Lvliang Pasta Culture

As the saying goes, "Food is the most important thing for the people". Shanxi pasta is a unique landscape in people's life, and our Lvliang pasta is unique in Shanxi pasta with its rich taste and strong local cultural characteristics.

ancient civilization, barren loess, alpine mountains, frequent wars. In the process of adapting to and transforming nature, the people of Lvliang have survived and multiplied from generation to generation, which is known as the wind of burning millet. Industriousness, frugality, ingenuity, hard life and optimistic character enable the people of Lvliang to make use of the grains of nature to create colorful pasta making techniques and unique folk culture. Lvliang pasta is not only the daily routine of Luliang people, but also one of the indispensable foods for special festivals, such as festivals, weddings and funerals, worshipping gods and exorcising ghosts, and it is also the highlight of local snacks in Lvliang.

1. Pasta in daily diet

According to the different processing methods of pasta, it can be roughly divided into four categories:

1. Steamed food. Most of them are white flour, such as steamed cakes, steamed buns, steamed dumplings and steamed buns, and flower rolls. The steamed miscellaneous grains include corn flour, sorghum flour fish, buckwheat flour, oat flour horn, red flour horn, rice flour steamed bun, gold and silver curly hair cake, glutinous rice cake in Helao block, yellow rice steamed bun, etc. The steamed bun and steamed bun are the most common ones. The steamed bun is a kind of civilian food, which is made of corn flour and soybean flour, and is shaped like a small steeple with eyes at the bottom, and some of them are also made. Steamed bun is also called steamed bread, paper and steamed stuffed bun. According to the hardness of dough, the food fermented and steamed with flour can be divided into steamed bread and steamed bread. According to its shape, there are circular and rectangular differences. Most steamed buns in Lvliang are solid, while most steamed buns in Jiangnan are stuffed. This ancient fermented dough steamed food can be compared with western bread.

2. Cook pasta. Weigh a few catties of flour, add water and mix, then chuai chuai, knead, cut, pull, rub and fiddle to make all kinds of pasta. Long noodles and round cakes, this is a change; Then add ingredients and change techniques, just like "infinite" and "Tai Chi", so "two elephants", "four instruments" and "sixty-four hexagrams" have all changed one after another. Just noodles, the thick ones are "comfort strips", the thin ones are "a nest of silk" and the medium ones are "curtain sticks". People in Luliang have created extremely rich noodles by pumping, pulling, cutting, cutting, poking, picking, rubbing, pressing and sipping. As far as fabrics are concerned, there are spiced noodles, yam noodles, white noodles, red noodles and buckwheat noodles. In terms of morphology, there are Longxu Noodles, Daoxiao Noodles, Tiaojian, Cat's Ear, Fish Leakage, River Fishing, Tiaojian, and Choke a knot in one's heart. In terms of topping, there are egg noodles, spinach noodles, noodles with minced meat, stewed vegetables noodles and meat noodles; On the occasion of pasta, there are longevity noodles, Lamian Noodles noodles, pulled noodles and Yangchun noodles. Dumplings are the most popular in cooking, and their preparation methods and fillings are varied. Dumplings are made by hand and rolled with a rolling pin, which is an indispensable hospitality food, symbolizing a kind of tolerance, unity and harmony.

3. Baked and branded cakes. Pancakes are an ancient and common food, which can be made of white flour, red flour, bean flour and corn flour. When making, the noodles are thinned into paste, placed on a griddle and pushed evenly, and baked until the white hair turns yellow. Among them, cornmeal pancakes are first made of corn into coarse grains, soaked in water for one day, then ground into paste with stone, spread out with beef tendon flat spoon, and baked thoroughly to remove. This kind of pancake is thin and flexible, sweet and delicious, and easy to store.

4. Fried food. There are fried dough sticks, oil cakes, twists, oil cakes and so on. In ancient times, "Fried dough sticks" was called "Fried Gui", and "Gui" refers to Qin Gui. It is said that people hated Qin Gui and his wife for framing Yue Fei, a famous anti-gold star, so they twisted two dough figurines into a spiral shape and fried them in a frying pan to vent their hatred. Cake is a food for the feast and the New Year's Day, and it is not eaten normally. To make a small amount of cake, just make the cake noodles into nests, steam them, knead them, and fry them in different doses. Generally, a large number of cakes are made by steaming, that is, the noodles are put in a large pot and mixed into blocks. The steamer is placed on the bottom of the pot to spread a layer first. After the air comes, the noodles are sprinkled while adding fire, and the dough can be cooked while steaming for about ten minutes. After the dough comes out of the cage, the atmosphere is tense. You must dip it in cold water with your hands very quickly, insert it into the sticky and hot cake at a very fast speed, drag a piece down to the big case with water, dip it again, knead it into a smooth dough, squeeze it into a preparation, wrap it in brown sugar, red dates, etc., and fry it in an oil pan. The oil cake with crispy outside and soft inside is made. This way of eating is mostly in Zhongyang, while Wotou is mostly in Pingchuan area.

2. Pasta in the custom of wedding and funeral.

Funeral: After death, people should celebrate the seventh day of fasting, and set up a fasting memorial service once every seven days, * * * seven times. As the saying goes, "The first seven steamed buns, the second seven cakes, the third seven offering meat and fire, the fourth seven taking off, the fifth seven jiao, the sixth seven offering cakes, and the seventh seven not needing to wait". After 7749 days, you can turn over the dead, thinking that the dead seek fate, taking seven days as a cycle, and you can't change fate once, until 777, you will be reincarnated. Generally, relatives and friends pay double gifts, that is, if they offer 12 or 15 buns, they will steam 1 buns with 1 Jin of flour in Jiaocheng, which is called "fake three offerings".

During the engagement season, we in Lvliang usually eat jiaozi to show our blessing to the couple. Its statement originated from the practice in jiaozi, where the edges of dumpling wrappers are close together, indicating that the newlyweds are more loving and interdependent. When we get married, we usually don't eat steamed bread, which is unlucky. In Jiaocheng, eat more dumplings when you leave. In the first ten days of marriage, the food was also very particular. On the fourth day, I ate noodles called Changfu noodles. As the saying goes, "My son-in-law will meet relatives and friends on the third day, eat Lamian Noodles on the fourth day, go back to my mother's house on the fifth day, eat distilled rice on the sixth day, and be a good couple for a hundred years, seven jiaozi, eight fires, nine steamed buns and ten cakes.

3. Pasta in birthday etiquette:

When the elderly celebrate their birthdays, the menu for entertaining guests depends on the family, but they must eat oil cakes, peaches and noodles. A noodle can be as long as 5 meters, just like a bowl of longevity noodles. A noodle is like a silver chain, full of twists and turns, symbolizing the road of life. If a face is 1 meters long, it means a hundred years of life and a hundred years of peace.

4. Pasta during the Chinese New Year:

Every time during the Chinese New Year, people in Lvliang steam rolls, jujube hill and Ziziphus jujuba, all of which are steamed by fermenting white flour. Rolling rolls are made by rubbing the flour into long strips, then printing a concave surface on it with chopsticks or other thin sticks, then rolling back the hands at both ends like rabbits' ears, and then inserting jujubes in the concave surface to send new year's greetings to children, also known as ". Jujube hill, on the other hand, is made into a human figure with noodles, and then put it at the lower right end of the kang, or other important places of respect, when the gods offer it. On the other hand, Zaowei rolls the noodles into pancakes, then puts dates on them, at least three layers, which can be eaten after steaming, and puts them on both sides of jujube hill for exorcising ghosts and praying.

Pasta is also mostly used in Tomb-Sweeping Day. Before the arrival of Tomb-Sweeping Day, housewives will definitely steam Yan Yan for their children, that is, make the fermented noodles look like many animals, and then steam them out to welcome the spring. In Tomb-Sweeping Day, people also make "Zi tui", that is, very small steamed buns as sacrifices to express their mourning and respect for the deceased, or pray for their souls in heaven to keep the world safe.

5. Pasta in flavor snacks:

Pasta can really be the "highlight" in flavor snacks, such as; Fenyang stone cake, crispy meat pie, Linxian oil hoe cake, Liulin bowl ball, sesame cake, Shilou fried noodles, Jiaocheng spiced seasoning noodles, Wenshui Baoxian Chinese meat, etc. It's countless. You'll have a good time in those places!

Lvliang's pasta is rich in variety, which is not only delicious but also meaningful. It is the carrier and symbol of our living culture and local characteristics in Lvliang, and it is the wealth of Lvliang people and even China people. We should protect and keep pace with the times. In the future development, we should focus on this, publicize the culture of Lvliang in Shanxi, promote the overall development of Jinping, and promote the economic development of catering industry and all walks of life. We have reason to believe that the tomorrow of Lvliang pasta will be better!