Small partners who often eat a fast food brand with the letter K may have found that besides hamburgers, we can have breakfast in Regan Noodles and dinner in Zhajiang Noodles.

Screenshot of source/network video

Upon hearing this news, some southerners scratched their heads: What? Regan Noodles can also be opened all over the country? Not to mention the north, we southerners don't like to eat anything with sesame sauce.

Some northerners patted the table: Regan Noodles from the south (more strictly speaking, compared with Beijing) has also drifted to the north? This is sesame sauce. Open the fucking door for sesame sauce. It's home! Can the sesame sauce made by southerners taste?

this thing, sesame sauce, is just like durian, "honey of a is arsenic of b".

However, in the eyes of many people, the likes and dislikes of sesame sauce are not divided by individuals, but by north and south areas. Over time, there is even a saying that people in the north eat sesame sauce and people in the south only like to play mahjong!

Today, let's take advantage of the topic and talk about this long-running dispute between North and South.

The birth of "sesame sauce"

More than two thousand years ago, a plant called "flax" came from the western regions and began to be widely planted in the Central Plains. This "flax" is different from flax today, but refers to sesame. It only emphasizes its exotic properties when naming it-plants introduced in the Han and Tang Dynasties usually have a word "Hu" in front of them, besides flax, there are carrots, walnuts and so on; After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, they were often crowned with the word "fan" or "foreign", such as tomatoes and potatoes.

Soon, people learned to refine oil from sesame. Because of the high fat content, the ground sesame will burst into a special smell, like grain and nuts-because of its fragrance, sesame oil has become the only oil named with words that praise the taste, which is what we often call "sesame oil".

When making sesame oil, a "by-product" or "semi-finished product" appeared-sesame sauce. In the Song Dynasty's local cookbook "Wu's Feed Record", it is written that it is especially wonderful to use hemp, almond, salted dried bamboo shoots, pickles, pickled leeks and cucumbers as toppings, or to add or subtract meat. The "hemp greasy" here is today's hemp sauce.

However, it was not until the copper pot instant-boiled mutton was introduced to the Central Plains in the Qing Dynasty that sesame sauce dipped in hot pot began to be popular-it is said that the content of flavor nucleotides (the main umami substance of land animal meat) in mutton itself is not high, and sesame sauce scraps can just refresh it. I don't know if it is because of the flavor addition of sesame sauce that Emperor Qianlong has become a diehard fan of hot pot. According to the Records of Archives and Historical Materials of Qing Dynasty, he ate hot pot for more than 6 times in the month from August to September in the forty-fourth year of Qianlong.

rinse meat and sesame sauce. Source/Network

This way of eating has continued until now, and sesame sauce and rinse meat have always been a fixed partner for northerners to eat hot pot; However, the "adjustment method" of sesame sauce has become more diverse.

Here, I have to insert a little knowledge: Many people mistakenly think that "sesame paste" refers to pure sesame paste, but 1% sesame paste often has a bitter taste, which affects the taste. Nowadays, we often see sesame sauce in hot pot restaurants, including sesame sauce retail in supermarkets, almost all of which are mixed sauces. The most common one is "28 sauce" with 2% sesame sauce and 8% peanut butter. The eating method of mixing peanut butter in sesame sauce has only become fashionable in modern times, and the reasons are not complicated: on the one hand, it is to improve the taste and make the taste softer; On the other hand, it is to reduce the cost. After all, the unit price of sesame is much higher than that of peanut.

With the mellow flavor as the base, all gourmets can add small ingredients according to their own tastes. I prefer classic collocation with chives and fermented bean curd, like rich taste with parsley and chopped green onion, and pour some sesame oil and garlic for rich taste ... With soul sesame sauce, this taste is right.

mix sesame sauce. Source/network

However, hot pot restaurants are now "rolled up", and there are more and more varieties of small ingredients on the counter. What kind of sand tea sauce, beef sauce, mushroom sauce, peanuts and diced mustard tuber have appeared, and everyone's eating methods are becoming more and more casual. This change is closely related to the influence of southern hot pot.

In the eyes of people who love the original flavor of sesame sauce, seeing these fancy dishes may be just like the old people seeing their granddaughters wearing ripped pants, but they can't help but sigh "Hey! The world has changed! " Photography/Funubihe, source/creative idea

Sichuan-Chongqing area and Chaoshan area in the south are all big hotpot households. The former is used to eating garlic oil dishes, and people who like heavy tastes can also add fuel consumption, Chili oil, millet pepper and so on. The latter is used to eating small ingredients of sand tea, and sand tea sauce is sometimes served with celery and coriander. With the cultural exchanges and population exchanges between the north and the south, it is inevitable that eating hot pot dishes will "cross the flavor".

If it's just the difference between hot pot dipping, it seems that there is no need for the north and the south to "quarrel" over whether to eat sesame sauce-after all, your hot pots in Sichuan and Chongqing are different from those in Chaoshan.

After careful study, I finally found the crux of the problem: many people think that there is no habit of eating sesame sauce in the south, and a Wuhan that is neither south nor north loves to eat Regan Noodles; But in the north, sesame sauce can be used to dip everything, resulting in many "devil" collocations that are unacceptable to southerners.

Then, in order to make the dispute between the North and the South of "sesame sauce" meaningful, we must first make the argument that "southerners don't eat sesame sauce" stand.

The answer is no, sesame sauce has always existed in the lives of southerners. In order to completely smash this view, let's start from the southernmost Chaoshan area.

Chaoshan people like to eat rice rolls, but the sauce added in different areas is not the same. Shantou likes to add scallion sauce, Puning likes to mix gravy with garter, while Chaozhou prefers peanut butter and sesame sauce. A special "rice rolls with sesame sauce" is rich in taste, tender, smooth and fragrant, and it is a "tidal flavor" that diners must order.

rice rolls with sesame sauce. Photography/filmmaker lets the dragon, source/figure bug creativity

Looking to the west of Yunnan, local people will also add "sesame sauce" when making folk snack roast bait blocks (according to Yunnan people, the actual practice is baking). The cooked rice is pressed into cakes, cut into small pieces, roasted on charcoal fire until both sides are golden and bubble-filled, and then coated with sauce. The sauces here include sesame sauce and Chili sauce.

add sauce to the bait block. Source/Documentary Screenshot of "Fireworks on Earth"

Further north to Hunan, the hot girls here like to eat "scraping bean jelly" with sesame sauce.

"Make a bowl of bean jelly scraping" and "OK", only to see the boss lift the gauze covering the bean jelly, and use a shovel to scrape out thin and translucent vermicelli on the white and tender bean jelly chopping block ... No extra ingredients are needed, some sesame sauce, a handful of Chili peppers and a few peanuts are mixed well, and a bowl of fresh, spicy and refreshing bean jelly scraping is made.

scrape bean jelly. Photography /f/2., source/creativity

Not enough? Then let's take a look at Shanghai again. No matter the season, old Shanghai likes to eat a bowl of noodles with sesame sauce. It is more passionate than cold noodles, and more affectionate than scallion mixed noodles, which makes people want to stop eating. Today, there is also a small shop called "Weixiangzhai" on Yandang Road in Shanghai. It has been selling noodles with sesame sauce for more than 8 years, and its business is still booming. Who says Shanghainese don't eat sesame sauce? "Friend, Nong, help me." Noodles with sesame sauce made me cry.

in addition to the Regan Noodles in Wuhan, Hubei mentioned earlier, it can be said that there are traces of sesame sauce in both the southeast and southwest, and in the two lakes basin and the Yangtze River Delta region. It is obviously arbitrary to say that southerners only play mahjong without touching sesame sauce.

mixed noodles with sesame sauce. Source/Network

Due to different eating habits, the frequency of people in the south eating sesame sauce is much lower than that in the north-it is basically used to enhance the taste of pasta and flour food; The blending of sesame sauce is not as thick as that in the north, so there will be a feeling of inadaptability.

It is not without reason that northerners have such a thick and deep "love" for sesame sauce, which has accumulated over the years.

A Brief History of Northerners Eating Ma Sauce

Northerners generally like to eat Ma Sauce, among which Beijingers and Tianjin people are the most enthusiastic-the formation of the "Ma Sauce Base" in Beijing and Tianjin is closely related to the geographical environment and historical development.

As the saying goes, "relying on mountains to eat, relying on water to draft". In the past, the transportation was inconvenient, and the diet was mostly restricted by geographical conditions. Basically, we ate whatever we had. Compared with the southern region, there are fewer kinds of ingredients in the north, and eating pasta is more than eating rice, so it will rely more on the sauce with the meal. However, due to the limitation of climate, the natural seasoning products in the north are mainly beans and cereals, and it happens that the north is also an important producing area of sesame, so sesame sauce is naturally engraved into the taste DNA of the people in the north. Even so, not everyone can afford sesame sauce.

According to historical data, North China was very fond of sesame sauce during the Republic of China, but many people didn't have extra money to buy sesame sauce-the main sauce at that time was yellow sauce made of soybeans. In a half-year food consumption survey of 48 families in the 192s, the average household consumption was 6.47 kg of yellow sauce and .27 kg of sesame sauce. The unit price of the former is .81 yuan/kg, while the latter is much more expensive, which is .193 yuan/kg.

At that time, adding sesame sauce to food was a more advanced way to eat, and it would also make food more delicious. Qi Rushan, a theorist of traditional Chinese opera, described the diet of ordinary people in North China during the Republic of China. He once described cold cucumber as follows: "In the country, only slices are mixed with salt and garlic, and if vinegar and sesame sauce are added, it is a wide way to eat."

scarcity is the most precious thing. I don't know how many people have been "greedy" with that bite of sesame sauce. Even after the good times, they did not change their desire for "sesame sauce", including Mr. Lao She. One year, there was a shortage of sesame sauce in Beijing, and Lao She, then a deputy to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, also "proposed in anger", hoping that the government would solve the supply problem of sesame sauce, because "Beijingers can't live without sesame sauce in summer".

Chen Xiaoqing once said in the program "Round Table School" that Beijingers' love for "sesame sauce" can be seen from their pronunciation-they never add a vowel sound. Source/program "Round Table School" screenshot

The situation in Tianjin is similar to that in Beijing, and it may be "even worse". Since the opening of the port, Tianjin has become a major trade center in the north. This also means that Tianjin's "Weizuizi" can eat sesame, sesame oil and sesame sauce from all over the world. Over time, Tianjin people have become loyal fans of "sesame sauce".

However, sesame sauce, no matter how expensive it is, is only expensive in seasoning, which is quite cheap compared with meat and other ingredients. Therefore, there was another important reason for eating sesame sauce in those days, that is, carrying hunger. Mr. Lao She, the "powder head" of sesame sauce, once wrote: "You know, sesame sauce is the best way to fill the stomach!" High in calories and full of oil and water, it can also make food sticky-magic sesame sauce, which is not only really nutritious, but also visually enhances satiety.

In fact, Regan Noodles's initial popularity was also related to it. Wuhan used to be a port city, where there were many porters and porters. For these "hard-working" people, food should be not only cheap but also fast and full. Regan Noodles, which can be eaten in the hand and carried hungry, has become their first choice for "premature".

The people waiting in line at the Regan Noodles store. Photography /fxy1223, Source/Figure Worm Creativity

In the 199s, the charm of sesame sauce remained undiminished. At that time, tickets were needed to buy sesame sauce, and one person per household was two or two; It is not available all year round, only from May 1 to 11. On the way to the grocery store to play sesame sauce, you can always see children in vests and underpants licking the sesame sauce flowing down the edge of the bowl-this bowl of sesame sauce is a treasure that can make all food delicious.

Today, sesame sauce is no longer bad. However, northerners who are used to eating sesame sauce have not only regarded sesame sauce as a condiment, but also called it a necessity of life.

On the n power of "sesame sauce"

Speaking of this, many people may be curious, saying that northerners can dip everything in sesame sauce. So what are the special combinations?

Let's look at an interesting study first: In 213, scholars from Yangzhou University and Shanghai Jiaotong University conducted data mining on recipes from various places. The results show that compared with other cuisines, Beijing cuisines have only two flavors-sweet noodle sauce and sesame sauce.

Beijing cuisine is dominated by the flavor of sweet noodle sauce and sesame sauce. Source/Zhou Xiaoyan, Zhu Wenzheng, Ma Wentao, Jian Chen: Data Mining Experiment of Compound Flavor Formula in Chinese Cooking, Food Science and Technology. Issue 4, 213.

It can only be said that for northerners, a plate of sesame sauce can be eaten from morning till night and from spring to winter.

It is its old job to match meat with pasta and flour food. The dipping dish of instant-boiled mutton is just the tip of the iceberg of sesame sauce food. Whether it is local tripe, flower rolls, steamed bread, crispy rice, or foreign seafood, wonton, bean jelly, cold rice noodles, etc., you can get along well with sesame sauce.

Peace in "I Love My Family", it is this sesame sauce smeared with steamed bread slices that I am greedy after amnesia. Source/TV series "I love my family" screenshot

It can also be used to mix all kinds of vegetarian dishes: cucumber, eggplant, beans ... only you can't think of it, and there is nothing that you can't "mix" with sesame sauce. The famous "dried cabbage" is quite simple, that is, hand-torn cabbage mixed with sesame sauce, mature vinegar and bees.