After the 1990s, I often went to Datong on business trips. After work, local friends hosted a banquet, and a dish called "rabbit head" was served during the dinner. Listening to the name and looking at the appearance, I lost my appetite.

Friends repeatedly recommended this dish, but when they saw that I had not moved my hands over this dish for a long time, they stopped being polite, stretched out their hands, tore and sucked, and in a moment there was only an empty plate and broken bones. I was dumbfounded and deeply impressed!

Later, I went to Datong several times with friends from other provinces. The local host always wanted to receive him. He always had a special dish called "rabbit head". The guests were amazed after eating it. Every time he went to Datong to eat in the future, he would always serve "rabbit head".

Taking away beer has become a perfect match for them. In addition to sending greetings through text messages, they also send a message: Go to Datong to eat "Rabbit Head" again!

After 1975 and 6, a large number of rabbits were raised in Yanbei (Lingqiu, Yanggao, Guangling and other counties). After the state purchased the rabbits, they processed frozen rabbit meat for export.

To this end, nine rabbit slaughterhouses and cold storages were built. At that time, the annual output of frozen rabbit meat could reach more than 1,800 tons, and the products were sold well in Germany, Britain, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and other countries.

The locals say: "If you have three rabbits at home, you don't have to worry about oil, salt and vinegar; if you have ten rabbits at home, you can wear cotton clothes and cotton trousers." According to the "Compendium of Materia Medica", rabbit meat is cold in nature and sweet in taste, and has the functions of nourishing qi and cooling blood.

It has the effect of detoxifying, nourishing the stomach and intestines.

Research by modern scientists has proven that rabbit meat is tender, delicious, easy to digest, and rich in nutrients. It contains protein, fat, various amino acids, trace elements and other nutrients.

According to the medical community, the digestibility of Datong frozen rabbit meat can reach 80% to 90%. The high protein and low fat content is 21%, which is higher than that of pigs, sheep, and beef. The fat content is only 3.8%, which is lower than that of pigs, sheep, and beef.

Much lower, the body is less likely to gain weight after eating.

Long-term consumption of rabbit meat has a good preventive effect on diseases such as coronary heart disease, fatty liver, and arteriosclerosis. It is a "three high and three low" food that can prevent modern civilization diseases such as hypertension, obesity, and arteriosclerosis.

However, people who started eating rabbit heads didn't know this. They were just eating rabbit heads to satisfy their cravings.

At that time, after the rabbit meat was exported, the rabbit heads were left behind, which was a pity to throw away. The processing factory disposed of them one by one at a very cheap price to the employees and their families.

When everyone goes back, they think about "waste utilization": how to replenish them into the body.

So I melted the frozen rabbit heads into plates, washed them, removed the remaining rabbit fur, cut off the eyelids, rinsed away the blood, and cooked them for adults and children to eat to satisfy their cravings (the picture is a bit unbearable to look at!), and the neighbors

Neighbors can also take advantage of the opportunity.

In that era, all the necessities of life were provided by ticket. Meat was people's desire and luxury. The aroma of rabbit heads boiled with various condiments could be smelled all over the streets.

In this way, the rabbit heads gradually entered the dining tables of Datong people, and some of them were slowly accumulated and sold one by one for thirty or five cents.

Restaurants also pursued profits and introduced recipes. Unknowingly, rabbit head became a famous dish in Datong.

It is said that rabbit breeding in our country has a history of more than 2,000 years. It was domesticated by hares imported from Western Europe through the "Silk Road".

Rabbits do not live in the rabbit hutch they have built, but they like to live in caves.

I also raised rabbits when I was in the third grade of elementary school. They are really easy to feed. You can feed them by digging up wild vegetables such as sweet hawksbills and bitter chrysanthemums, or even picking leaves from locust trees and elm trees.

Rabbits have a strong reproductive capacity, and a female rabbit can give birth to 50 to 60 rabbits a year.

The rabbits I raised gave birth to more than a dozen little rabbits in one litter. Unfortunately, it rained heavily for more than ten days in a row that year. The rainwater poured into their burrows and almost all of them drowned.

——It’s too far off topic!

Datong Rabbit Head is one of the traditional dishes that the locals love to eat.

They stewed the rabbit's head with more than ten kinds of spices such as ginger, onion, chili, and star anise (the picture is a bit cruel). It took at least three hours to stew until the flavor of the spices penetrated into the soft rabbit meat, and the taste was

It is relatively heavy and is a typical northern dish. People who love to eat it say it tastes good.

Perhaps it is because of the harsh cold outside the Great Wall, or perhaps because of the inheritance of the eating habits of the Hu people, Xiongnu, Xianbei and other ethnic groups who lived together in history. Most people living outside Yanmen Pass now like to eat large pieces of meat and have a special preference for meat.

And it tastes spicy.

Datong people say they creatively invented the delicious rabbit head, which the locals affectionately call "gnawing rabbit head".

At that time, my friends and we would buy big bites one by one from the simmering pots mounted on the vendors' bicycles or carts at street stalls, while I could only eat the kebabs.

Later, some people said that "Rabbit Head" is a famous delicacy in Sichuan, and "Datong Rabbit Head" is a copycat.

There was even a "Sichuan Rabbit Head Shop" opened in front of my house, but it closed down soon.

Although I don't eat "rabbit heads", because my mother worked in foreign trade, slices of frozen rabbit meat were still common, so I have always been suspicious of "Sichuan".

Recently, the Shuocheng District Cultural Relics Protection Research and Utilization Center of Shuozhou City published the "Brief Report on the Excavation of Yuan Dynasty Mural Tombs in Official Land in Shuozhou, Shanxi" in the first issue of "Cultural Relics" in 2022. The content is briefly described as follows: In early June 2019, the original Shanxi Province

The Institute of Archeology and the Shuocheng District Culture and Tourism Bureau conducted a rescue excavation of the tomb (No. M1) in Guandi Village, Shahuanhe Township, Shuocheng District, Shuozhou City.

The Guandi Tomb is an octagonal wood-imitation brick chamber tomb with a convex shape in plane. It consists of three parts: the tomb passage, the tomb door, and the tomb chamber.

The top of the tomb was destroyed and a large amount of floating soil was backfilled.