I believe I'm not the only one who made this joke when I was a child. This dish with a strange name but delicious taste aroused my great interest. After looking up a lot of information about Sichuan cuisine, I realized that shredded pork with fish flavor is actually a traditional dish in Sichuan cuisine, and the characteristic of this series of fish-flavored dishes is that it can make similar fish flavor according to several condiments (such as bean paste, pickled pepper, soy sauce, chicken essence, vinegar, sugar, etc.). ) There are no fish.
Fish-flavored series dishes happened not long ago, and they are the material of China after modern times. According to Sichuan Tongzhi, shredded pork with fish flavor was invented by Sichuan chefs in Xuantong for three years, that is, 19 1 1 year, but the specific points can no longer be tested.
However, one thing is clear. By the time of the Republic of China, Sichuan-style dishes had gradually spread all over the country. Zhang Henshui, a writer who has written classic novels "Golden Powder Family" and "Laughing and Crying", is a loyal fan of Sichuan-style shredded pork. Then, how can the fish-flavored series dishes of Sichuan cuisine taste like fish without fish?
What does fish taste like? This may be difficult to describe in words, but the ancients have expressed their understanding of fish flavor in one word, that is: fish, sheep and fresh. Different from the five flavors of sweet, sour, bitter and spicy, umami is a kind of flavor that can't be actually described, but it can make people's stomach extremely excited. Therefore, millions of diners have always pursued perfection in umami.
In fact, the fish flavor in Sichuan cuisine is essentially a umami flavor. In ancient times, soy sauce and chicken essence were not widely used, and people's understanding of umami was limited. Therefore, when Sichuan chefs made a unique childhood with sauerkraut and Pixian bean paste for the first time, everyone simply named it fishy. Because it is not spicy, sour, salty or sweet, it is a delicious food that stimulates the taste.
Some people here may want to say that fish and sheep are fresh. Why do people only think of fish and not sheep? This is because the dietary tastes of ancient people are constantly changing. A few years ago, beef was the primary meat product of many people in the Central Plains, but after the Song Dynasty, everyone's primary meat products gradually turned into raw pork. In the Tang Dynasty, many cooking techniques about beef gradually died out, which made beef quit the popular specialty food team. Therefore, in the late Qing dynasty, everyone's grasp and imagination of umami was only fish, from which fish flavor came.
Modern science and technology have made a comprehensive analysis of umami flavor. In addition to sodium glutamate, there are actually many carbohydrates in chicken essence, which can make people experience the existence of umami, and this umami can promote each other to a certain extent. In other words, if two different news features are mixed with each other, it will produce the actual effect of 1+ 1 >:2.
The umami flavor of fish flavor is closely related to the rise of bean paste and pickled pepper. The two coincide in the production process, which is also the specific origin of the ancient flavor.
Whether it is a green plant or a small animal, it is difficult for people to feel umami immediately, but when protein is converted into carbohydrates in the human digestive system, it has already passed the link of tongue taste and taste. However, the fermentation of seasoning only advanced the whole process. According to the flora, the protein of ingredients is converted into various carbohydrates in advance, including the umami chemicals that people often say. Nowadays, when people take this kind of ingredients, it is easy to taste the delicious food, including bean paste and pickled pepper.
Different from the soy sauce commonly used by everyone, bean paste is characterized by its raw material being cowpea, and at the same time, it enters the pepper to develop alcohol, thus forming a distinct taste different from the northeast soy sauce.
Cowpea, like soybean, is rich in protein, which is also converted into various carbohydrates during the whole anaerobic fermentation process, thus producing a unique flavor. Some Sichuan chefs like to add bean paste when cooking, so as to improve the umami taste of food, which is also one of the ways to make fish flavor.
In addition, Sichuanese also found the source of umami flavor from local pickled vegetables, especially pickled peppers, that is, adding edible salt and pure grain wine to fresh pepper for wet fermentation (lactic acid fermentation with lactic acid bacteria beverage in low-concentration edible salt aqueous solution). There were many Sichuan cuisine recipes in the 1960s, and pickled peppers were found in many Sichuan dishes.
Fish flavor is equivalent to umami flavor, and it can also be well expressed. Why do many Sichuan dishes have different seasonings? Take the most traditional fish-flavored shredded pork as an example, there is great disagreement about whether to season with bean paste or pickled pepper.
In fact, this is the choice of the two. Even today, when monosodium glutamate is widely used, you can make a good fish flavor without the two, which is actually umami. There is no need to worry about which is pure fish flavor, because it is only a milestone for the ancients to pursue the perfection of umami flavor.
Thanks to the development of Sichuan cuisine in modern world history, fish flavor is not limited to fish-flavored shredded pork. A series of fish-flavored dishes, such as fish-flavored eggplant cake, Sichuan-style liver slices, fish-flavored eight pieces of chicken, Sichuan-style broken rice meat, fish-flavored scrambled eggs, etc., make fish-flavored not only a vital part of Sichuan cuisine, but also a favorite of thousands of diners. From fish flavor to fresh flavor, from ancient times to now, everyone's perfect pursuit of food has never changed.