As a Chaoshan person, whenever I talk about food with friends from other places, I find that my friends' understanding of Chaoshan food is always limited to beef balls and beef hot pot, and the richer ones are red roast goose and seafood. Chaoshan people are famous for eating cows and eating Chaoshan circles, but the Chaoshan food that really occupies Chaoshan people's daily life is rarely interested, called glutinous rice.
For foreigners, Chaoshan is not as famous as Chaoshan beef hot pot; For Chaoshan people, it is not surprising that glutinous rice is a daily table food and snack. But if we really want to talk about the food culture in Chaoshan, we can't do it without embarrassment. In other words, it occupies half of Chaoshan cuisine. If you come for Chaoshan cuisine, but don't try it, it's no less than a trip in vain.
Hey, get off the gong table.
In a broad sense, Chaoshan glutinous rice refers to non-staple food made from miscellaneous grains such as rice and wheat, mostly fried snacks. Later, many other Chaoshan snacks were also called glutinous rice, such as jelly similar to turtle paste, which was called glutinous rice in Chaoshan area. In a narrow sense, it originally refers to rice products. In Kangxi Dictionary, the definition of "country" is "pure rice and rice food". Chaoshan people are good at eating jiaozi, which is closely related to their environment.
China people's eating habits are closely related to agricultural production and development. Chaoshan is located at the edge of the hills in the southeast of China, and the terrain is inclined from north, northwest to south and southeast, and the Tropic of Cancer runs through its middle part. Chaoshan Plain, located in Hanjiang Delta, is the second largest plain in Guangdong Province, covering an area of more than 4,000 square kilometers. Chaoshan is located in the subtropical monsoon climate zone, with fertile land, suitable climate and abundant rice production, and rice naturally becomes the master of Chaoshan people's dining table.
But how did rice evolve into glutinous rice and become popular in Chaoshan area? This should also start from the history of Chaoshan.
Since ancient times, affected by war and economy, the population of the Central Plains has moved south many times. The ancestors of Chaoshan came to the fertile soil of Chaoshan Plain in the southward migration again and again, and brought many customs of the Central Plains to Chaoshan Plain. The Central Plains pays attention to worship, and Zhang Heng said in Ode to Tokyo: "The sage uses Ji Zong to guard the Lord without ceasing to worship." Tang Zhen, a thinker in the Qing Dynasty, also mentioned in the book "Collection of Books for You": "Worship hemp and you will die." Offering food to ancestors is a tradition in the Central Plains. The traditional sacrifice in the Central Plains is mainly pasta. Since there is no wheat in Chaoshan area, we should adjust measures to local conditions, replace wheat with rice, and replace pasta with rice. Rice is ground into sticky rice flour, and the ratio of potato starch to glutinous rice is different. It can also be shaped into various "fruits" needed for sacrifice like dough. Because the main ingredient is rice, the word "glutinous rice" is used to describe this sacrificial food.
Chaoshan plain has a large population and little arable land, and faces frequent natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes. Most Chaoshan people have to seek development from the sea. In addition to developing fisheries, Chaoshan people set sail for Nanyang on a red-headed ship with the spirit of hard work and hard work. The sea is dangerous and the road is long. Chaoshan people who make a living in Nanyang often don't know when they can reunite with their relatives. Rice is easy to preserve. As food, rice can not only satisfy the appetite, but also be full of Chaoshan people's beautiful longing for life and blessings to their loved ones. Chaoshan people will take bread prepared at home as dry food when they go out for a long trip. Today, Guo is still one of the best gifts for Chaoshan people. Whether it's to worship the gods or to marry, Chaoshan people can't do without Guo.
How many shackles are there in Chaoshan?
It is no exaggeration to say that Chaoshan cuisine is mostly embarrassing! There are many kinds of clams in Chaoshan, perhaps even they can't count themselves.
Chaoshan people eat glutinous rice according to eight festivals a year. What are the eight festivals in a year? In Chaoshan area, the eight most important festivals in a year are regarded as the main sacrificial days, namely Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Winter Solstice and New Year's Eve. In addition to the eight festivals, every month on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, there are also sacrifices to gods and shrines, which are indispensable tributes in the eight festivals. Different festivals and seasons breed different products. In the past, in Chaoshan people, every household had to make their own cakes for sacrifice, so Chaoshan people almost kept planting cakes for a year.
In Chaoshan area, everything is arranged clearly and in good order.
Among all kinds of festivals in Chaoshan, the highest appearance rate is the red peach, which looks like a brightly colored birthday peach, symbolizing life and beauty. You can see it on the dinner table before and after the Spring Festival.
When making the skin of hearts, Redmi was added to the sticky rice flour, and the kneaded skin was bright pink. Then wrap it in fried glutinous rice and add ingredients such as chestnuts, shrimp, pork, peanuts and mushrooms. , with a beautiful wood carving mold, gently pat out, a red peach cake is completed. Soft skin, full of color and flavor, used for steaming cooked food. The skin is soft and waxy, and you can feel full of fullness with every bite. Chaoshan people like to add some oil and fry until both sides are slightly golden. The skin is crispy and tender, oily but not greasy, and the flavor is better.
In addition to the beautiful moral, many rice cakes in Chaoshan were also invented with the seasonal solar terms, such as the shop rice cakes and gardenia rice cakes in Chaoshan. There is a saying in Chaoshan: "Eat leaves in Qingming, and lose weight medicine in May". The leaves here refer to park seeds. Historically, the seeds of Cyperus sedge were widely planted in Chaoshan area, and the leaves of Cyperus sedge were edible, which helped to diminish inflammation and relieve accumulated heat. Just before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, the tree just sprouted. Pulverize the leaves of Puzi tree to get juice, mix it with rice slurry in proportion, pour it into a mold and steam it, and make Puzi fruit. Steamed shop fruit has the fragrance of shop leaves and tastes softer than steamed bread, which is deeply loved by the elderly and children.
By the time of Dragon Boat Festival, Chaoshan area was hot and wet, which was called "bad month" in ancient times. Huang Zhi detoxifies, cools blood and helps digestion. Chaoshan people put the yellow water into glutinous rice flour, knead it and steam it into gardenia. After molding, because it is too sticky, the tool is difficult to cut and needs to be screwed with cotton thread. Eating gardenia can clear away heat and purge fire. Gardenia is also called "Zhizong" in Chaoshan dialect, and "Zongzong" is homophonic with "Zhuang", so Chaoshan people call eating gardenia "eating Zhuang", which means eating Zhuang.
The proverb "Seasons are ripe" is a true portrayal of Chaoshan people who eat jiaozi and jiaozi. Lantern Festival is sweet and red, and they look forward to the sweetness of life in the new year. Mid-Autumn Festival, "Bride Leisure" for "Stone Drum"; Thank God for sending me red jiaozi, Mao jiaozi and Su jiaozi; On New Year's Eve, be a mouse shell symbolizing health. Besides offering sacrifices, the products can also be eaten. When the meaning of products extends from tributes to snacks, their types are more diverse. According to the materials, there are cauliflower, taro, wheat, gardenia, sweet and sweet glutinous rice. According to the stuffing, there are bamboo shoots, horseshoes, leeks and zongzi. There are also peaches and turtles named after shapes. In fact, the well-known kway teow is also a member of Chaoshan kway teow. Rice is ground into pulp with water, steamed and shaped in different vessels, and cut into strips to make kway teow. The dried cinnamon bark was cut into pieces to make horns. If it is thick, cut into pieces, it is the cake kway. ...
The products mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg in Chaoshan. In a word, when holidays, solar terms are in season, there are happy events at home and nothing to do, countless people in Chaoshan want to eat.
Chaoshan people today are not as grand as every household in the past. Most modern people go to familiar shops to buy quilts, and occasionally it has become a rare family pleasure to make quilts together. However, the custom of Chaoshan people eating zongzi on holidays has been handed down, and zongzi has become one of the unique food cultures in Chaoshan area.
Chaoshan people's day is spent in eating.
The main reason why Chaoshan people's embarrassment went down from the altar to the general public is that it is enough for daily life.
A bowl of salty and moderate kway teow soup in the morning can wake up the stomach that has not slept all night. Different from rice noodles, the main component of kway teow is rice pulp, which is easy to cook and has a strong taste, and the rice flavor is rich, so no matter what soup base is used, it can be more delicious. Sprinkling "garlic" and "onion" on the hot kway teow soup can also be regarded as injecting soul into this bowl of soup powder.
The kway teow looks unremarkable, and the competition in Chaoshan is not small. Jieyang Tongkeng kway teow is famous for its unique features. Tongkeng kway teow is very thin, close to rice noodles. Compared with other coarse kways, Tongkeng kway teow is tough and not easy to break on a thin basis, and has a better taste. If you want to eat the best kway teow in Chaoshan, go straight to Tongkeng!
Wide juice is the most powerful competitor of the breakfast kway teow in Chaoshan. Wide juice refers to marinated juice. Whether a bowl of bitter juice tastes good or not depends largely on the taste of stew, but don't ignore the bitterness in the bitter juice. Nowadays, most glutinous rice noodle shops use glutinous rice noodles, but in more traditional glutinous rice noodle shops, glutinous rice noodles should be glutinous rice noodles. Baked skin and cut into pieces are horns. Although the production process is more complicated than the kway teow, it can be preserved for a longer time and is more chewy after cooking. In Chaoshan area, only Shantou Chaoyang still retains a more traditional juice shop.
Most of the snacks in Chaoshan are snacks, and several kinds of snacks are all starch, which are often used as staple food.
The skin of the peach heart is made of sticky rice flour, and the main ingredient of the stuffing is glutinous rice. In addition to the shape and style, it is simply a rice ball. With glutinous rice as stuffing, you will feel fuller after eating. Gan's Gantong is actually a potato, and Chaoshan dialect is transliterated as Gantong. Grinding potatoes into mud, mixing with appropriate amount of potato powder, dried shrimps and shiitake mushrooms, kneading into dough, and steaming for a long time. Slice when you want to eat, and fry in the oil pan until golden. Depending on the thickness of the slice, it will taste different when eaten. Thin cut will be sweet and crisp, thick cut can taste rich fillings. The way to eat the vegetable pot and taro is similar to that of Gan, but because of the different main ingredients, they have different flavors. Chaoshan people firmly believe that "there is no good crust without frying." The skin fried at high temperature will emit more attractive fragrance, and the crispy surface will make the skin taste richer and more appetizing. Shops in Chaoshan area do not sell any snacks. In addition to signature snacks, there are often several other snacks that can be matched to meet people's needs of various tastes.
Of course, when it comes to Chaoshan snacks, there are still many.
Crystal ball is a snack enriched on the basis of rice-free bread. There is no crispy rice. As the name implies, there is no rice in the crispy rice. Its crispy rice is made of potato flour. It is transparent after steaming, and you can see the color of the stuffing, which is usually leek stuffing, also called leek skin. The leeks in the pot are like emerald jiaozi, and the color is very beautiful. Creative Chaoshan people tried again and again to replace leek stuffing with purple potato, mung bean, bean paste, taro paste and so on. It makes rice-free glutinous rice balls go to a higher level in taste and appearance. Because of its rich colors, people vividly call it a crystal ball.
Hanging out with friends in Paifang Street in Chaozhou on weekends and playing in the small park block in Shantou, the gluttonous Chaoshan people may not drink milk tea, but they will definitely find a snack bar, order a colorful crystal ball and enjoy a leisurely afternoon.
If you go to Jieyang, you must taste the local "ping pong fruit". Jieyang Ping Pong Fruit was originally "Penang Fruit", but it was mistakenly recorded as "Ping Pong Fruit" because of its similar pronunciation, and it has been passed down to this day. Ping-pong fruit "soft skin, crisp and sweet stuffing" comes from the bran of Penang, that is, the bran powder made by repeatedly baking glutinous rice with a tripod with a shell to make it explode. When glutinous rice is baked in the fire, it produces a special cereal flavor.
If you go to Chaoyang in Shantou, you should try the local horseshoe crab (horseshoe crab), which is an ancient creature. Living in shallow waters, Chaoshan people who eat the sea by the sea melt into horseshoes and serve them on the table. As a national second-class protected animal, horseshoe crabs have been eaten badly. Chaoshan people made some adjustments in the sauce, replacing horseshoe crabs with crabs, mixing with rice paste, adding fresh shrimp, breast meat, minced fresh meat, partridge eggs and mushrooms as they like, seasoning, soaking in oil at high temperature, and sprinkling with special sauce.
Most products in Chaoshan are not very expensive. After dinner, there will be greedy Chaoshan people going out to buy. Not far, maybe there is a good shop at the door. A small bag at the school gate, a small storefront on the old street, and even a bicycle walking on the street all have the feeling that Chaoshan people like. These small shops are like cells, distributed in small towns in Chaoshan area.
The most lively thing is the small baggage at the school gate. The aunt who fried the wheat husk is gearing up, the uncle who picked the salt water husk is ready to go, and the uncle who fried the cake can't wait, just waiting for the school bell to ring. The fried wheat husk smells like oats. If you knock an egg, the aroma of wheat and egg will complement each other. Pour the rice slurry into the mold, steam it and let it cool. When eating, pour it on the fried preserved vegetables in the oil pan. When it meets hot and cold, it will produce a smell. Beat the omelet and sprinkle with powdered sugar to taste. Salty and sweet, with endless aftertaste. There are also fried pork and fried "pig's feet circle" shops hidden around the school. Everything is mouth-watering. I can't give up. Children in Chaoshan spend all their pocket money on meals.
The most elusive snack is grass cake. Grasshoppers in Chaoshan area only appear in summer. Grasshopper is close to bean jelly, but it has the ups and downs that bean jelly does not have. Sprinkling fine sugar can neutralize its bitterness. In the summer afternoon, if you hear the rhythmic knocking of bowls flying downstairs, don't panic, it's grass. Abreu, who sells hay, roared through the streets on his bicycle and knocked on the pottery bowl to leave a message. People who didn't have time to go downstairs rushed to the nearest big banyan tree to gather and wait in line for hay to cool down and relieve the heat. In the hot summer, it is obviously unrealistic to sell straw mats by human voice. Tired and thirsty, but the crisp knocking makes people feel refreshed and have the impulse to go out and buy straw mats.
Go to Chaoshan to eat hay and see fate. You don't need to remember the store. What you need to pay attention to is whether there is a 26-inch bike under the big banyan tree, carrying two big baskets, and whether there is a Chaoshan uncle with a hat beside the bike fanning the wind.
Jiaozi in Chaoshan can't be finished in three days and nights, or its charm can't be felt by words alone. If you want to eat authentic Chaoshan jiaozi, please go there yourself.
Author/Liao Gongtu/Tuchong Creative Network, etc.
Editor/Graphic Editor/Weekly Review/
Copyright statement: The copyright of this article belongs to the traditional Chinese versions of National Panoramic Geography and chinese national geography. If you need to reprint, please contact National Panoramic Geography.