At the Lotus Festival held in Daming Lake Park, everyone who comes to the park can taste a unique Minghu lotus drink-Bitong Drink.

Bitong drink is a wonderful flower in the ancient wine culture of China. The ancients used lotus leaves as a traditional custom of drinking wine, which was called "Bitong Drink" at that time, and the inventor of Bitong Drink was Jinan people. According to the Tang Dynasty poet Duan Chengshi's "Youyang Miscellany", it is recorded that: "There is an envoy forest in the north of Licheng (now Daming Lake and Beiyuan area in Jinan). In the middle of Wei Zhengshi, when Zheng Gong was in the dog days, every guest took a big lotus leaf and placed it on the inkstone lattice, holding three liters of wine, so that he could stab the leaf with a hairpin. After all, the wine tastes like lotus, and the fragrance is colder than water. " It means: During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, every hot summer, Zheng Yan, the secretariat of Qi County, often went to Daming Lake in the northern suburb of Jinan for a summer vacation with his aides. At that time, Daming Lake was called Lianzi Lake, with lotus leaves and fields, and lotus flowers were blooming. When they have fun, they often cut off the lotus leaves with stems in the lake and pierce the heart of the leaves with a hairpin, so that the holes are connected with the hollow lotus stems. Then the lotus leaf is filled with white wine, and then the hollow lotus stem is bent into a trunk shape, and the wine is sucked from the end of the stem in turn. That taste, fragrant and refreshing, is wonderful, that is, the so-called "wine smells like lotus, and the fragrance is colder than water." This romantic way of drinking is called "Bi Tong Drink". The lotus leaf used to hold wine is called "lotus cup", "lotus lamp", "lotus leaf cup" and "blue tube cup". Later, the Blue Tube Cup was later called "He Jue".

"Bitong Drink" began in Wei and Jin Dynasties and flourished in Tang and Song Dynasties. Bai Juyi has a "lonely lotus leaf cup"; Some poems in Dai Shulun, such as "Tea boils loose and red, and wine sucks lotus leaf green", all talk about the taste. In the Song Dynasty, this kind of "drinking in a blue tube" seemed to be more common. Lin Hong, a Song Dynasty poet, called drinking with lotus leaves "Bi-cylinder wine" in "Shan Jia Qing Gong", thinking that "it's really nice to go boating in the summer months, the wind is burning day by day and drink Bi-cylinder". Su Dongpo, a great poet, has a special liking for this. Not only did he often invite his friends to make a "blue bottle drink" when he was an official in Hangzhou, but when he was relegated to Hainan, Guangdong Province, he also brought this wind with him, which added a kind of "lotus leaf wine" to Cantonese who had the custom of eating "lotus leaf rice". It is said that he was so poor that he sold all the wine vessels at home, except for one wine vessel, which was the "Lotus Cup" symbolizing the romantic life of the scribes.

Due to the elegance and advocacy of the literati, "Bitong Drink" also quickly spread to the people. According to "Zhejiang Annals of Hangzhou Mansion", in the Song Dynasty, every July in the lunar calendar, Hangzhou people went to the West Lake to enjoy the cool. At this time, the lotus is in full bloom and the lotus leaves are fields. People pinch the lotus leaves to fill the wine, sip it, put the boat into the depths of the willow while drinking, and return it when the moon rises. Shao Hengzhen, a Ming Dynasty poet, praised the poem "Seeing Lotus on the Shore": "Every time I love the West Lake, it is cool in June, and the splash wind animates the boat. Bitong wine is leisurely drunk, and the red brocade is the first. " Very poetic.

Bitong drinking has a special taste. The drinker can smell the mellow wine and the fresh lotus fragrance. Before drinking the wine, people are already "drunk". It not only makes people appreciate the beautiful scenery of the lotus pond in summer, but also feels the profound connotation of lotus culture and food culture, thus winning the love of literati and celebrities in past dynasties and becoming a unique summer lifestyle of the ancients. Su Dongpo, a great poet in the Song Dynasty, once wrote a poem about his interest, saying, "When the blue tube is painted, the trunk bends, and the liquor is slightly bitter."

In fact, Bitong drink is not only pleasing to the eye, but also good for fitness. Because lotus leaf has the functions of clearing away heat and cooling blood and protecting spleen and stomach, it is a good product to cool off summer heat and keep fit by mixing bitter lotus leaf juice with wine. According to the viewpoint of neutralization and health preservation in China's traditional cooking, it is suitable to eat more bitter food in summer, and drinking with a cup is a good choice for summer drinks.

gentlemen who like "what's in the cup", why don't you give it a try when the summer is coming? Lake cuisine refers to the old water bamboo, cattail leaf, white lotus root, lotus seed and white lotus flower produced by Daming Lake in Jinan. Zizania latifolia is the tender stem of the underwater acoustic plant Zizania latifolia, which is tender and crisp in texture and rich in nutrition. Typha latifolia is the tender bud of Typha latifolia, which looks like a diamond and tastes like a bamboo shoot. Lotus is also called lotus. Its stem (lotus root), fruit (lotus seed), flower (lotus flower) and leaf (lotus leaf) occupy a very important position in Jinan cuisine. Lotus root has seven holes, and the meat is white and sweet. Lotus seeds, produced in lotus houses, can be eaten without their skins.

Chicken nuggets with Hunan cuisine are a famous dish in Daming Lake, with chicken breast, refined salt, soy sauce, Shao wine with scallion, monosodium glutamate, onion, ginger, garlic and so on. They are novel in concept, delicate in preparation, fresh and refreshing, and not greasy in fragrance. They are well-known dishes in season. The Yellow River, the mother river of the Chinese nation, flows through Jinan, and the carp produced in the river, the Yellow River Carp, is also called Longmen Carp. Its individual hypertrophy, gorgeous body color, pure meat taste, tender and fat, is a treasure among many carp varieties. The production method is to put a venetian knife on both sides of the preliminarily processed carp, marinate it with a little salt, hang wet starch paste, fry it until golden brown and bow-shaped, take it out, put the fish on a plate, and pour the sweet and sour juice fried with white sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, clear soup, chopped green onion, Jiang Mo, minced garlic, wet starch and peanut oil to make it look like a "carp jumping dragon gate". After the entrance, it is tender in the outside, sweet and sour, slightly salty and rich in garlic. In addition, according to the traditional custom, after eating fish, you can also make a bowl of "smashing fish soup" with fish head and residual juice. This soup has a fragrant smell, and it is flavored with five flavors: sour, sweet, fragrant, salty and spicy, which can clear your mouth and moisten your intestines.