Although the branches are still chilly, they can't stop China people from pursuing spring. Smart fish in the water, after a bitter cold, will naturally become the king of glory on the spring table, or extremely delicious, or full of fat, making people fondle admiringly.
The word "Su", including grass, fish, water and grain, directly points out the weight of fish (seafood) in Jiangnan recipes. The Yangtze River in the north and Taihu Lake in the south have brought dotted water networks, which made Jiangnan people who occupy the best position start eating fish thousands of years ago.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Tai Lake Taihe Gong was good at cooking fish (similar to grilled fish), and Zhuan Xu, the butcher, specially worshipped him as a teacher and practiced the good craft of cooking fish. Finally, he hid the sword of "fish intestines" in the belly of fish, staged the historical highlight of "Zhuan Xu stabbed to death in the grill", and finally turned Gongziguang into the famous Prince Herod of Wu in history. This kind of fried fish is regarded as the originator of many contemporary dishes, including sweet and sour Yellow River carp in Henan and Sweet and Sour Mandarin Fish in the south of the Yangtze River.
"Eating fine is not greasy, fine is not greasy." It is raw meat, and fish is a major feature of Jiangnan, much earlier than Japanese sashimi. Fine-cut fresh water raw fish, with oyster sauce marinated with various seasonings, is estimated to be comparable to today's Guangdong raw fish, so that it is said that the fish in Wugong scattered into Taihu Lake and became whitebait (leftover fish). Then fish soup, fried fish, fresh fish (fish with salt, fermented rice, is it deja vu? ), fish cake, preserved fish, fish sauce, etc. They have all appeared, basically laying a rich pattern of fish and vegetables in Jiangnan.
At the dinner table of Cao Cao, the hero of the Three Kingdoms, there is already a seat for Songjiang perch, a famous fish in the south of the Yangtze River, which is also recorded in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty. In the Western Jin Dynasty, Hans Zhang successfully walked out of the officialdom and retired to his hometown with condescending thoughts. A fish named "Yu Jinkui Bian" was recorded in the Book of Qi Yaomin in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Golden Chamber uses seven kinds of ingredients: garlic, ginger, salt, Bai Mei, orange peel, cooked chestnut meat and japonica rice, while Bian Yu generally refers to silver sashimi, which is said to be ear to ear.
Song Sao fish soup and West Lake vinegar fish are undoubtedly well-known products in the south of the Yangtze River in the Song Dynasty, and the "Lotus House Fish Bag" steamed by stuffing osmanthus fish into the hole of Lotus House seems to be the spokesman of more prosperity in the Song Dynasty.
Ni Zan, a famous painter and calligrapher in Yuan Dynasty, not only drew the Map of Lion Forest, but also wrote the Collection of Yunlintang Diet System, which described many practices of Jiangnan cuisine from the perspective of Wuxi people, among which seafood also occupied a lot of space. In addition to the practices of crabs, snails, clams and carp fish, there are many dishes with technical content, such as crucian carp belly soup made by treating the belly, head and back of small crucian carp respectively. There is also a "cold noodles washing method", in which mandarin fish, perch and river fish are made into fish jelly, seasoned salty juice is added, and then coriander, bean sprouts and other small ingredients are added and mixed into cold noodles.
In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, we can see the unprecedented development of stewed fish from the food books such as Tiaoding Ji, Suiyuan Food List and Waking up the Garden, from which we can almost find the shadow or embryonic form of modern home-cooked seafood dishes.
The "Three Seasons of the Yangtze River" can be called the most beautiful spring in Jiangnan. Although swordfish, shad and puffer fish can find their close relatives elsewhere, with the aura of the Yangtze River, they have all become insurmountable peaks, breaking through the ceiling again and again in taste and price. Unfortunately, the Sanxian of the Yangtze River has now become a ruin of the Yangtze River, and the wild population has been eaten up and is on the verge of extinction. Perhaps because of the self-healing of this embarrassing situation, the people also put forward the "four fresh Yangtze River", including the prolific squid.
In order to protect the ecological diversity, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced that from 0: 00 on June 65438+ 10/day in 2020, the ten-year fishing ban plan for the Yangtze River will be implemented, and the productive fishing of natural fishery resources will be banned in the natural waters of the main stream and important tributaries of the Yangtze River except the aquatic nature reserve and aquatic germplasm conservation zone. After ten years' rest, we can look forward to the return of umami.
As the first of the three delicacies in the Yangtze River, the legendary story of saury has caused constant controversy in the workshop-the price of1000 yuan has soared to nearly 10,000 yuan/kg, and the reality that fishermen are struggling to defend themselves in the Yangtze River has made the "saury myth" worse and worse.
Every year before Tomb-Sweeping Day, saury, full of food and drink, goes upstream along the Yangtze River, and finally wanders from Nantong to Yangzhou to spawn and reproduce. Swimming to Jiangyin and Jingjiang has evolved into a top-class "river knife", which is rich and delicious and is considered to be the best among the best. Those guys who are entrenched in the estuary and unwilling to move forward are called "sea knives", inferior; Those who live in lakes in the Yangtze River basin all the year round and never migrate are called "lake knives", with many bones and different lengths.
"Before the Ming Dynasty, fish bones were as soft as cotton. After the Ming Dynasty, fish bones were as hard as iron." Swordfish is so capricious. Steamed swordfish in neat patterns is bound to win "the best in the world", but the milky white soup in swordfish juice can make people's eyebrows fall off. The swordfish wonton in Jiangyin contains pure fish. If you add leeks in the same season, you can also refresh yourself. The most difficult thing is to remove the thorns, knock, filter and rub them, so as to get the seamless freshness.
River knives are hard to find, and sea knives and lake knives have never been liked and moved towards elegance. Anyway, in the eyes of Jiangnan people, this bright "knife" is a sharp weapon to start spring. Without stimulating taste buds, it is not enough to stir the breath of spring.
"It has the taste of wind and abdomen, tender as bear white, greasy as crisp, and should have no taste of Jiangnan." As soon as steamed shad is served, many diners can't help but be impressed by the oily fish under the glittering scales. This tail herring is a combination of delicious fish and greasy meat. If it is simply treated with steamed fish and soy sauce, it is a waste of time. Steamed with fish scales, with three treasures of pig net oil, ham and sweet wine, the aroma is overflowing after baking, and different oils above and below the fish scales blend with each other. The first chopstick sucks fish scales, the second chopstick tastes delicious in the middle, and the third chopstick tastes fresh and tender fish, which naturally gives birth to Mr. Dongpo's feeling: "Peach blossom still has spring, and its flavor is better than perch."
The shad migrates from the sea to the Yangtze River in April and May of the lunar calendar every year, and even its name comes from "time". It is said that at this time, shad hardly eat food. When Zhenjiang and Yangzhou cross the Yangtze River, the meat is the most plump. If you continue to go back, you will consume too much fat accumulated in your body, your taste will be worse, and you will be more lost when you go back.
When people are still wondering whether swordfish is a river knife, a lake knife or a sea knife, shad disappeared in the Yangtze River as early as 30 years ago without giving everyone a chance. Nowadays, wild shad from America and Southeast Asia have been cultivated, replacing people's yearning for the Yangtze River shad, and the sky-high price has begun to fall, so ordinary people can also taste the freshness of spring. It's just that we didn't expect that it was not the hero who was wiped out by the waves, but Shade.
Many ancient books have mentioned that "Wu people are addicted to river fish", and many death cases have been put forward to tell everyone that although this thing is beautiful, it is "poisonous to the abdomen, poisonous to the eyes, poisonous to the essence and poisonous to the spine". Being addicted to death is not fun.
However, a group of ancient people, including Su Dongpo, a food super blogger, didn't buy it, so the folks added "eat puffer fish desperately". Seeing this sentence, Jiangyin people all laughed. It turns out that people use their dialect to say "eat puffer fish by spelling". After eating for thousands of years, the local people have long explored a truth that only by washing can they save their lives. The poison of wild puffer fish needs more than 220 yuan to be removed. Nowadays, most puffer fish are raised in ponds. Without the long migration path and the feeling of spring, puffer fish has almost no toxin, just need the chef to spend some time cooking.
Braised puffer fish is the mainstream, and the prickly puffer fish skin is not friendly enough. Only people who can eat know that the inside should be wrapped in skin, and the thorns should be rolled inside, and the entrance should be smooth. It is said that this kind of skin is still a good product for nourishing the stomach. A puffer fish comes up with three treasures, and there is a real seal between thick oil and red sauce. Tough fish skin, fish liver famous for its toxicity in the past and puffer fish Bai Zi (testis) with the reputation of "milk of beauty" gather together. Adrenaline soared before meals, and cholesterol after meals must be unbearable. Of course, on the border of Huaiyang cuisine, there is also an ultra-luxury lion head made of puffer fish wrapped in puffer fish meat. Biting down is a warm feeling.
Although slightly ordinary, catfish itself is rich in oil, which is also a delicious food worth tasting in the Yangtze River system. However, compared with other three delicacies, it is not dominant in terms of face value or face value, but it is good to regard it as a representative of grounding gas or a supplement to the first three. This scaleless fish with four beards is distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Jiangtuan and the Western Regions are all its aliases. It is said that there is another species of baiji in the Yangtze River in Jiao Shan, Zhenjiang, which belongs to the sports department. Its body is white, hiding red. "There is no bone in the pink stone, and the white puffer fish can't cure the patient" means that it has both the freshness of puffer fish and Shad thorn.
Interestingly, the fish on both sides of the Yangtze River have completely different cooking methods. Nan 'an is good at braising in soy sauce, adding a lot of garlic, and stewing directly into the pot is full of colloid, the garlic is soft and glutinous, and the fish is fat and delicious; Bei 'an is good at white cooking and is greatly influenced by Huaiyang cuisine. The soup is milky white and thick enough to stick to your lips.
"In the first month, the fish head in the pond is thin, the peach blossom mandarin fish is fat in February, the soft-shelled turtle fills the body in March, the green onion must be in the pond in April, the white fish eats the belly in May, the eel is as fresh as chicken in June, the eel braises in soy sauce in July, the squid eats the lungs in August, the crucian carp fortress meat in September, and the grass carp is rare in sumptuous food in October. Suzhou people's way of eating fish can best represent Jiangnan.
Jiangnan water system is developed. In Jiangnan people's menu of "not eating from time to time", fresh river is more brilliant than seafood. When the four big fish arrive in the south of the Yangtze River, they have to add the same homely delicacies as crucian carp and bream. Everyone has an invisible biological clock hidden in his body, and a timetable has been specially arranged for these ingredients. It is also useful to find a few spring foods casually.
Yuan Mei said in "Suiyuan Food List", "Hangzhou takes native fish as the top grade. Jinling is a lowly person and can be laughed at. " Now southern Jiangsu is commonly known as mud stick fish, and central Jiangsu is called tiger shark-don't be afraid, in fact, they are less than a tiger's mouth. In spring, this little fish looks a little ugly. The secret lies in how prickly, delicate and delicious its meat is. Especially, it is famous for its two pieces of cheek meat as big as watercress, and it is also known as the five major spring dishes in the south of the Yangtze River with snail meat, river shrimp, bamboo shoots and spring leeks.
Whole fish stew soup is very common, but a bowl of "pickled watercress soup" sent to the state banquet is even more unique. Watercress is actually the gills of shad, and only two fish are needed. How many shads can a bowl of soup serve? "The petals are tender and beautiful, and the throat is three or two gold", which is fresh and charming!
The older generation of Jiangnan people who grew up by the river all had the childhood fun of touching snails with their own hands. Touch a few along the small river bank in front of the house to fry the pot. After raising snails for a winter, small snails will be born after Qingming, and the taste and meat quality will become worse. Therefore, there is a folk saying that "snails were like geese before the Ming Dynasty". Sauce snails often become the owners of family dining tables or supper stalls. If you are willing to pick out snail meat to fry leeks in spring, you are a beautiful person who knows spring.
When it comes to the collocation of various vegetables in spring, mussels are better. Mussels in spring are the fattest and cleanest, and it is easy to breed various microorganisms and parasites in summer breeding season. The grass-headed leeks in the south of the Yangtze River are all green, fried with clam meat, golden and green, and the next meal is first-class. Stir-fried mussels with bacon as soup is also a low-level version of "salty and fresh", but in terms of freshness, it is not inferior.
As soon as Jiangnan entered Mei, the white fish came at the right time. The white fish with a slightly upturned mouth is the signature of many ancient towns in the south of the Yangtze River, but the best one is the one in Taihu Lake. White fish is just transplanted into rice fields when it is fattened, and it is divided into three types, namely, two, three, so white fish is also called "middle white". White fish is rich in oil, but it has many small thorns. Only the middle part is exposed, pickled and then steamed. Slightly patterned fish is fat and tender, which makes people waste a penny. Eat your flesh and blood clearly.
Whitebait and white shrimp were also listed in the same period, and the other two in Taihu Lake were Sanbai. The former is the most fresh and tender, and can also be made into snacks such as spring rolls and wonton; The latter is crystal clear, which is the first choice for drunken shrimps, or boiled with salt water to get the original taste. It is worth noting that mackerel, that is, anchovies, can also be regarded as the lake knife of Taihu Lake. Once included in the "Three Treasures of Taihu Lake", it was replaced by white fish and became today's "Three Whites of Taihu Lake". Fishing is started at the end of summer every year, and fried mackerel is produced along the coast of Taihu Lake, which is naturally excellent with small fresh drinks.
From June 5438+00, 2020, Taihu Lake was closed for ten years, and the real wild aquatic products in Taihu Lake were hard to find. But if we meet again in ten years, I think there will be more surprises. It should be noted that the dining table of Jiangnan people will never be lonely.
Topic discussion in this issue: which spring days do you still remember? Come and share with us.
Wengu biscuit
Photo editor: tea powder
The idea of hand-drawn map bug.
Further reading: a guide to China's spring flower viewing tour