Speaking of Chaoshan snacks

There have always been two attitudes towards eating, one is "eat well" and the other is "delicious". "Eat well" means to be full and nutritious to meet people's physiological needs. "Delicious" means paying attention to the taste of food, which is a kind of enjoyment and belongs to the spiritual level. Snacks are "delicious" foods. What is a snack? Snacks are snacks other than dinner, that is, "snacks". They just touch the heart and don't touch the stomach. In the face of snacks other than dinner, you can choose to eat or not to eat. You don't have to care about the quantity and quality, but only the delicacy. From this point of view, pure food should be snacks and the like.

In the past, Chaoshan people used to say "Have you eaten well" to greet people, which shows that it was a problem to have food at that time. Nowadays, not many people greet people like this. With the progress of the times, we have basically solved the problem of food and clothing. People are not satisfied with filling their stomachs, but want to eat more tastefully and emotionally. Therefore, it is a fashionable topic to talk about consumption after food and clothing, snacks and food.

Chaoshan is one of the famous snack areas, and many snacks are not only loved by local people, but also popular in other places. Eight Chaoshan snacks have been awarded the title of "Chinese Famous Snacks" at the National Excellent Snacks Variety Evaluation Meeting-"Chinese Famous Snacks Recognition Meeting". Why are Chaoshan snacks so attractive? What are its characteristics?

1. Born in poverty, it is natural.

Countless local snacks or dim sum in China were either born out of the court or produced by the people. Chaoshan snacks, almost all of which are original by the people, have been circulated among the people. This is determined by the fact that Chaoshan is located in the "corner of the country at the end of the province" in history, far from the national political center, and the commercial society was formed late and the social wealth was not high. A few Chaoshan snacks came by hand: Xitianxiang Oyster Baked, Goose Goose, Elder Sister's Pig's Foot Rice, and Mother's Palace Zongqiu. Which name is not simple and straightforward, and the local flavor is tangy.

Chaoshan snacks are rooted in the people. They are not attached to the official culture or the scholar-bureaucrat culture. Since their birth, they have been spread among the people in a natural manner, conforming to the natural laws of natural selection. Therefore, we can now taste so many local snacks.

Second, the materials are simple and the taste is unique

Cantonese dim sum is famous for its foreign flavor, such as cream buns, egg tarts and barbecued pork buns. Shanghai snacks are famous for seafood, such as crab roe soup packets and spring rolls with minced fish. Northern snacks are mainly pasta. Chaoshan snacks are nothing without rice. A word "Guo" in Chaoshan dialect summarizes the main raw materials of Chaoshan snacks. In Chaoshan dictionary, "Guo" is explained in this way, a kind of fruit with rice flour as skin and stuffing. The leek bun is called "no rice bun" because the skin is sweet potato powder and the stuffing is vegetables, which shows the position of rice in snacks. Earlier, the ancestors of Chaoshan moved south from the Central Plains to Chaoshan. According to the custom of ancestral home, pasta was used as fruit for ancestor worship, and wheat was not produced in the south, so rice could only be used as fruit. This is the origin of "Guo". Later, the raw materials and practices of sacrificial food were constantly innovated and developed, and people called all the sacrificial packages "Guo". Hipsters are really superb in using rice as snacks. It can be a kind of raw material that is both skin and stuffing-"rice wrapped in rice". If there is a snack called "Taoguo", glutinous rice flour is used as skin and glutinous rice is used as stuffing, which is not only boring, but also very fragrant and delicious.

Chaoshan is rich in sweet potatoes, which are flat and cheap crops and are also widely used in snacks. Sweet potato powder can be used as the skin of snacks, such as "crystal ball" with sweet and salty stuffing and "leek cake". It can also be mixed with fruits and steamed into "Ma Ling potato cake", "taro cake" and "horseshoe cake". It can also be made into "cake baked sweet potato", "sweet potato soup" and so on. Although sweet potato comes from humble origins, it is a big family in Chaoshan snacks.

Different from Shanghai and other coastal areas, there are relatively few seafood in Chaoshan snacks, and rare seafood such as lobster, shark's fin and crab are even more rare. One of the reasons is that the climate in Chaoshan is hot and it is difficult to store seafood. In addition, it is also caused by its civilian characteristics. All coastal areas are rich in oysters, but only Chaoshan is the one that makes oysters into delicious snacks-"oyster roasting". Its practice is also very simple, that is, sweet potato powder and oyster are mixed together and fried into cakes, and duck eggs are poured on them, but the taste is extremely unique, crisp outside and soft inside, fragrant and tender, and it has become a famous snack.

Looking at Chaoshan snacks, vegetarian food is the main food, but fish is rare. Its materials are simple, and most of them are based on common crops-rice, sweet potatoes and vegetables. However, it has won people's favor with its unique pastoral flavor, and it is deeply loved by people from all walks of life because of its low price.

Third, it is delicious and full of interest.

Since Chaoshan snacks are not "good to eat" but "delicious" food, people should naturally pay attention to their formal beauty while paying attention to their delicacies. Dumpling balls tied into sachets, peaches like jasper, crystal balls and so on are also very elegant and interesting in appearance.

form is inedible, but form can stimulate people's appetite. hipsters have long understood the truth of "delicious food".

Fourth, pay attention to health and pursue fashion

Chaoshan snacks advocate nature and pay attention to health. While satisfying food addiction, people don't have to worry about eating too much fat and calories. As mentioned above, the ingredients of Chaoshan snacks are mainly vegetarian, and fish is rarely seen. Some snacks also add Chinese herbal medicines and become medicinal meals. For example, mousetrap, Puzi, etc., are snacks made with herbs, which is very in line with today's diet fashion. Not only that, the cooking method of Chaoshan snacks is also very scientific, more light and less spicy, more cooking and less frying. Hipsters also invented a way of cooking in oil, which is the most special cooking method I have ever seen. The method is to boil peanut oil with warm fire, then put the steamed snacks in it and cook it with slow fire until it is hot inside and outside. The snacks served on the plate have the smell of peanut oil, but there is no dryness of frying, which is really a must.

The Chaoshan proverb "Eat fruit in season" means that you should eat the food at that time when it is in season. The food in season is not only delicious, but also can achieve the purpose of health preservation. For example, eating rat Qu Guo and Cai Tou Guo in the Spring Festival, eating Zhi Guo in the Dragon Boat Festival and eating Pu Zi Guo in Tomb-Sweeping Day are not only delicious, but also can clear away heat and fire, so as to achieve the goal of "preventing diseases in season".

In recent years, Chaoshan snacks have been reformed and innovated in terms of raw materials and shapes to meet the fashion demand. Add more varieties of fruits and vegetables to the raw materials, such as spinach, Euryale ferox, pumpkin pie, etc. The shape is getting smaller and smaller, so that people can taste more diverse foods without changing their food intake.