hiding in the background expects. The guests toasted each other as if they were holding a small ribbon-cutting ceremony. Then they did their jobs and waved chopsticks frequently. Jin Shengtan's evaluation of the Water Margin and Zhi Yanzhai's evaluation of a Dream of Red Mansions are nothing more than a little criticism between the lines. Whether it is cold dishes or cooking, they will eventually stand the "cynicism" of chopsticks.

In China, the launching of every banquet is shrouded in a warm atmosphere like the launching of a new boat. Every diner is a skilled old sailor or a potential judge. No wonder restaurant owners are good at observing guests' faces. You can tell the chef's level by looking at the guest's face. The highest state of China culture is the word "happiness". This is also a favorite Chinese character in China. And eating is the best foil for this kind of happiness. Cheerful, the host will naturally be satisfied. The traditional wedding banquet was brought to the extreme by the Manchu-Han banquet in Qing Dynasty. From its name, we can feel the meaning of "national unity" and "strong alliance". Authentic Manchu-Han banquet will be eaten for three days and nights, and tea and vegetables will not be repeated. This is a carnival with China characteristics: a marathon of food culture! Eating is the most daily ceremony and the most intensive festival in China.

Westerners who believe in Christ are used to drawing a cross on their chest before eating, chanting "God bless" and thanking God for the bread and salt. Most people in China are atheists, but when they drink, they feel like masters of their own house. A full meal (better if you can hold a poem) is the closest freedom to them. It can be seen that this nation lacks religious sense, but it has a strong artistic atmosphere. In my imagination, gourmets are folk artists with ancient traditions.

Western food reflects the shadow of private ownership. They manage their own dishes in their own way-using knives and forks to facilitate the division of interests. Chinese food embodies the simplest communism. China people sit around the dining table and inherit the genes of the primitive clan commune. Everyone eats meat and drinks, and everyone can have a piece of the action. It is difficult to break the tradition of pot rice. Fortunately, the dining table in China is also the most cohesive place, and the desperate wind of sharing weal and woe is very popular. China people will have an illusion that all people in the world are brothers and the world is a whole. After all, this virtual feeling greatly increases their appetite. Therefore, when people in China eat, they are also eating the environment, atmosphere and even interpersonal relationships. Talk and eat, eat and listen. This is a kind of eating beyond eating. I have always thought that China people's food is the most emotional and human.

China people have four major cuisines and eight flavors. Sichuan cuisine, Guangdong cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Qilu cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, Northeast cuisine and even Shanghai local cuisine ... seem to be separated by warlords. But in my eyes, it's more like an art school. Qilu cuisine from the hometown of saints is classical. The lingering Huaiyang cuisine belongs to romanticism. If spicy Hunan cuisine is critical realism, spicy Sichuan cuisine is magical realism-a pepper is sometimes more powerful than a shell, which fully mobilizes our tongue's imagination. Of course, it can also be transformed in other ways: Shanghai cuisine belongs to the graceful school of Yang Liuan Xiaofeng Canyue, while Northeast cuisine is equivalent to the unrestrained school of River of No Return and Waves.

I like to ponder the names of a series of special dishes: Kung Pao diced pork, shredded pork with fish flavor, Mapo tofu, husband and wife lung slices, old meat, braised pork with plum vegetables, assorted vegetables, sweet and sour tenderloin, bean curd fish, boiled chicken and dried pineapple ... just like playing meaningful and vivid epigrams: Bodhisattva crossing the river, Qin Yi, Huanxisha and Yu Meiren. It is no exaggeration to say that these elegant or vulgar, gentle or high-pitched dishes, after hundreds of millions of people's inheritance and thousands of years of cultivation, are like "dream lists" that attract the wind and drink dew. More luxurious and elegant Chinese food than dreams!

I once had an ideal to open a restaurant and name all kinds of old and new dishes with epigrams, such as changing boiled eel into water dragon drink, pickled fish into Yujiaao, spicy chicken into He Xinlang, chopped green onion mixed with tofu into Niannujiao, roasted pigeon into partridge sky, wax gourd pot soup into Xijiangyue, and even fried peanuts into Buoperator. Besides, ants climbing trees, lion's head, fresh land, light and shadow beef and the like can't be changed. They are very poetic in themselves. Many dishes have a rich and simple feeling, and once they are changed, they have no taste. For example, an emperor named folk dishes, tofu and meatball soup as pearl, jade and white jade soup, which were exquisite, but after all, they looked carved and artificial. I'd better not learn from that stupid emperor.

Some dishes are unusual because of allusions. While we are eating vegetables, we are also eating allusions invisibly-we can hold them precariously with chopsticks. For example, in the aroma of beggar chicken, the figure of the unknown beggar is clearly shaking-he is not begging, but is clearly giving a good meal to future generations. There is Dongpo pork (and Dongpo elbow), which is obviously influenced by the great poets of the Song Dynasty. And we are also eating his old man's legacy and his fame. In Su Dongpo's works, there is indeed a poem called "Ode to Pork" (enough to prove that Dongpo meat is not a myth): "The net iron pot is short of water and firewood can't be pumped. Don't rush him when he is ripe, he will be beautiful when the heat is enough. Huangzhou good pork, the price is as low as dirt, you refuse to eat, and the poor don't know how to cook. When I get up in the morning and play two bowls, I can't control myself. " Su Dongpo invisibly served as the image ambassador of braised pork and made advertisements for nearly a thousand years. I always thought that Sue had made two indelible contributions to the people, one was the Su Causeway built by the West Lake in Hangzhou, the other was Dongpo Meat, and the other was really old meat. Great minds think alike. There was a great man who liked braised pork: Mao Zedong. He thinks that fat meat and braised pork nourish the brain and make people smart. Chairman Mao's poems are as bold as Su Dongpo's-the most interesting thing is that he even has the courage to write "roast beef with potatoes" into the words. Shi Mao braised pork will be recommended as the main dish in Hunan restaurant with Maojia cuisine or Shaoshan cuisine as the golden signboard.

Can you say that eating Chinese food is not eating culture? Culture is a more important condiment than oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, ginger and chopped green onion. Sprinkle a little cultural monosodium glutamate, you can have a different feeling.

China people who dare to eat.

China people's bravery is especially reflected in their diet. This is a nation that dares to eat almost anything. Eating bark, wild vegetables and even Guanyin soil during the famine can naturally be regarded as a necessity (including the Red Army taking off cowhide and drinking stew on the Long March). In peacetime, they are still keen on eating all kinds of strange food. It's okay to eat snakes (the incarnation of the devil in the Bible in the West). In the ancient Lingnan area, it was a bit arty or pretentious to change its name to "Mao Yi". And eating scorpions. I attended a banquet in a restaurant outside Andingmen in Beijing. The climax was that a large plate of scorpions was put in the center of the round table, which was fried by Huang Cancan. At that moment, I couldn't help thinking: China people's mouths are really "poisonous"-how dare they fight poison with poison? Of course, what is passed down as a much-told story is eating poisonous puffer fish. The old saying "Eat puffer fish to death" in Jiangnan is quite like a martyr's poem. So from small to large, in my impression, the first person who can ignore life and death is a revolutionary, and the second is a gourmet.

I don't know western society, except politicians, thinkers, artists, military strategists, etc. , but also produced the title of food? In China, gourmets are almost a tradition. Although it has always been similar to "leisure", it is also quite enviable. In European civilization, gourmets were absent for a period of time, just as the explorers they admired were imported from China after modern times. But privately, I think that a gourmet is also an explorer who stays at home-"his parents are here, so he doesn't travel far", so China people have to indulge in another adventure, that is, curiosity about food. Gourmets use recipes instead of maps, cups instead of compasses, chopsticks instead of paddles, sailing in their own taste and enjoying the infinite scenery. This kind of adventurous psychology is fully displayed on the puffer fish problem. The puffer fish is equivalent to the "forbidden fruit" in China's food culture-a fatal temptation, and its delicacy is exaggerated because of its mystery and danger. Instead of shrinking, gourmets are eager for it. This courage, I'm afraid even Adam and Eve who failed in their duties will sigh.

Shennong (Emperor Yan) is a prehistoric gourmet. "Shennong tastes a hundred herbs" not only for eating, but also for identifying the species, taste and nutritional value (including medicinal value) of plants. He greatly enriched the "vegetable basket project" of later generations. In my imagination, the ancestor of China people was a potherb digger, and his costume and manner were somewhat similar to that of Li Shizhen, an old Chinese doctor who later compiled Compendium of Materia Medica: wearing straw sandals, carrying a bamboo basket and carrying a small hoe. There is a Shennongjia in Hubei, which is said to be his open-air "canteen". Without Shennong who dares to be the first in the world, our grain will be greatly reduced.

Even Confucius, an old pedant in the Spring and Autumn Period, advocated that "food is not tired of essence and food is not tired of detail". When he was running a private school, he didn't like to accept cash, but he was more willing to accept bundles of dried meat from his disciples to supplement his tuition. It can be seen that grain is the oldest "hard currency". Confucius is a teacher of our nation in all aspects. He has also influenced generations of gourmets who pursue perfection, making the diet develop into culture and elegance. China's cookbooks (from thread-bound books to printed books) are definitely much thicker than the Four Books and Five Classics if piled up. In the eyes of gourmets, they can be read as poems. For example, Su Shi explained the secret of roasted meat (later named "Dongpo Meat"): "More fire, less water." How exquisite. As for Yuan Mei, he wrote poems and menus with Garden-before opening the bow, he was as pious as a penholder when holding chopsticks, and as bold as a penholder when playing chopsticks ... Of course, the poet's diet style is more elegant after all, and the menu with garden can only be used to peep at the diet of China people. There are also many extravagant or barbaric foods that have been neglected intentionally or unintentionally. For example, the so-called "eating the monkey's brain alive" (locking the monkey with a wooden cangue, knocking on the skull and sucking its brain juice with a straw) is absolutely cruel. It reflects the darkness of human nature. China people's diet, there are some anti-cultural things, not without criticism. Mr. Lu Xun said: "The food problem can not only reflect the material civilization of the society, but also reflect the social situation of a certain society and expose various social ills."

Louis Simpson wrote an American poem: "No matter what it is, it must have a stomach that can digest rubber, coal, uranium, the moon and poetry." /Like a shark with a shoe in its belly. /It must swim across the vast desert,/and make a roar like a human voice all the way. "When I think of ancient China, I seem to see a huge stomach: in addition to miscellaneous grains, it is stuffed with bird's nest, shark's fin, bear's paw, sea cucumber, tiger bone and so on. There are even the elixir of ignorance, the placenta and the human blood steamed bread ... This is a stomach with amazing digestive ability, which has been crawling for thousands of years. Its stomach acid can corrode stones or metals. China people's appetites are really too big, which is great.

Since the end of the 20th century, "environmental protection" has become an increasingly important topic in the world, and China people's all-encompassing recipes are also worthy of scrutiny and criticism.

I checked the menu of Manchu-Han banquet in Qing Dynasty, and found that there are dragon liver (mostly replaced by giant salamander or pangolin), phoenix marrow (mostly replaced by peacock or flying dragon), elephant cloak (that is, elephant trunk, which can also be replaced by rhinoceros nose and stubble nose), owl roast (roasted owl), lion milk (female lion breast), leopard fetus, scarlet lip, monkey brain, tiger eye and hump. It involves many wild animals that are now endangered. I really smell blood. No shame: Did my delicious ancestors unconsciously aggravate this ecological crisis? The tireless pursuit of food virtually caused their mistakes. It's all about desire. The consequences of overeating have become more and more obvious at present.

How many wild tigers, leopards, elephants and bears are there in China? How many Chinese alligators and giant salamanders are left?

Closing the ancestral cookbook, I express my remorse to these endangered animals with the feeling of atonement-including writing this article. The introduction of the wildlife protection law has adjusted the appetite of China people. Some things can't be eaten, which is virtually equivalent to eating away at your own future and the only earth. Rare animals protected by law are equivalent to "forbidden fruits" in modern society. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden for stealing forbidden fruit. Alas, the original sin of human beings is always related to eating. I regard the extinction of some species as another original sin committed by human beings.

Our awareness of environmental protection should start from the table every day. Knife and fork must be legal and responsible.

When my friend Zou Jingzhi went to Xiangxi, he met a shopkeeper who quietly sold giant salamander and asked him if he wanted to eat it. He flatly refused. It's not that he can't afford the high price, but that he feels that "Greenpeace has joined in his mind." If everyone in China has this awareness, the negative effects of food culture will be reduced to zero. Zou Jingzhi wrote an essay called Bad Eating. Eating endangered animals is naturally a bad habit. I hope China people's misdeeds in this respect can be completely eradicated.

Unfortunately, I recently went on a business trip to a mountainous area in a southern province, and I still heard that local rich people used stewed pangolins to entertain VIPs. Once discovered by law enforcement agencies, it lied that pangolin was killed by a vehicle while climbing the expressway. It is absolutely vanity of China people to use illegal food to raise the price and the level of banquets. That night, I dreamed of a bloody pangolin. This is undoubtedly a nightmare.

Some people in China eat dog meat. This is especially true in neighboring South Korea, which is separated only by a strip of water. There seems nothing wrong with this, because dogs are not endangered and rare animals. Europeans and Americans are quite critical of this, and even want to ask to give up this habit as a prerequisite for South Korea to host the World Cup. Europeans and Americans don't eat dog meat, which is not legally bound, but purely emotional: they always think that dogs are the most loyal friends of mankind. This seems too soft-hearted, even a little pedantic. But I think, wouldn't it be a good thing if the human mind could be more gentle and kind? In Europe and America, cruelty to animals is strictly prohibited, otherwise you will bear a high fine. More importantly, most people are consciously abiding by it. Yes, it's time for human beings to find their own conscience.