Although Suzhou people like sweet food is a dietary habit since ancient times, the taste of Su-style dishes is by no means so single. Subang cuisine has never been famous for its good use of spices, but this does not mean that it will not use spices.
In Suzhou, there is a kind of stewed cooked dish called "Cihuo", which is a kind of non-mainstream food with a less "Soviet style" flavor. The appearance of the goods is shiny, the meat is fresh and tender, sweet and delicious, the aroma is attractive, the meat is crisp but not rotten, the oil is not greasy, and the teeth and lips remain fragrant after eating, which makes people linger. This dish is not a new dish that has been developed recently, but a traditional food that has been circulated for many years in the suburbs of Suzhou, such as Changshu and Xiangcheng District.
There is a fried and cooked vegetable shop named Mingsheng Game Old Shop near the bustling bridge in Yangyuan Community of xinzhuang town at the junction of Suzhou and Changshu. This is a couple's shop. The master's name is Pu Mingsheng, and he wears a pair of glasses, which is close to the age of sixty. The storefront is a self-built two-story new building on the street. There is a bedroom upstairs, a storefront on the first floor below, and a front shop and a back room.
people in Yangyuan and even around it know that this old shop has been buying fried and cooked vegetables since the mid-198s. Mingsheng's wife, Zhai Ahui, specializes in selling in the store. Occasionally, her son and daughter-in-law will come from the city to help and look after the business in the store.
Mingsheng began to learn the technology of making food with his grandfather in his thirties. The food he made was more in line with the public's taste and was widely sought after. In Mingsheng's hands, his fame gradually spread.
For more than 3 years, his delicacies have been known to women and children in xinzhuang town and surrounding towns and villages, and even foreigners who work in xinzhuang town have come to buy early adopters. Anyone who has bought and tasted his delicious goods all appreciates that Mingsheng's delicious goods are authentic and unique, which is unique in Suzhou.
every time I pass by Yangyuan, I always like to go to Mingsheng's shop to buy fried goods. Because it's convenient to buy fried food and eat, you don't have to cook more when you go back. By the way, you can drink two cups, which is quite comfortable to mix cooked food with wine. I bought it many times, and I became familiar with the boss's wife, Ah Hui. Speaking of it, they are all villagers. Every time I went, the boss's wife, Ah Hui, greeted me. After a while, I got to know each other.
Yangyuan has a history of over 1 years. According to the elders, in the 198s, when Yangyuan was established as a town, several cooked food shops opened one after another. Now there are eight fried food shops in Yangyuan. Some even opened online stores and sold Yangyuan Tang goods all over the country.
in the dictionary, the meaning of "chi" is "simmer and cook with slow fire", which means "boil". However, in Suzhou dialect, "Yi" and "Ao" are completely different in pronunciation and meaning, so obviously they cannot be equated. "Cue" is a special term in Suzhou, which refers to this kind of halogen product with unique fragrance.
the method of mixing goods is very similar to that of halogen products, with the emphasis on its spices, which are the soul of mixing goods. Yangyuan baked goods adopt traditional technology, adding more than 1 kinds of natural spices, such as clove, cinnamon, meat fruit, angelica dahurica, cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, etc., mixing them in proportion and putting them into gauze bags, and mixing them with yellow wine and vegetable oil to make "soup stock", and the pot full of fragrance depends on this exclusive secret package.
a pot of dark red marinade looks like a pot of traditional Chinese medicine. The freshly prepared marinade will have a strong smell of traditional Chinese medicine, which can be smelled from a distance. Every store has a different spice formula, and every household has its own exclusive formula, which must not be spread abroad. Many stores will keep their own old brine, and every kind of cooked meat has left a delicious mark in the soup.
In a slow fire, chickens, ducks and geese gradually shed excess oil in the pot and blended with the essence of Chinese herbal medicines and spices. Every inch of the reduced body is full of delicious food. The skin color of the cooked vegetables is bright and yellow without soy sauce, and the aroma is fragrant. It tastes tender but not rotten, rich and plump, and the lingering fragrance of the hands shows the subtle charm of Jiangnan.
There are few vegetarian dishes in Yangyuan, except poultry such as geese, chickens and ducks, as well as pig's head, pig's ears and pig's feet, which are all "frequent visitors" in the pot. There are ten main varieties, namely: goose, chicken, duck, rabbit, chicken feet, goose feet, pig head, pig feet, beef and quail. All kinds of fragrant fresh stewed vegetables are stored in screen cabinets, which are sold now every day. When they are sold out, customers can get fresh loans every day.
The most classic taste in Yangyuan is the gooseberry. Even in many people's minds, "gooseberry" is equivalent to "gooseberry". Goose is more tough than chicken, easier to taste than pork and beef, and the ratio of oil to lean meat is just right, so it is most suitable for making stuffed goods.
Goose selection is also very particular. Generally, the weight is five or six Jin, and the weight should be even and thin, and the fat is not enough, so the fragrance can't come out. Fat, the fragrance is enough, and this meat head is tired of eating.
When an old goose meets a pot, when homesickness meets food, these whimsy of shuttling between heaven and earth, lingering in the mouth and tumbling in the soup and fire have created a touching "Yangyuan flavor" for us, which has gradually become a representative food specialty in the eyes of Changshu and Suzhou, and has become an old brand of catering memory in Changshu and Suzhou.
With the development of traffic information and the flow of population, the food that was originally popular in a small area at the junction of Changshu and Suzhou has gradually become familiar and loved by people around and foreign new citizens, and has become the heart of many diners. At the same time, with the development of logistics, Yangyuan has gradually stepped out of Changshu, Suzhou and the whole country.
Yangyuan Cuisine, a local food business card, has been highly recognized by diners for its unique cooking technology and excellent reputation of pure taste. People in Xinzhuang, eating Yangyuan food, has become a lingering nostalgic complex. No matter how history changes, we can't help but be moved by the magic of man and nature and the tacit understanding between life and food when we mention this business card "Yangyuan Delicious Goods".
the local accent is easy to change, and the memory will fade. Only the experience between lips and teeth will remain unchanged for life: only the tongue is down, but the heart is up. Goods smell like river water, wind and rain, time and space, human feelings and memories ...
All the flavors are the real present, the current running water. There are subtle differences in food products in various counties and towns in the suburbs of Suzhou. Like the accent, although they are all Suzhou dialects, the accent will be different every few tens of miles or even separated by a river, which shows the diversity of Suzhou food culture.