As a Chaoshan person, whenever I talk about food topics with friends from other places, I find that my friends' understanding of Chaoshan food is always limited to beef balls and beef hotpot, and the richer ones are braised goose and seafood. Chaoshan people are famous for eating cows and eating Chaoshan circles, but the Chaoshan food that really occupies Chaoshan people's daily life is rarely interested. It is called glutinous rice.
For foreigners, Chaoshan is not as famous as Chaoshan beef hotpot; For Chaoshan people, it is not surprising that glutinous rice is a daily table food and snack. But if we really talk about the food culture in Chaoshan, we can't help being embarrassed. In other words, it occupies half of Chaoshan cuisine. If you come for Chaoshan cuisine, but you haven't tried it, it's a waste of time.
Hey, get off the gong table.
Broadly speaking, Chaoshan glutinous rice refers to non-staple food made of miscellaneous grains such as rice and wheat, mostly fried and cooked snacks. Later, many other Chaoshan snacks were also called glutinous rice, such as jelly similar to turtle mud, which was called glutinous rice in Chaoshan area. In a narrow sense, it originally refers to rice products. In Kangxi Dictionary, "Guo" is defined as "pure rice and rice food". Chaoshan people are good at eating jiaozi, which is inseparable from their environment.
China people's eating habits are closely related to agricultural production and development. Chaoshan is located at the edge of the hills in the southeast of China, and the terrain is inclined from north, northwest to south and southeast, and the Tropic of Cancer runs through its middle part. Chaoshan Plain, located in Hanjiang Delta, is the second largest plain in Guangdong Province, covering an area of more than 4,000 square kilometers. Chaoshan is located in the subtropical monsoon climate zone, with fertile land, suitable climate and abundant rice output, and rice naturally becomes the master of Chaoshan people's table.
But how did rice evolve into glutinous rice and become popular in Chaoshan area? This should also start from the history of Chaoshan.
Since ancient times, affected by war and economy, the population of the Central Plains has moved south many times. Chaoshan ancestors came to the fertile land of Chaoshan Plain in the southward migration again and again, and brought many customs of the Central Plains to Chaoshan Plain. The Central Plains pays attention to offering sacrifices to heaven. Zhang Heng said in Ode to Tokyo: "The sage used Ji Zong to keep the Lord, but never stopped offering sacrifices to heaven." Tang Zhen, a thinker in the Qing Dynasty, also mentioned in the book "Return the Books to the King": "Worship hemp and you will die." Providing food for ancestors is a tradition in the Central Plains. The traditional sacrifice in the Central Plains is mainly pasta. Since there is no wheat in Chaoshan area, it is necessary to adjust measures to local conditions and replace wheat with rice and pasta with rice. Rice is ground into sticky rice flour, and different proportions of potato starch and glutinous rice are added. It can also be shaped into various "fruits" needed for sacrifice like dough. Because the main ingredient is rice, the word "glutinous rice" is used to describe this sacrificial food.
The Chaoshan Plain has a large population, little arable land, and is faced with frequent natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes, so most Chaoshan people have to seek development from the sea. In addition to developing fisheries, Chaoshan people set sail for Nanyang on a red-headed ship with the spirit of hard struggle. The sea is dangerous and the road is long. Chaoshan people who make a living in Nanyang often don't know when they can reunite with their relatives. Rice is easy to preserve. As food, rice can not only satisfy the appetite, but also be full of Chaoshan people's beautiful longing for life and blessings to their loved ones. When Chaoshan people travel far from home, they will take bread prepared at home as dry food. Today, Guo is still one of the best gifts for Chaoshan people. Lao Guo is indispensable to Chaoshan people, whether they worship their ancestors, weddings and funerals.
How many shackles are there in Chaoshan?
It is no exaggeration to say that Chaoshan cuisine is mostly embarrassing! There are so many kinds of clams in Chaoshan that they may not even count themselves.
Chaoshan people eat glutinous rice, and they should follow eight festivals in a year. What are the eight festivals in a year? In Chaoshan area, the eight most important festivals in a year are regarded as the main sacrificial days, namely Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Winter Solstice and New Year's Eve. In addition to the eight festivals, on the fifteenth day of the first month of each month, there are also sacrifices to gods and shrines, which are indispensable tributes in the eight festivals. Different festivals and seasons give birth to different products. In the past, in Chaoshan people, every family had to make their own cakes for sacrifice, so Chaoshan people ate all kinds of cakes almost continuously throughout the year.
In Chaoshan area, everything is arranged clearly and in good order.
Among all kinds of festivals in Chaoshan, the highest attendance rate is the red peach, which looks like a brightly colored birthday peach, symbolizing life and beauty. You can see it on the dinner table before and after the Spring Festival.
When making red peach skin, Redmi was added to sticky rice flour, and the kneaded skin was bright pink. Then wrap the fried glutinous rice and add ingredients such as chestnut, shrimp, pork, peanuts and mushrooms. Shape it with a beautiful wood carving mold and pat it gently, and a red peach cake is finished. Soft skin, full of color and flavor, used for steaming cooked food. The skin is soft and waxy, and you can feel full of stuffing with every bite. Chaoshan people like to add some oil and fry until both sides are slightly golden. The skin is crispy and tender, oily but not greasy, and the flavor is better.
In addition to the beautiful moral, many glutinous rice cakes in Chaoshan were also invented with the seasonal solar terms, such as Puzi glutinous rice cakes and Gardenia glutinous rice cakes in Chaoshan. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "Eat leaves in Qingming, and take medicine in May". The leaves here refer to park seeds. Historically, the seeds of Cyperus rotundus were widely planted in Chaoshan area, and the leaves of Cyperus rotundus were edible, which helped to diminish inflammation and relieve accumulated heat. Just before and after the Qingming Festival, the tree just sprouted. Pulverize the leaves of Puzi tree to get juice, mix it with rice slurry in proportion, pour it into a mold and steam it, and make Puzi fruit. Steamed Puzi fruit has the fragrance of Puzi leaves and tastes softer than steamed bread, which is deeply loved by the elderly and children.
By the time of Dragon Boat Festival, Chaoshan area was hot and wet, and there was a saying of "bad moon" in ancient times. Huang Zhi detoxifies and cools blood, which helps digestion. Chaoshan people put the yellow water into glutinous rice flour and knead it to make gardenia. After molding, the tool is difficult to cut because it is too sticky, so it needs to be wrapped with cotton thread. Eating gardenia can clear away heat and purge fire. Gardenia is also called "Zhizong" in Chaoshan dialect, and "Zongzong" is homophonic with "Zhuang", so Chaoshan people call eating Gardenia "eating Zhuang", which means eating it is strong.
The saying "the season is ripe" is a true portrayal of Chaoshan people who eat jiaozi and jiaozi. Lantern Festival is sweet and red, and they look forward to the sweetness of life in the new year. On the Mid-Autumn Festival, do "bride leisure" for "Shigu"; Thank God for sending God, Bao Hong jiaozi, Mao jiaozi and Su jiaozi; On New Year's Eve, be a mouse shell symbolizing health. Besides offering sacrifices, these products can also be eaten. When the meaning of products extends from tributes to snacks, their types are more diverse. According to the materials, there are cauliflower, taro, wheat, gardenia, sweet fragrance and sweet glutinous rice. According to the stuffing, there are bamboo shoots, horseshoes, leeks and zongzi. There are peaches and turtles named after shapes. In fact, the famous kway teow is also a member of Chaoshan kway teow. Rice is ground into pulp with water, steamed and shaped in different vessels, and then cut into strips to make kway teow. The dried sunflower skin is cut into pieces to make horns. If it is thick and cut into pieces, it is a cake kway. ...
The products mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg in Chaoshan. In short, there are countless people in Chaoshan who want to eat them during festivals, during solar terms and when families have happy events and nothing to do.
Nowadays, Chaoshan people do not have the grand occasion that every household had in the past. Modern people mostly go to familiar shops to buy quilts, and occasionally the family makes quilts together, which has become a rare family pleasure. However, the custom of Chaoshan people eating glutinous rice balls on holidays has been passed down, and glutinous rice balls have become one of the unique food cultures in Chaoshan area.
Chaoshan people's day is spent in eating.
The main reason why Chaoshan people's embarrassment went down from the altar to the general public is that it is daily enough.
A bowl of salty and moderate kway teow soup in the morning can wake up the stomach that stayed up all night. Different from rice noodles, the main component of kway teow is rice pulp, which is easy to cook and has a strong taste, and the rice flavor is rich, so no matter what soup base is used, it can be more delicious. Sprinkling "garlic" and "onion" on the hot kway teow soup can also be regarded as injecting soul into this bowl of soup powder.
The kway teow looks inconspicuous, and the competition in Chaoshan is not small. Jieyang Tongkeng kway teow is famous in Chaoshan kway teow because of its unique characteristics. Tongkeng kway teow is very thin, close to rice flour. Compared with thick kway teow in other places, Tongkeng kway teow is tough and hard to break on a thin basis, and has a better taste. If you want to eat the best kway teow in Chaoshan, go straight to Tongkeng!
Wide juice is the most powerful competitor of kway teow in Chaoshan breakfast field. Wide juice refers to marinated juice. Whether a bowl of bitter juice tastes good depends largely on the taste of stew, but don't ignore the bitterness in the bitter juice. Nowadays, most glutinous rice noodle shops use glutinous rice noodles, but in more traditional glutinous rice noodle shops, glutinous rice noodles should be glutinous rice noodles. Baked skin and cut into pieces. Although the making process is more complicated than the kway teow, it can be preserved for a longer time and is more chewy after cooking. In Chaoshan area, only Chaoyang in Shantou still retains more traditional juice shops.
Most snacks in Chaoshan are snacks, and several kinds of snacks full of starch are often regarded as staple food.
The skin of the peach heart is made of sticky rice flour, and the main ingredient of the filling is glutinous rice. Apart from its shape and style, it is simply a rice ball. With glutinous rice as stuffing, you will feel fuller after eating. Gan Guotong's Gantong is actually a potato, and Chaoshan dialect is transliterated as Gantong. Grind potatoes into mud, mix them with appropriate amount of potato powder, shrimp skin and mushrooms, knead them into dough, and keep them for a long time after steaming. When you want to eat it, cut it into thin slices and fry it in the oil pan until golden. According to the thickness of the slice, the taste will be different when eating. If you cut it thinner, it will be sweet and crisp. If you cut it thicker, you can taste rich fillings. Caitouguo and taro are similar to Gan, but they have different flavors because of their different main components. Chaoshan people firmly believe that "there is no good crust without frying." The crust fried at high temperature will emit more attractive fragrance, and the crisp surface will make the crust taste richer and more appetizing. Shops in Chaoshan area do not sell any snacks. In addition to signature snacks, there are usually several other snacks that can be matched to meet people's needs of various tastes.
Of course, when it comes to Chaoshan snacks, there are still many.
Crystal ball is a snack added on the basis of rice-free bread. There is no crispy rice. As the name implies, there is no rice in the crispy rice. Its crispy rice is made of potato flour. After steaming, it is transparent, and you can see the color of the stuffing, which is usually leek stuffing, also called leek skin. The leeks in the pot are as beautiful as the emerald jiaozi. Creative Chaoshan people tried again and again to replace leek stuffing with purple potato, mung bean, red bean paste, taro paste and so on. This makes the taste and appearance of rice-free dumplings go up a storey still higher. Because of its rich colors, people vividly call it a crystal ball.
Hanging out with friends in Paifang Street in Chaozhou on weekends and playing in the small park block in Shantou, the gluttonous Chaoshan people may not drink milk tea, but they will definitely find a snack bar, order a colorful crystal ball and enjoy a leisurely afternoon.
If you go to Jieyang, you must taste the local "ping pong fruit". Jieyang Ping Pong Fruit was originally "Penang Fruit", but it was mistakenly recorded as "Ping Pong Fruit" because of its similar pronunciation, and it has been passed down to this day. Ping-pong fruit is "soft skin and crisp and sweet filling", which comes from the bran of Penang, that is, the bran powder that repeatedly bakes glutinous rice in a tripod with a shell to make it explode and expand. When glutinous rice is baked in the fire, it produces a special cereal flavor.
If you go to Chaoyang, Shantou, you should try the local horseshoe crab, which is an ancient creature. Living in shallow waters, Chaoshan people who eat the sea by the sea melt into horseshoes and serve them on the table. As a national second-class protected animal, horseshoe crab is badly eaten. Chaoshan people made some adjustments in the sauce, replacing horseshoe crab with crab, mixing with rice paste, adding fresh shrimp, breast meat, minced fresh meat, partridge eggs and mushrooms as they like, seasoning, soaking in oil at high temperature, and sprinkling with special sauce.
Most products in Chaoshan are not very expensive. After dinner, greedy Chaoshan people will go out to buy them. Not far away, maybe there is a good shop at the door. A small bag at the school gate, a small storefront on the old street, and even a bicycle walking around the street all have the feeling that Chaoshan people like. These small shops are like cells, distributed in small towns in Chaoshan area.
The most lively thing is the small burden reduction at the school gate. The aunt who fried the wheat husk is ready to go, the uncle who picked the salt husk is ready to go, and the uncle who fried the cake can't wait, just waiting for the school bell to ring. The fried wheat cake smells like oats. If you knock an egg, the aroma of wheat and egg will complement each other. Pour the rice slurry into the mold, steam it and let it cool. When eating, pour it on the fried preserved vegetables in the oil pan. When it meets hot and cold, it will produce a smell. Beat the omelet and sprinkle with powdered sugar to taste. Its salty and sweet taste is moderate and unforgettable. There are also hidden shops around the school that fry pork and "pig's trotters". Everything is mouth watering, and I can't give up. Children in Chaoshan spend all their pocket money on meals.
The most elusive snack is grass cake. Grasshoppers in Chaoshan area only appear in summer. Grasshopper is close to bean jelly, but it has sweetness and bitterness that bean jelly does not have. Sprinkling fine sugar can neutralize its bitterness. In the summer afternoon, if you hear the rhythmic knocking of bowls flying downstairs, don't panic, it's grass. Abreu, a hay seller, rode his bicycle in the streets and knocked on the pottery bowl, leaving a message. People who didn't have time to go downstairs rushed to the nearest big banyan tree to gather and wait in line for hay to cool down and relieve the heat. In hot summer, it is obviously unrealistic to sell straw mats by human voice. Tired and thirsty, but the crisp knocking makes people feel refreshed and have the impulse to go out and buy straw mats.
Going to Chaoshan to eat food and grass depends on fate. You don't need to remember the store. What you need to pay attention to is whether there is a 26-inch bicycle under the big banyan tree, carrying two big baskets, and whether there is a Chaoshan uncle holding a hat beside the bicycle to fan the wind.
You can't talk about jiaozi in Chaoshan for three days and three nights, or you can't feel its charm just through words. If you want to eat the authentic Chaoshan jiaozi, please go there yourself.
Author/Liao Gongtu/Tuchong Creative Network, etc.
Editor/Rylin Graphic Editor/Weekly Review/.
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