Mala Tang originated from the bank of the Yangtze River in Sichuan. At first, boatmen and trackmen created the way to eat Mala Tang.
From Yibin, Sichuan to Wushan in the Three Gorges, due to the fast-flowing water, it is naturally an indispensable scenery for the trackers. When they are pulling the fiber, they pick up a few stones by the river, set up a crock, scoop a few scoops of river water, make a fire on the firewood, add vegetables to the pot, and if there are no vegetables, take local materials, pull out some wild vegetables, put seasonings such as sea pepper and pepper, and rinse the food. Convenient cooking customs are followed by the riverside.
Later, the hawkers on the dock saw that this scalding method was profitable, so they transformed the dishes and stoves, put them at both ends of the load, shouted while walking, and friends selling labor at the bridge by the river enjoyed them around the load.
Mala Tang gradually walked from the riverside to the shore.
this is the origin of mala Tang.
Mala Tang is the predecessor of Sichuan hot pot, and it can also be said to be a simplified version of hot pot, except that both meat and vegetables are put on bamboo sticks. When eating, put a handful of meat and vegetables put on bamboo sticks into the tumbling red soup. The authentic way to eat is not to eat them in a string, but to grab a handful and gently stroke them with chopsticks, and then the dishes will fall into the sesame oil dish and eat heartily! The ingredients used to eat hot pot are also available in Mala Tang, but Mala Tang provides fast and convenient food for the eater.
It is such a small mala Tang that no one may think of it when we treat people to dinner, but we often bump into it unintentionally in the streets and lanes. As always, it has been a solid fire for nearly 21 years.
There is no luxurious decoration, no expensive dishes, no restaurant foreman who laughs like a flower, and even a decent signboard. There are several tables, two stoves and bamboo sticks all over the floor, so every day, I am surrounded by a circle of people, eating with relish and getting carried away.
that feeling is just one word: "cool"!
Chongqing hot pot appeared a little later, and it only appeared in Daoguang period of Qing dynasty (1821-1851).
after many researches, the real birthplace of Chongqing hot pot is Xiaomi Beach (now Gaoba No.25 Factory) in Luzhou, a wine city, which is on the coast of the Yangtze River.
At that time, boatmen along the Yangtze River often stayed at Xiaomi Beach (Xiaomi Beach was a very moderate pier along the Yangtze River in Sichuan at that time).
When you stop the boat, you can make a fire to cook to drive away the cold. The cooker is only a crock. The pot contains water (soup), and various vegetables are added, and then peppers and peppers are added to eliminate dampness (because there is a saying that
"vegetables are three-thirds of grain and peppers are clothes").
After the boatmen ate it, it was beautiful (in their hearts), so it spread around the docks along the Yangtze River.
At that time, Chongqing was a major waterway transportation artery, which was much larger than Luzhou.
This kind of food custom has been passed down from generation to generation. After it was spread to Chongqing, it changed again.
At that time, some coolies ("cudgels") saw this way of eating, so they went to the cattle slaughterhouse to pick up some discarded cattle viscera, washed them in the Yangtze River, cut them into small pieces and ate them with the boatmen.
everyone thinks it's delicious, which can fill the stomach and drive away the cold.
Later, some people simply used one (two) baskets, put some beef offal (mainly beef tripe) and side dishes at one end, put a mud stove at the other end, and put a divided "ocean iron basin" on the stove. A spicy, salty and fragrant marinade was boiling in the basin, which was sold every day by the river, the bridge or the streets.
So these boatmen and coolies (sticks and sticks) don't cook by themselves, and each of them thinks that it is economical, convenient and can increase calories, that is, they can eat it immediately after scalding until they are full.
In addition to those coolies, more and more people come around to carry the burden.
It wasn't until the 23rd year of the Republic of China that someone moved it into a small restaurant, and these handfuls were moved to the table. The clay stove was still there, but the divided iron basin was replaced by a small red copper pot, and the marinade and dipping juice were coordinated by diners themselves, so as to be clean and suitable for everyone's tastes. Slowly, more and more such small restaurants were opened, and almost all of them were in a small street in Jiangbei, on the other side of Chongqing, and quite a few people ate it. This is ".
Later, in order to remember that this way of eating came from Xiaomi Beach, people simply called this street Xiaomi Street.
even later, during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, Chongqing hot pot became increasingly prosperous. Officials, financial giants, businessmen and journalists were proud of eating hot pot, and some people even made this hot pot restaurant noble.
Many veterans who went to Taiwan Province on the eve of the founding of New China still remember the delicious hot pot in Chongqing, and some even opened hot pot restaurants in Taiwan Province (but because of raw materials problems, they can't keep up with the local flavor in Chongqing).
So many books now say that Chongqing hot pot originated in Jiangbei, Chongqing, but in fact it originated in Luzhou and developed in Chongqing.