Once upon a time, Luoyang's soup became the city's business card, and some people called it "Tang Cheng". I don't like this title. In my mind, Luoyang is a "holy city" and a "capital of gods".
As a native of the old city of Luoyang, I grew up eating soup. Luoyang people call "sweet soup" and "salty soup" soup, and "sweet soup" is commonly known as "porridge", which refers to rice porridge, noodle soup, red bean soup, mung bean soup and red date soup. Salty soup is now called Luoyang specialty, beef soup, mutton soup, bean curd soup, meatball soup, and non-turning soup. Luoyang people are used to eating soup in the morning and evening, noodles at noon and rice occasionally. In the morning, women and children usually eat porridge, steamed bread, fried dough sticks and pickles at home. Men will go out of the city gate or eat bowls of "steamed buns" in the street, which are all kinds of soups, mainly beef soup and beef offal liver in the 1970s and 1980s. There are only a few tables and stools in the dining room, and men usually carry big black glaze to "hug" (a big bowl of coarse porcelain is called "hug" in Luoyang dialect). The bowl is full of thick soup boiled with beef skeleton until midnight, accompanied by beef slices or beef offal, red oil fragrance, chopped green onion parsley, steamed bread soaked by oneself, or oil whirlwind, fire, hard-faced pot helmet on the street, and so on. According to the old people, the most delicious steamed buns are steamed bread and hard-faced pot helmets. Serve a big bowl or sit or squat outside the restaurant and eat a bowl of spicy beef soup, which is refreshing and comfortable.
Luoyang people also pay attention to drinking soup. Breakfast is usually served with beef soup, mutton soup and bean curd soup, which is spicy and rich. And meatball soup and non-turning soup are dinner, paying attention to hot and sour taste. I remember that people in the old city like to say "double pepper and double vinegar" when drinking meatball soup.
Luoyang's soup (continued 1)
I remember when I was a child, my grandmother would get up at five or six every morning to get busy with the family's breakfast. There is no electric light in the small kitchen, only a small kerosene lamp. My grandmother moved her feet in the light and shadow of the oil lamp to cook rice porridge, stir-fry radish and steam steamed bread. When mom cleaned us up, the family ate hot meals, adults went to work, children went to school, grandma washed dishes, and took her little sister to prepare lunch. As long as I can remember, my grandmother didn't go to bed until dawn, until she was 85 years old and got an eye disease.
Older, better family conditions. In winter, occasionally my father would get up early and go to the state-run restaurant in the south gate with a steel pot to sell a pot of beef soup. Luoyang beef soup can be added with soup indefinitely. Buy a bowl of soup and make more soup. (I don't know the price of beef soup in the 1970s) When I come back, grandma will roll away on the coal fire, and everyone will make a bowl of paper-thin steamed bread branded by grandma. Grandma doesn't drink beef soup or anything. She only eats a small amount of chicken. I don't know if it's because of economic difficulties or what. I guess this is mainly because of poverty.
Luoyang people will also make their own buns at home. I like noodle soup. I can eat a sesame seed cake and a bowl of soup. Eat half a bowl of noodles. I have to stir for a long time. I remember living in my aunt's house when I was a child. In the morning, my uncle will take down the key chain hanging on his waist, open the drawer on half the cabinet, grab a handful of sugar and put it into a big porcelain bowl to pour boiling water, then break off a thick stick steamed by my aunt from the basket and give it to my favorite little daughter. The little cousin also ate a sweet smile on her face.
After junior high school, because I don't like porridge very much, my mother sometimes gets up early to make me egg buns, stir-fry two eggs with Huang Cancan, stir-fry with chopped green onion, add water, spiced powder, salt, a little soy sauce, add vegetables or spinach in a pan, roll them in a bowl, add eggs, monosodium glutamate, chopped green onion, and the soup is yellow, red and green. This is also my favorite breakfast.
My habit of eating steamed stuffed buns has not changed until now!
Luoyang's soup (continued)
Next, let's talk about the famous Luoyang "soup".
The earliest soups in Luoyang (now the old city) are beef soup from Nanguan, Nanmenkou and Chengpo, beef offal from Jiufumen in West Street, beef soup and mutton soup from Dashiqiao in Dongguan, and tofu soup and meatball soup served by different restaurants in Xinghua Street east of Cross Street in the morning and evening. Liu Ji can't turn over the soup at dusk at the corner opposite the Youth Palace.
To the east of the old city of Luoyang is Chanhe Hui Autonomous Region, which is a gathering area of Hui people with hundreds of thousands of Hui residents. Therefore, it is their tradition to make natural beef and mutton buns, and they are good at making huge hard-faced pot helmets and pancakes. When you go there, you will see mosques, imams, men in white hats, women with narrow faces and high noses, and beef and mutton stalls in street markets. The yard is spacious and clean, and there is a street outside the yard. Brooms are often piled up and tied.
What impressed me the most was Jiufumen's Zagan Decoction. Jiufumen is now in the middle of West Street, facing Nanji Street. It used to be Luoyang Laoji. Before liberation, it was the largest trade market in Luoyang. There are shops and restaurants inside and outside Jiufumen. Because my aunt's house is close to Jiufumen, I am familiar with it. Opposite my aunt's house is a restaurant that specializes in beef offal and is very famous in the city. Zagan Decoction is made from beef offal such as beef skeleton, beef liver, intestines, stomach and lungs, and is made with chopped green onion, seasoning, chili pepper oil, pancakes, oil whirls or sesame cakes while they are hot. It is truly popular and spicy, stimulating your taste buds, satisfying your appetite and stimulating your fighting spirit. Man, three days without soup, itchy all over.
I have seen a tricycle pulling a bloody cow skeleton at the entrance of a hotel, as well as some spices such as star anise and cinnamon packed in sacks. My cousin and I secretly took a small piece of cinnamon from the mouth of the sack and chewed it in our mouth. A pungent, sweet and strange mixed taste stimulates children's taste buds, which is also an unforgettable childhood taste. Opposite Jiufumen, south of West Street is a wonton shop specializing in wonton buns.
They all say, "smelly liver, smelly, delicious." Every summer, half the street smells bad. At this time, I remember that there was a big mouth of an air-raid shelter in the hotel, and the cold air was continuously pumped through the exhaust fan to relieve the heat and drive away the odor. There is still a smell of smoke in the cool mixed air.
(Note: Jiufumen is a city gate in Luoyang, which is located in the middle of the present city street. The gate is tall and majestic. The doorway is about 89 meters high and 20 meters long. It is very cool to sit under it in summer, and there is water flowing through it. It was demolished in the urban reconstruction in the 1980s. )
Luoyang's soup (continued)
Tofu soup is a vegetarian soup without meat. It seems that it only became popular in the 1970s and 1980s. It first started from Zhenbu Hotel in Luoyang. At that time, I was still in high school, and sometimes I would accompany my mother to work the night shift in the shop. When I get up in the morning, my mother will take me to Zhenbu Hotel to eat tofu soup.
A large iron pot with snow-white tofu blocks rolled on it, and a soup bowl full of ingredients was placed on the stove. There are soaked vermicelli, soaked vegetables, yellow and white oily tofu, green chopped green onion, and a soul seasoning is mashed ginger juice and salt, pepper powder and Chili oil. I saw the master skillfully pour the boiling hot soup into the soup, then drain a spoonful of white tofu with a colander and put it into a bowl. The soup in the bowl just reached the edge of the bowl. There are chopped green onion and red pepper oil floating on it. At that time, tofu soup was cheap, just like a bowl of tofu for 50 cents, and then you bought a sesame seed cake for 10 cents, which was a good breakfast. I especially like the oily tofu in the soup. It is to cut white tofu into pieces with a thickness of two centimeters, fry it, cut it flat from the middle piece with a knife, split it in two, and then cut it into pieces. It tastes crispy, soft and waxy, and chewy. Tofu soup is refreshing, and women, children and the elderly like it better.
My father prefers to drink meatball soup, which was first sold in Zhenrong Hotel and Chaoyang Hotel. This soup was made after sunset in the evening. People wandering in the street and drinking a bowl of hot and sour tofu soup can eliminate the fatigue of the day, which is also a reward for their hard work. At that time, it seemed that the men sitting in the shop and squatting outside the shop were all men drinking soup. The meatballs in meatball soup are almost half the size of a fist. Stir-fried mung bean flour and soybean sprouts into golden brown, full of bean flavor. This soup is made of pig leg bones. You can add four big mung bean balls to a bowl of soup. With chopped green onion, coriander and spicy oil, it smells delicious, and it is sour and delicious with vinegar. Adding a sesame seed cake is enough to eat a round mouth, which is hearty, satisfying and happy.
Non-turning soup is a unique soup, which is not quite the same as the soup above. Its ingredients are extremely exquisite, including kelp silk, day lily, vermicelli, fungus and laver. Wrap a colander with the size of a bowl in the middle neatly around the pot, and the soup is slightly boiling below. This soup is made of beef bones, pig bones and chicken bones. "No turning" is a kind of pancake made by soaking peeled mung beans until soft and rotten, grinding them into paste and baking them with small iron seeds. The palm size of the finished product is called "no turning" because it does not need to be turned over when making. There are many kinds of side dishes in the bowl, and the two don't turn over. Pepper is added to the seasoning. Adding vinegar is another hot and sour taste. Also known as Luoyang people's "midnight snack", it is generally spread near Luoyang Theatre, where there are three theaters, cinemas, open-air stages, storytelling, card games, cold drinks shops and game halls. After nightfall, lights are flashing, people come and go, and people who are entertained will feed in that area after watching the movie. A bowl of soup is sour, delicious and uncomfortable.
I remember the snacks near the cinema, the small pot of rice wine, and the sound of bellows calling him was very attractive! There are also spiced rabbit heads, round and red sugar-coated haws and sweet baked sweet potatoes in the glass cover. Think about it is also salivating! The past is so beautiful, let it stay here!
Now the night market in Luoyang Cross Street has become a punching place for network celebrities, with hundreds of snacks gathered, but it is no longer my old city. My old city is in my memory! (End)
There may be something wrong with the mobile phone, so I can't upload photos. Please forgive me!