Abstract: Kunming can really be called the hometown of food in China. The food here is not only unique but also delicious, which is unforgettable. Visitors who come here are full of praise for nothing here and are fascinated by the color and fragrance of the food here. All kinds of ethnic snacks are unique in making, or the delicious food made by baking, pickling or freezing has to be praised! The utensils used by Kunming people to make food are also rare to us, or the food made with slate, fragrant bamboo or sheepskin is really unique in flavor. So what other food cultural characteristics are there in Kunming? Next, let's learn more about the characteristics of Kunming's food culture! I. Food culture in Kunming
1. Overview
Kunming can really be called the hometown of food in China. The food here is not only unique but also delicious, which is unforgettable. All kinds of ethnic snacks are unique in making, or the delicious food made by baking, pickling or freezing has to be praised! The utensils used by Kunming people to make food are also rare to us, or the food made with slate, fragrant bamboo or sheepskin is really unique in flavor. The delicacies in Kunming are the most enviable and have an important position in the whole country. Most of the fungi used by the other side are from Kunming. Because they are wild, they are completely harmless and beneficial to the body, and are loved by most people. People in Kunming eat a little spicy food, and the taste is heavy, but the delicious food is irresistible, which definitely satisfies your pursuit of food.
2. Overview of the overall food culture in Kunming
The traditional diet of the Han nationality in Kunming is Yunnan-flavored diet. Yunnan flavor is the dietary flavor of Han nationality in Yunnan, which is composed of the dietary flavors of northeast Yunnan, west Yunnan and south Yunnan, and the food flavors of these three regions respectively represent the dietary flavors of Han nationality in the border areas of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, Yi, Hui, Bai and Naxi ethnic minorities in west Yunnan and Han nationality in south Yunnan.
Although the Yunnan-style diet is similar to the Sichuan-style diet, it has its own style. It is a flavor that is mainly Chinese cuisine and compatible with the diets of major ethnic minorities in Yunnan. With Kunming as the center, Yunnan cuisine has gathered the famous dishes of three major regions in the province (Northeast Yunnan, West Yunnan, Southwest Yunnan and South Yunnan) and the essence of many ethnic cooking techniques. Relying on the unique natural advantages, Yunnan cuisine has created countless delicious dishes with rich and varied cooking raw materials and unique seasonings, which makes Yunnan cuisine have a unique style of extensive materials, freshness and variety.
The representatives of Yunnan cuisine mainly include Xuanwei Ham, Crossing the Bridge Rice Noodles, Sanqi Steamed Chicken, Yiliang Roast Duck, Dictyophora dictyophora and chicken dishes. The characteristics of Yunnan flavor are fresh, fragrant, tender, moderately sweet and sour, moderately spicy and hemp, and paying attention to the original flavor.
Yuntui, also known at home and abroad, is Xuanwei Ham, which is as famous as Jinhua Ham, and comes from the alpine mountain area in northeast Yunnan. The excellent cloud legs are fragrant and brightly colored after being cut open. The lean meat is bright red or rose, the fat meat is milky white, and the bones are slightly pink, which seems that the blood is still moist, and the food is sweet and abnormal.
The reason why Yuntui is so delicious is that it pays special attention to the making method, including four tips: cutting secret, pickling secret, hiding secret and eating secret. One year's legs are fragrant, and after two or three years, their taste turns sweet. Four or five years old legs can be eaten raw and cooked. Generally, it can be steamed, boiled or fried. In 1923, at the Guangzhou Food Competition, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, after tasting it, praised it for its tender color, sweet taste, eating but not greasy, and left an inscription of "drinking and eating virtue".
Since then, Xuanwei Ham has gained great fame, and the Yuntui food from Dehe Cannery in Yunnan has been exported to Southeast Asia, Europe and America. Yuntui plays an important role in the production of Yunnan cuisine. Many dishes and clear soups only need a few pieces of Yuntui to match them, that is, the flavor is greatly enhanced, such as "Yuntui Kou Hericium erinaceus", "Yuntui scallop Kou Beng", "Yuntui Yushu Chicken", "Yuntui Gracilaria lemaneiformis", "Yuntui Yulan Tablet" and "Chicken".
Another example is a famous dish in Yunnan cuisine, "Milk Cake with Fire", which is steamed with milk cake and cloud legs. It is an indispensable dish at a banquet. In the assorted hot pot in Kunming, the cloud leg is also a must. Southern Yunnan has developed rapidly in economy and culture since the Ming Dynasty, and is one of the important cradles of Yunnan Chinese cuisine. The most distinctive Yunnan-flavored famous food, crossing the bridge rice noodles and steamed chicken, all come from here.
2. Special cuisine in Kunming
1. Crossing the bridge rice noodles
Rice noodles are rice noodle strips, which are linear foods made from high-quality rice through fermentation, pulping, filtering, steaming and pressing. Rice noodles are one of the favorite foods of Yunnan people. In the past, on New Year's Day, every family must eat rice noodles and borrow long rice noodles to wish happiness for a long time. On the third day of March, Kunming people often eat cold rice noodles when they are invited to visit Xishan, as the local proverb says; "March 3. Play Xishan and eat cold rice noodles."
There are many kinds of rice noodles, which can be eaten hot or cold, vegetarian and rich. However, it is best for foreign tourists to go to a rice noodle restaurant like "Yunnan Crossing the Bridge Rice Noodle Restaurant" in Yangshikou to taste authentic crossing the bridge rice noodles.
when eating rice noodles across the bridge, use a big soup bowl to hold hot soup. This is made of fat chicken and pig tube bones. It is clear and bright, and the noodle soup is covered with a layer of yellow chicken oil. It seems that it does not emit a trace of heat, but it is hot and keeps warm. Diners first put chicken breast slices, pork slices, fish slices, pork liver slices, pork loin slices, etc. into the soup bowl, stir them gently, and soon rinse the meat slices hot and tender. Then, add peas, leeks, spinach and magnolia slices. Finally, add rice noodles, with sesame oil, pepper, Chili oil, coriander powder and other litter. As a result, the bowl is full of colorful, white rice noodles, red pork liver slices, pork loin slices, green spinach and pea clips, and goose yellow yellow leeks. It tastes fresh and tender, the green vegetables are crisp, the rice noodles are soft and smooth, and the soup is delicious and delicious.
as for the origin of crossing the bridge rice noodle, it is believed that it is named after crossing the bridge rice noodle into a bowl as if it were used to build a bridge between two bowls. However, the people are more convinced of the reason mentioned in a folk story:
Once upon a time, a scholar in Mengzi shut himself up on an island in the South Lake and studied day and night in order to take the exam. His wife sends him meals every day. Because the food is often cold on the long way, the scholar doesn't like it. What should we do? One day, my wife stewed a fat hen. She put chicken soup in a clay pot, brought rice noodles and seasonings that scholars like to eat, and sent them in a bamboo basket. When she carried the soup pot, her hands shrank back with scalding. It turned out that there was a thick layer of chicken oil floating on the chicken soup, which kept the temperature. So, she put the seasoning in the soup and blanched it, and then added the rice noodles. The scholar ate hot food and felt particularly delicious. Praise Yang, because his wife has to cross a bridge to deliver food. The scholar smiled and said to his wife Yu, "Let's call the delicious meal you cooked today crossing the bridge rice noodles." Since then, the rice noodle crossing the bridge has spread among the people.
2. Steamed chicken
Steamed chicken is named after being steamed in a steamer. The purple pottery steamer produced by Jianshui in the south of Kunming is made of local red, yellow, cyan, purple and white clay, which has the characteristics of "the color is like copper, the sound is like a clear sound, the brightness is like a mirror, and it will never fade". When making, the artist first soaks the five-color soil in water, churns it, and then filters it into green and red clay. After the clay is made, it is painted with landscapes, flowers and other patterns, and then carved and embedded with clay of other colors. After burning and polishing with stone tools, it is integrated and the pattern is clear. Those long-used steam cookers, just like simple and elegant folk arts and crafts, are enlightening.
when making steamed chicken, first put the chicken pieces into the pot, put the seasoning on them, put them into a big casserole with water, and seal the pot cover. Cook over high heat for about four hours. At this time, steam is continuously injected into the boiler from a pipe in the middle of the bottom. Both steamed chicken pieces and condensed into water droplets in the pot to become soup. Therefore, the chicken pieces steamed in the steamer are rotten and bone-separated, and the soup is fresh and tender, which can best maintain the original flavor and nutrition of the chicken.
Yunnan is rich in medicinal materials, and local people like to add some Chinese medicinal materials when steaming steamed chicken. For example, Cordyceps sinensis, which is produced in alpine meadow mountain, is insect in winter and grass in summer. It is rich in cordycepic acid, vitamins, protein, etc. It can treat tuberculosis, lung-qi deficiency, lung-kidney deficiency, impotence due to kidney deficiency, backache, etc., so it is as famous as ginseng and velvet antler. Notoginseng Radix, considered by medical circles to have the effects of treating coronary heart disease, resisting cancer, refreshing and invigorating qi. Gastrodia elata has obvious curative effect on headache, dizziness, hand and foot convulsion, spasm and rheumatalgia. Therefore, when people steam steamed chicken, they often prescribe the right medicine for the disease, and put in appropriate amounts of Cordyceps sinensis, Notoginseng Radix, Gastrodia elata, etc. to nourish and strengthen the body, eliminate diseases and prolong life.
3. Chicken mushroom
Chicken mushroom is not a chicken, but a delicious mushroom. The climate in Yunnan is mild and humid. Whenever it is rainy in spring and summer, all kinds of fungi race to break ground in Shan Ye grassland. Among them, there are as many as 4 kinds of edible fungi, such as beef liver, tiger paw and brush handle named after their shapes, Tonglu, Qingtou and purple sandbag named after their colors, and "seeing the hand green" to describe their rapid changes, and so on.
Pleurotus ostreatus is the highest in Yunnan. The edge of its umbrella cover, which has a dark brown or yellowish surface, splits radially, so the ancients said it was "like a chicken feather", hence its name. Chicken blood is fleshy, silky, crisp and refreshing. It is rich in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron and other nutrients. The dishes cooked with it are fragrant and delicious whether fried or steamed or made into soup. Therefore, people who travel to Yunnan all take pleasure in tasting this delicious delicacy.
Some people speculated from Zhuangzi's "I don't know what to expect from the chicken fungus" that they began to eat the chicken fungus more than two thousand years ago. Zhu Youxiao, Emperor Gaozong of the Ming Dynasty, was the most addicted to chickens. Because the chicken is tender and easy to deteriorate, the smell is greatly reduced overnight after harvest. For this reason, just as Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty made the posthouse express the fresh southern fruit litchi for Yang Guifei, he also sent the Pleurotus ostreatus to Beijing by the posthouse express every year. I don't know if it's rare, or if Emperor Gaozong was so partial to it that even Empress Zhang, the empress of the Imperial Palace, didn't share the blessings of this delicacy.
In Fumin County, the northern suburb of Kunming, people are afraid that Pleurotus ostreatus will go bad after it is collected. It is often made of salt glue or boiled as oil. When eating rice noodles across the bridge, if you mix some auxiliary chicken or oily chicken, it will have a special flavor.
4. Pickled vegetables in Kunming
"Pickled vegetables in Kunming are the favorite of Yunnan people", which is one of the popular Yunnan folk proverbs.
Kunming pickled vegetables are common pickles, and the preparation method is simple and easy. Every winter and spring, every family washes vegetables commonly known as "bitter vegetables" and hangs them to dry. When the vegetables are wilted, cut them into pieces, sprinkle with coarse salt, and mix with pepper, pepper, ginger, star anise, fennel and some cooking wine-these seasonings can not only inhibit bacteria and prevent corrosion, but also add various flavors. Then, put it into a pottery jar, seal it tightly, and marinate it for one month before it can be eaten.
pickled vegetables, or green vegetables, or khaki, taste sour and palatable, and are appetizing and accompanied with rice. They are not only a common dish on weekdays, but also a good seasoning for home cooking. Whether they are cold, stir-fried, hot-boiled, simmered or steamed, they all have different flavors.
For example, when eating cold rice noodles, if you mix chopped sauerkraut and sesame oil, soy sauce, Chili oil, chopped green onion, coriander, ginger juice and garlic water, it is delicious. Another example is the wonderful bait block, where pickled vegetables, ham, leek, Jiang Mo, chopped green onion and other condiments are stir-fried with the bait block, which is fragrant and fresh. Another example is when burning carp, the fat fresh carp is fried, and the fried pickled vegetables and spices such as pepper, ginger, garlic and cooking wine are let go. This simmered carp tastes tender, sour and spicy.
In addition, the hot and sour soup boiled with pickled cabbage, ginger slices and pickled peppers is sour and delicious, which is not only a hangover-relieving thing when you are away, but also has the functions of promoting blood circulation and sweating, dispelling wind and driving cold, and is often used by the people to prevent colds.