When it comes to snacks, many people will immediately think of Changsha stinky tofu, Tianjin pancake fruit, Wuhan hot dry noodles and so on.

But when you ask a Cantonese person what the most impressive snack is, his answer is probably - beef mince.

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The Cantonese love of beef mince is very hot. The hot to, once a zealous netizen even set up a cattle meat association, vowed to taste the cattle meat cause to fight for life.

(From the enthusiastic netizens of the Association of beef and miscellaneous membership instructions)

For many Cantonese people, beef and miscellaneous may be accompanied by their grown-up street food. Although they can't say why they are so obsessed with will this stuff, it doesn't affect Cantonese people's love for it at all.

What's the magic hidden in beef mince?

A Long History of Beef Stroganoff

Beef Stroganoff, the full name of the dish is "Beef Stroganoff". When you eat beef mince, you are eating the internal organs of the cow.

There are a lot of stories about the origin of beef mince.

One says that in ancient times, a great king in the first Nongtan pro-plowing sacrifice to the gods of agriculture, suddenly rain, the king saw the local people starving, immediately ordered the slaughter of pro-ploughing cows, will be its beef, tripe, beef heart, beef liver, beef leaves, beef intestines, as well as radish into the pot, the people ate it after the taste is very good, and then passed down.

There is also a saying. Legend has it that during the Qing Dynasty, there was a year of great cold in Lingnan, and the demand for beef and mutton increased. A Hui chef's family ran out of beef, there is really no thing that can entertain the guests, so the chef in a hurry, the rest of the cow's entrails and radish together in a pot of stew, add star anise, sesame leaves, Chen Pi and other spices, and then with Lingnan's unique sauces. As a result, this pot of stew, cooked out is the aroma overflowing house, wafted all over Xiguan.

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Although it is a legend, it reveals two points: One is the probability that the beef mince comes from Xiguan, Guangzhou, and the other is that the beef mince tastes really good.

In fact, the raw materials of beef mince are the scraps of cattle, and in the old days, they were all meat used by poor families to supplement their nutrition. In the 80s and 90s of the last century, ground stalls, carts and other individual households began to appear.

At that time, a wave of people who were not afraid of hard work and not afraid of getting dirty started the business of pushing carts to sell beef mince. It is said that at that time, freshly subdivided under the cow water as long as 40 cents a catty, but cooked tripe can be sold for 2 yuan a string, you can roam around the cow meat trolleys do not need to store rent, it seems to be a pile of very good money business.

But the wave of people who made beef mince at that time, the craft will rarely be passed on to the next generation, because only they know, to make a pot of nourishing and flavorful beef mince, need to invest how much effort. Every day at three o'clock in the morning, you have to buy fresh beef mince, go home, clean them up, then add spices to braise and cook them, there is no step that can be lazy.

Niu mai stalls have a history of 40 years, and many young people in Guangdong now grew up eating the stalls downstairs in the alley. The uncles and aunts of the stalls have seen the children who were so naughty that they let their parents buy them now bring their own children to patronize the stalls.

For the younger generation in Guangdong, it is not only the deliciousness of the imported beef mince that is eaten, but also the feelings that have been built up over the past ten years with the auntie of the beef mince, as well as the period of time when they secretly hid from their families to buy beef mince and eat it with a big spoon of chili sauce.

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What's in Beef Stroganoff

It's been said that there's "Beef Stroganoff in the North and Beef Stroganoff in the South", and "Beef Stroganoff rolls three times, and the gods can't stabilize it", which is why Cantonese people are fascinated by Beef Stroganoff. The Cantonese people are mesmerized by the beef mince in the end where is the delicious?

If you ask a Cantonese person, where there is an authentic beef mince to eat, they will tell you: "When you see a simple cart, looks a little old, there are one or two iron pots on top of it, inside the things stewed in a pot, the owner of the stalls holding a big pair of scissors in his hand, and if there are still people standing next to them eating, then the beef mince has a 99% chance of being authentic. "

In that pot of beef minced meat, there are crisp beef lungs, beef heart, beef lily pads, beef tripe and beef intestines with a tough and soft, crunchy and bouncy beef tendons and beef crispy bones, as well as strange taste but some people are crazy about it, such as beef tongue, burdock and other parts.

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These in the old days simply can not be on the table of the next material, in Guangdong, mixed with a variety of spices and herbs, fresh ingredients, with sufficient fire, a party of materials to form a party gourmet food, the flavor of Guangdong beef minced so in the Guangdong people's tongue rooted.

In addition, Cantonese people will be the pot of beef minced soup utilized to the extreme. The preferred method of eating Cantonese beef mince is radish and beef mince, which is not easy to cook radish in the pot for some time, and the essence of beef mince soup is all boiled into a large radish, sweet and soft radish plus the flavor of beef mince soup, which can be said to be a masterpiece. The white radish itself has the function of clearing away heat and promoting the production of body fluids, eliminating food and lowering the gas, which can neutralize the fire brought by the beef minced meat.

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In addition to the radish, there are often gluten and cabbage in the pot, which are good at absorbing the broth, as well as a fish ball that pops out of the mouth, and some stalls have rice noodles and pork intestines as a staple, which is cheap and filling, and it's the kind of food that costs less than 20 bucks a person in Guangdong.

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Each stall has its own secret sauce, eat Cantonese beef mince, with these homemade chili sauce or bean paste, or sour or spicy or sweet, every Cantonese has their own perfect ratio of beef mince sauce.

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There is a Canadian Chinese writer, also a son-in-law in Guangdong, every time he goes to Guangdong he must have a bowl of beef mince.

When he was in a foreign country, he ate a bowl of beef mince with a similar flavor, but he always felt that something was missing. Finally, once in Guangdong, he persuaded an old man who was eating a bowl of beef mince to go and sit next to him to eat, and the old man's words made him understand: "Eat beef mince, we have to be systematic to eat to the good taste! （

This is the most grounded snack in Guangdong, and it has to be accompanied by the most grounded posture to eat the most authentic.

Nowadays, the beef and miscellaneous

Many people know that there is a stall net red beef and miscellaneous in Guangzhou, called Grandma Beef and miscellaneous.

The frequency of Grandma's Beef and Minced Pork is from once a week to once a month, and now it's not regular. And the queue is getting longer and longer every time Grandma opens her stall.

(阿婆牛杂 | via web)

As Grandma grows older, her health is not as good as it used to be, and people are concerned that she may not be able to eat Grandma's Beefaroni anymore.

Not only Grandma's Beef Stroganoff, but also the authentic Guangdong Beef Stroganoff stalls are disappearing.

Some of them have moved into fixed storefronts, continuing the good craftsmanship they had before.

But more, either because of the loss of the craft, or because of the rising cost of doing business, are gradually disappearing from various alleyway intersections.

Forty years ago, there was a trolley stall called "Leung Kee Beef and Minced Beef" in Hong Kong, and because of the good quality of the product, the business was so good that it only took an hour or two to sell out all the beef and miscellaneous food. But because the owner knew that it was not easy to sell the beef, he did not pass down the secret recipe until he passed away.

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Later, when his children grew up, they missed the taste of their father's beef mince, so they went to great lengths to find out how to make it, and named it "13 Seats of Beef and Minced Beef" in Hong Kong, after the landmark where their father used to set up his stall.

Nowadays, Cantonese beef mince is still an indispensable snack in the life of Cantonese people, but in the streets and alleys we see more chain of beef mince stores, which have bright storefronts and cleaner cooking utensils than those of the trolley period, but as if, it is not as delicious as the ones on the streets of the street in our childhood.

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But for Cantonese people, the best beef mince store in their mind is still solid, and the steam rising from the pot of beef mince and the scissors sound of "chok chok chok" are still the white moonlight in their hearts.

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