Suzhou is a southern city, but people here prefer noodles. When you come to Suzhou, you can see a variety of noodle shops, and there are endless ways to eat noodles. In fact, when you understand the history of Suzhou, you will find the inseparable connection between Suzhou and noodles, and why the locals like to eat noodles so much. To say that the earliest noodles came from Suzhou is probably beyond the expectation of many people. The story of Suzhou people and noodles can be told from the Song Dynasty. So today I will take this opportunity to tell you about the "love" between Suzhou and Mian. Friends who are interested can come and find out.

If you had to choose one food to represent Suzhou, it would be Suzhou-style noodle soup. A Suzhou proverb says, "You need soup for noodles and muddy soup for bathing." This means that you should eat noodles as early as possible, and the first noodle soup that comes out of the first pot of carefully cooked soup will have the clearest color and the freshest taste. This shows how important the head noodle soup is in old Suzhou.

For northerners, they always feel that rice-eating southerners are not too fond of pasta, but for Suzhou, the land of plenty, this is a huge misunderstanding. For a long time, people in Suzhou, where rice is produced, have regarded "eating noodles" as an important way of life and inheritance - grandfathers eat noodles with their sons, and sons eat noodles with their grandchildren. The taste and habits are passed down. To this day, when you travel to Suzhou and see all kinds of "XX Xing" noodle shops all over the streets, as well as dozens or even hundreds of noodles to choose from in the noodle shops, you will know how deep the obsession is across the city. ?

1. The earliest noodles came from Suzhou

Although there is always a saying that "people in the south eat rice, people in the north eat noodles", Suzhou people have a special affection for the local bowl of noodles. Solitary. The history of this bowl of noodles can be traced back to at least the early Southern Song Dynasty.

According to Zhuang Jiyu of the Southern Song Dynasty in "Ji Ri Bian": "After Jianyan (1127-1130), people living in the north of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan, Hu, Fujian and Guangxi were all over the place."

After the Jingkang Disgrace, the invasion of Jin soldiers forced the Song Dynasty to move south. The population in the Jiangnan region has increased dramatically, and large-scale population migration will inevitably lead to huge changes in the culture of the Jiangnan region. Of course, the first thing to bear the brunt was the change of three meals a day. The arrival of a large number of northerners who wanted to eat noodles made the demand for flour unprecedentedly high. In the early days of Shaoxing (1131-1162), one hu of dendrobium cost as much as 12,000 yuan. "The profit is twice as much as growing rice", which means that in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, due to the surge in market demand for wheat, farmers in the south of the Yangtze River made profits from growing wheat several times that of growing rice. At the same time, the government also introduced an incentive policy: "Tenants lose rent and only have autumn classes, and the benefits of growing wheat belong only to the customers."

With so many northerners coming here, the habit of "eating noodles" naturally came with them, so there is a saying like "Wuxi Baozi Suzhou Noodles", which can be traced back to the Southern Song Dynasty.

At that time, all pasta was called cakes. "Jingkang Xiansu Miscellaneous Notes" records: "Those who use noodles as eating utensils are called cakes; therefore, those who eat them on fire are called Shaobings; Those who eat it with water are called soup cakes; those who eat it by steaming it are called steamed cakes. "Soup cakes are also called boiled cakes. The Song Dynasty was already in the process of transforming into noodles. Soup cakes after soup cakes are also called steamed cakes. The "ancestor" of noodles.

Since then, in addition to the "square cakes, round dumplings, flat cakes, and pointed rice dumplings" that Suzhou people have long formed, a new eating method of "strips are noodles" has been developed. .

By the middle of the Southern Song Dynasty, the earliest recorded noodles, "Yaoqi noodles", were already famous all over the world, and they were a specialty of Kunshan County, Pingjiang Prefecture (Suzhou). There is such a record in "Yufeng Zhi" written in the eleventh year of Chunyou (1251) of the Southern Song Dynasty: "The medicine chess surface is only one point thin, and it is as thin as paper. It can be sent to distant places. Even the people in the capital and the nobles in the court will fight for it." "The noodles were dehydrated into dry, durable, easy to carry, and could be transported to Hangzhou, the capital at that time. Ordinary food has been improved into a good gift, and it has become a favorite gift of aristocrats and bureaucrats, indicating that it also has the function of health food. The curative effect is not only the contribution of Suzhou people to the development of pasta, but also an example of Suzhou people's meticulousness in their food.

Two to three hundred years of integration

But after all, Suzhou is a rice farmer. Can the customs of a region be completely changed by just short-term immigration in a special era?< /p>

Of course not, the more important reason is the change in Suzhou’s economic status since the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This "small town in the south of the Yangtze River" during the Tang and Song Dynasties suddenly turned around with the changes in China's economic landscape and became a major commercial and trade town in southeastern China.

For example, during the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty, a North Korean official was shipwrecked and drifted in China. After being rescued by the Ming Dynasty officials, he returned north along the Grand Canal and later wrote "Drifting on the Sea", which included his record of the prosperity of Suzhou. The canal that Cui Pu passed through from Xumen, Jinmen, Changmen to Fengqiao was an important commercial area in Suzhou. Shortly after Cui Pu's departure, Tang Bohu also wrote the popular "Changmen Jishi". The poem said: "The paradise in the world is Wuzhong, where there is Changmen and good heroes; there are three thousand buildings with green sleeves, and there are millions of gold and water." West and east. Jia He Zengjue of Wugeng City, the dialects in the four distant places are always different; if the painter is asked to paint, the painter will say that painting is difficult. "

The development of commerce has caused a revolution in Suzhou since the Ming Dynasty. Through a series of changes, Suzhou became not only the economic center of Jiangnan, but also a center of population mobility. Businessmen from all over the world gathered here, and both the "permanent population" and the "floating population" increased significantly, which activated the consumption of daily necessities in the city, and the catering industry developed rapidly.

Then people from all over the country gathered, and businessmen accounted for a large proportion of the floating population in Suzhou. Businessmen from all over the world came here to gather goods from their hometowns, ranging from raw materials for handicrafts to various commodities needed for food and clothing. At that time, almost every industry was operated by out-of-town merchant gangs. For example, the candle industry was mostly opened by people from Shaoxing, the coal shops were mostly opened by Ningshao merchants, the tobacco shops were mostly opened by merchants from Henan and Fujian, the merchants from Shanxi were mostly in the money business, and the merchants in the grain industry were mostly from Hunan. As for the sauce shop business, there are four gangs of Hui, Suning and Shao, with a total of 86...

In addition, various guild halls have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. The guild hall in Suzhou was first established in Wanli. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong, it reached its peak, which fully reflected the increasing prosperity of Suzhou's industry and commerce. According to statistics from the inscriptions, the number of guild halls in Suzhou increased to nearly a hundred during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

With so many people gathering here from all over the place, eating is of course a big issue. Food taste is very important, especially in the guild hall and around the guild hall, where you can often find delicacies that are most characteristic of that place. This is just like a few years ago, before the Beijing Liaison Office was abolished, Beijing gourmets always loved to go to various Liaison Offices in Beijing to look for delicious food. In other words, Suzhou was the most important immigrant city in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Over the past two to three hundred years, the dialects and flavors of various places have gradually been integrated into this all-inclusive bowl of "Suzhou-style noodles" with a clear and refreshing soup. "middle.

3. Qianlong was the best promoter of Suzhou-style noodles

In the Suzhou Stele Museum, there is a "Stele of Donations from Suzhou Noodle Shops" from the 30th year of Guangxu's reign (1904). , let the noodle shop donate one penny for every thousand penny from its profits for the public welfare.

There are eighty-eight noodle restaurants inscribed on the monument, and more than thirty restaurants have donated more than 150 yuan: Guanzhengxing, Songhelou, Zhengyuanguan, Yichangfu, Luzhengxing , Cheung Kam Kee... Many of these names can still be seen on the streets of Suzhou when you look up. Of course, the ones that can be listed on this monument are basically relatively large noodle restaurants. It is estimated that many small noodle restaurants can't even get seats.

Eating noodles has finally become a standard part of life in Suzhou.

In fact, the "Suzhou Bowl of Noodles" back then had an impact far beyond Suzhou.

In the "Hangzhou Customs Legacy" published in the 17th year of the Republic of China (1928), many old customs in Hangzhou during the Daoguang and Tongzhi years of the Qing Dynasty were recorded. Under the entry of "Suzhou Pavilion" it clearly states: "The noodles sold in Suzhou Pavilion are thin and soft. There are turkey, three delicacies, braised pork, mutton sautee, braised pork, etc., each bowl costs 21, 20 The price ranges from 8 to 30 to 40 cents, but a large plate of fried noodles is 84 cents. It also sells various snacks, wine, dim sum, spring cakes, etc. This is a meat noodle shop, especially a vegetarian noodle shop, which specializes in clear soup noodles and cauliflower noodles. , the price starts at sixty-eight cents, and if it weighs more than one pound, a copper pot is used, which is called "copper pot noodles." From March to April, five-spice eel and side dishes and noodle soup are also sold for two cents each. "This can at least explain that it is early. More than 150 years ago, Suzhou's bowl of noodles had already opened up the market in Jiangnan.

Of course, the most important promotion ambassador of Suzhou noodles was probably Emperor Qianlong. He listened to Pingtan in bookstores in Suzhou. You may often hear him burping with satisfaction after finishing a bowl of noodles. It is said that the famous "Aozao Noodles" were the result of an accidental collision between him and a kind-hearted woman from Kunshan who was a little deaf. The word "鏖喖" is originally a Suzhou dialect, which means "very dirty, dirty and unclean." . But Emperor Qianlong just understood it as "the secret of the stove - the secret is in the stove", and it suddenly became famous all over the country.

The Fengzhen Noodles at the beginning of the article is credited to the foodie Qianlong in Pingtan. He came to Fengqiao Town incognito, tired and hungry, and knocked on the door of a small noodle shop. Unexpectedly, the shop owner was a bad gambler and had no intention of running the business. There was nothing to eat in the shop. So, he grabbed ingredients and seasonings and cooked a random meal: if there was no bone soup, he would use the remaining eel bones to make soup. If there was no wine to remove the fishy smell, he would grab fermented rice wine without any noodles and toppings. He picked up a piece that had not yet been braised. of white meat and a bowl of noodle soup. As a result, the emperor gave it a thumbs up as expected, and this bowl of noodles became famous in Fengqiao Town. Fortunately, it was not called "Gambler Noodles".

However, Emperor Qianlong had many anecdotes and strange things in Suzhou. Most of the stories were about ordinary things in Suzhou. The emperor was amazed by them after encountering them by chance and praised them greatly. Is it because the emperor has too little knowledge, or is it because the emperor has unique taste and is able to discover beauty that ordinary people can't see because of his high position? Suzhou people probably think it's the former: The emperor is actually quite pitiful, and he is really eating in the forbidden areas of the palace. Nothing good.

Of course, this kind of confidence originated from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Suzhou's handicraft products from all walks of life were at the forefront, and the so-called Su Zuo is synonymous with exquisiteness and elegance. As for Suzhou noodles, just like the proverb of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, "Suzhou style, Guangzhou craftsman", what is important is fineness. The line from Stephen Chow's "God of Cookery" that "a bowl of chowder rice must be cooked with care" is really the most common requirement when placed in a bowl of Suzhou noodles. Therefore, a bowl of Suzhou-style noodle soup not only witnesses the changes in China's economic landscape, but also epitomizes the life and character of Suzhou people: exquisite and restrained, unassuming, seemingly simple and ordinary, but with profound heritage.

Eating a bowl of noodles like this, how can you not eat a lot of the true meaning of life!

Author: Yang Jining