During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, villagers in Xiasha, Shenzhen called the potted dishes "Xin 'an potted dishes". At that time, eating potted vegetables used a wooden basin to hold vegetables, and a table used a wooden basin, a square table, four benches and a table for eight people, commonly known as "eating potted vegetables." Later, people in Xiasha prospered, their lives became richer and richer, and more and more people made Yuanxiao, so they were renamed as "big pots". They said that the potted vegetables in the village have well-preserved techniques, ingredients and cooking methods.
Potted vegetables are introduced to the world as a local specialty (Weichun cuisine) in Weichun, Yuen Long, Hong Kong. Exploring the origin of wai village dishes. Gourmet Tao Ge believes that Yuen Long Plain is a place rich in raw materials. But there are also some little-known reasons. For example, a clan with a little history is well-off, self-sufficient and well-fed. Parents are afraid that the second ancestor will go out to make trouble, so they try to marry their aunt and allow them to smoke, so that they can stay at home all day. Young hosts naturally stay at home, thinking about lunch after breakfast and dinner after lunch, which forces chefs to do their best to make delicious food to satisfy their appetite. Local materials, delicious and diverse dishes around the village came into being.
Pot cabbage is more rustic than the famous "Yipin Pot". The cooking method of seemingly rough bottom dishes is very elegant. They are made by frying, frying, burning, boiling, stewing and marinating, and then put in a pot layer by layer. There is even dried Kun in it, which consists of more than a dozen raw materials such as chicken, duck, fish, oysters, yuba, radish, mushrooms and pork. The way of eating potted vegetables also conforms to the traditional patriarchal clan system of China people. Diners at a table only eat one pot of vegetables, which means reunion and auspicious weather. Everyone is holding chopsticks and rummaging in the basin, which is bound to present an interesting scene, and the deeper the dish is in the basin, the more delicious it tastes. Traditional potted vegetables are packed in wooden pots. At present, most of them are in stainless steel pot, and some restaurants use casseroles, which can be heated at any time and have the characteristics of hot pot.
What is intriguing is that although there are customs of eating potted vegetables in Guangdong coastal areas, Hong Kong New Territories and even Southeast Asia, there are probably two versions of the origin of potted vegetables.
At the end of the Song Dynasty, General Wen Tianxiang was chased by Yuan soldiers and fled to the seaside of Shenzhen (then Dongguan) via Lingdingyang. Usually, articles are written as Xin 'an County. In fact, Xin 'an County was established in the first year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty (1573), not to mention the Song Dynasty, even though it did not appear in the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, it was getting late when Wen Tianxiang landed, and the troops only brought rice cakes and lacked dishes. Wen Tianxiang's mood can be imagined: "Fear on the beach speaks of fear, and Lingting in the ocean speaks." . The boatmen sympathized with the loyal ministers and used their own pork, radish and fish and shrimp to satisfy their hunger. There weren't so many dishes on board, so they had to make do with serving them out in wooden pots. Wen Tianxiang is a Hakka. Nowadays, most people in Xiasha village pretend to be Hakkas, so it is not difficult to explain why Hakkas and Xiasha villagers are so enthusiastic about potted vegetables.
Another version is: At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, Song Gaozong escaped from nomadic people and stayed in Yuen Long, Hong Kong. Just as his followers went out to look for food, the villagers at that time learned that the emperor was coming, and they donated the most precious food in their family to express their wishes. In a hurry, they filled wooden pots with utensils and delicious food, which also made the pots always put the most precious ingredients on the top. However, this legend is just a legend. If you want to study it carefully, there is always something suspicious, because it is disrespectful to use a wooden basin for cleaning the body as a food container after all, for fear that people at that time would not be so disrespectful to the emperor.
No matter what the historical facts are, as a wonderful flower of the catering industry, the cooking methods of potted vegetables are diversified, the structure of ingredients can be changed at will, and the happy and harmonious reunion atmosphere created when enjoying them is rare in the final analysis.
Hakka cuisine
Hakka diet can be divided into two categories: one is Hakka dishes, and the other is Hakka snacks.
Hakka cuisine on the list refers to Dongjiang Hakka cuisine, which is also known as Guangdong's three major cuisines together with Chaozhou cuisine and Cantonese cuisine. Traditional Hakka specialties are: baked chicken with salt, stuffed tofu and braised pork. Compared with Chaozhou cuisine, the taste of Hakka cuisine emphasizes "fat, salty and cooked", which is related to the living standards and habits of Hakka people in the past.
First of all, because Hakkas used to farm and live in mountainous areas, their labor intensity was high and there was little meat and food, fat food could effectively satisfy their hunger; Secondly, Hakka people have to eat porridge at least once a day because of the long-term lack of food, and most of them have porridge all the year round and have less water. Cooked porridge "blows away a layer of waves and drinks a lane", which is salty and suitable for sending porridge and increasing salt in the body; Thirdly, there are many plants and trees in the mountainous area. Hakka people have developed the habit of burning firewood. They think that the more they cook, the more fragrant their food will be.
It is true that the society is constantly changing, and in today's new era of socialism, Hakka cuisine is also constantly innovating. The traditional Dongjiang cuisine has gradually formed its own local characteristics in the pots of modern Hakkas, and has the reputation of "original flavor and delicious taste". original taste and flavour
The original flavor mainly comes from three aspects: First, the selection of materials emphasizes wild domestic coarse grains, that is, pollution-free "green food". It is worth mentioning that the good quality and taste of these foods have a great relationship with the good ecological environment of Hakka people, especially the good water source; Second, cooking methods are mostly boiling, stewing, steaming and stewing, which does not destroy the nutrition and fiber of food; Third, with little or no seasoning, it is generally seasoned with raw onions and cooked garlic.
Delicious and delicious, the so-called delicious and delicious, refers to the light taste, affordable price and harmony. Its intermediary function is similar to the modern term "dietotherapy". Many Hakka dishes have the functions of nourishing yin, reducing fire, clearing liver-fire, improving eyesight, strengthening waist and kidney, nourishing face and benefiting qi. At present, in addition to the traditional "old three" salted chicken, stuffed tofu and braised pork, the characteristics of Hakka cuisine are:
The steamed chicken is selected from chickens raised with Cordyceps granules at home or in the mountains. The whole chicken is steamed in the pot, torn by hand or cut into six pieces to eat while it is hot. It is very delicious and tender. According to the data, the amino acid content of this kind of chicken raised by indigenous method is more than 10 times higher than that raised by concentrated feed, which shows that the nutritional value of this base is extremely high.
The whole pig set meal mainly includes the eight most "essence" parts of the pig, such as braised pork, pig offal and braised pork. , with some vegetables and pickled sauerkraut. This way of eating is similar to that of Hakka people who used to kill pigs all the year round during the Spring Festival.
The whole beef set meal is mainly made of tripe hill, cowherb leaves, top of beef heart and beef bolts. Different from other places, the black film on the leaves eaten here is not removed, which is said to be mainly for strengthening the stomach.
Hakkas made tofu from the habit of wrapping jiaozi in the Central Plains. Because they moved to Lingnan without Michael to wrap jiaozi, they came up with a way to make tofu. Hakka people have various cooking methods to eat tofu. The so-called tofu package includes pre-meal tofu flower, fried tofu, tofu pot, tofu balls, glutinous rice tofu, fried tofu skin, and tofu milk of snacks.
The wild osmanthus fish, Monopterus albus and Silurus asotus larvae in the fresh Lvwan Lake of Xingang Lake are hard and smooth, and have a sweet taste, which is delicious whether steamed, stewed or fried.
Hakka snacks
Hakka snacks are another part of Hakka diet, and they are the "good things" that Hakka people must eat during holidays, weddings and funerals. Almost all kinds of snacks are related to farming season or reflect a Hakka custom.
In the first month of the Lantern Festival, Hakkas always eat glutinous rice balls and hang lanterns. Soup medicine has salty taste and sweet taste, which is a good sign of "reunion" It is the custom of Hakkas to send their relatives home for a long trip and eat soup after the Lantern Festival, expressing their wish to be safe outside for one year and come back for reunion at the end of the year. On the Lantern Festival or three days before the Lantern Festival, the family of "Tianding" in the previous year would hang big lanterns on the beams of the central hall of their ancestral home and invite relatives and friends to come for dinner and congratulations. During this period, the householder took the baby boy born last year to worship the ancestral shrine first, and then expressed his wishes to the elders. After that, everyone drank wine to their heart's content. Even if the baby boy formally joined the family, his name was injected into the family tree. Generally speaking, sons hang lanterns, and the more lanterns hung on any fence, the brighter they are, indicating that people are becoming more and more prosperous.
On February 2, I took off my lanterns, burned the couplets and "gifts" posted in the New Year, cleaned up and finished the leftover food such as rice cakes and flowers during the New Year, and prepared to do farm work in the spring.
During the Qingming period in March, the wild wormwood was tender, so the Hakkas picked it and made it into cakes to eat. Transplanting began after the Qingming Festival, so there is a saying: "Eating wild wormwood will grind your shoulders." In Lv Wanhu Restaurant, there is also a dish called "Fried Eggs with Wild wormwood". According to its boss Zhu, wild wormwood also has the effect of cooling and nourishing.
April 8th is also called Water Festival and Long Summer Festival, because the food eaten in the festival is yellow, and most of it is made of Jie Mi flour and wheat bran.
On May 5th, Dragon Boat Festival, we ate zongzi to commemorate Qu Yuan, and we also ate bitter gourd and tofu made from freshly harvested soybeans.
The harvest of crops in the first half of July 14 and the cultivation in the second half of July 14 have basically ended, and there is an atmosphere of festive harvest and holiday rest. On this day, every household is in grinding bean curd, eating ducks and fresh peanuts in various ways.
Eat moon cakes, fried snails, chestnuts, grapefruit, yamanashi and other fruits and vegetables on the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15. Moon cakes and snails both represent reunion, and people who go out to work on this day have to go home for the holidays. In the past, there was a tradition of playing with Kongming lanterns as entertainment.
The Double Ninth Festival on September 9 is also called Ghost Festival, and the second burial of Hakka ancestors was held on this day. The snack I ate today is nine layers of skin.
On the winter solstice of 1 1 month, there is a saying in Hakka area that "winter (winter solstice) is a big China New Year (Spring Festival)", which means that it is even more grand than the Spring Festival, because the autumn harvest is in winter, farming has ended and crops have been cultivated for one year, which is rich and gratifying. The snack to eat this day is radish paste. As the weather is cold and dry at this time, Hakkas prepare for the Spring Festival with bacon and pickles. The cured pork on this day can be preserved for a long time.
The Spring Festival (China New Year) begins on1February 25th. I am busy preparing food for the Spring Festival and welcoming my distant relatives. Eat oily fruit and big cages made of glutinous rice in the New Year, as well as Hakka dishes such as braised pork and stuffed tofu. Especially on New Year's Eve, no matter how far away, Hakkas will go home to have a "reunion dinner" and reunite with their relatives.