Traditional cuisine: the origin of hand-grabbed mutton

Gao Li, a famous doctor in Yuan Dynasty, said: Mutton is sweet in taste and hot in nature, which can replenish blood deficiency, and tangible things can also replenish the qi of tangible muscles. If the taste is the same as mutton, it can be supplemented, so it can be weakened. Ginseng and mutton belong to it. As the saying goes, "food should be accompanied by gourmets, and medicine is not as good as diet therapy." What is mutton, warm in nature, nourishing qi and yin, warming the middle and tonifying deficiency, appetizing and strengthening the body, and grasping mutton by hand? This issue of food culture will be analyzed for you.

Grasping mutton has a long history. It is a traditional food loved by Mongolian, Tibetan, Hui and Uygur people living in the northwest of China, and it is essential in daily life. This has a lot to do with their harsh living environment and unique living habits. Going out to live a nomadic life and not coming back for a few months, mutton has the effect of being full and not hungry all day.

Many provinces and cities in China have their own world-famous cuisines or famous foods, such as Beijing cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine and Cantonese cuisine. As far as mutton series is concerned, there are instant-boiled mutton in Beijing, mutton soaked in Shaanxi, mutton skewers in Xinjiang and roasted whole sheep in Inner Mongolia. In Gansu, Dongxiang people's hand-grabbed mutton is a famous thing and is deeply loved by people. The hospitable Dongxiang people live a poor and simple life. Whenever festivals or guests come, the most solemn ceremony for hospitality is to slaughter sheep, and it is essential to grab mutton at the banquet. Grasping mutton by hand and eating mutton by hand are also very particular. Mutton with bones should be chopped into strips or blocks two fingers wide, put on a big plate and eaten together.

Breast stubble and rib meat are the most delicious and precious, so they should be given to distinguished guests and the oldest people first. Living in Lanzhou, you can't help eating mutton. Historically, it has always been a place where ethnic minorities live in compact communities. In terms of diet, the legacy still exists.

In the long years, hand-grabbed mutton was originally eaten by herders only in tents on the plateau and grassland where ethnic minorities live in northwest China. It is rare in the city, and celebrities regard it as embarrassing and dismissive. Hand-grabbed mutton really became a famous national cuisine more than 20 years ago. It is said that in a remote alley in Linxia City, a courageous Dongxiang man took the lead in putting up the sign of "Dongxiang people grabbing mutton". For a time, Malik was so excited that the smell of hand-grabbed mutton floated around the surrounding counties and became popular in Lanzhou, Xining, Yinchuan, Urumqi, Hohhot and other cities.