When people write fish and coriander today, they will say that they have not seen it in Chengdu Overview. Recently, I happened to be sorting out the "Chengdu Overview" because of other things, so I thought of combing the source of the name of the fish fragrance carefully.
As early as 1986, Mr. Xiong Sizhi mentioned in his book:
Later generations copied this conclusion. However, Mr. Xiong Sizhi's argumentation process is debatable. First of all, the evidence is not strong. There is nothing in Chengdu Overview, not necessarily in Sichuan, or even in Chengdu. Chengdu Overview clearly States that "there are dozens of examples to see Chengdu customs." [3] Moreover, there is no "kung pao chicken" in A Survey of Chengdu, but Mr. Li Jieren annotated kung pao chicken as originating from Ding Baozhen, and everyone still uses this statement, which is rarely questioned. However, I checked several Sichuan books in the late Qing Dynasty, including A General Survey of Chengdu, A New Record of Feasts and Restaurants, Excerpts from Four Seasons' Recipes, and Old Accounts by Mr. Li Jieren, but the word "fishy" was not found. At this point, I think that Mr. Xiong Sizhi's conclusion is probably correct. After checking these books, we are more confident in making this conclusion.
However, I found that "Chengdu's home-cooked dishes" in "Overview of Chengdu" include "stir-fried meat with sea pepper" and "stir-fried meat with cowpea" [3]. Ms. Zeng Yi's "Zhong Fu Lu" mentioned that kimchi "especially green pepper and cowpea is beautiful" [4], which shows that this is the most common kimchi in Sichuan in Qing Dynasty. However, kimchi is not used in all the methods of cooking fish in Chengdu Overview, so the view that "frying meat with kimchi is a change from the method of cooking fish with kimchi" is not very tenable.
Then check the previous recipes and papers.
1960 in "China Famous Cookbook":
I have two questions.
1. In this book, the fish-flavored shredded pork is cooked without douban;
2. In this book, there is very little pickled pepper, much less vinegar and a little less sugar.
The two cookbooks of 1974 and 1977 are all considered to be made by folk cooking methods, and "bean fish" is no longer mentioned [6-7]. But this explanation is too brief.
In addition, the summary of fish flavor is changed to:
This statement is often used in subsequent books, and The Cooking Classic of Sichuan Cuisine is no exception.
1979 Mr. Feng Ruiyang first put forward the view that fish flavor originated from fish chili pepper [8]:
And said that not only can you make shredded pork, but also pork liver, cabbage and eggplant.
As for whether fish chili pepper put live fish in the same bubble, the author is not very sure, but it is not very important, because fish chili pepper does have its name, which is found in Chengdu Overview. There is nothing wrong with the name of fish-flavored shredded pork logically.
At this point, the two hypotheses can be simply expressed as:
1. Soak live fish with Chili → Fish chili pepper → Fish-flavored shredded pork.
2. Bean fish → Fish-flavored shredded pork
In the 1980s, there were two articles about pickled peppers in live crucian carp. 1982 Although Mr. Wang Kun and Mr. Song Ru thought that the fish flavor came from the seasoning for cooking fish [9], they clearly pointed out the origin of the name of fish chili pepper and attached the method of "soaking fish in chili pepper":
Mr. Che Fu's book "A Miscellaneous Talk about Sichuan Cuisine" introduces in great detail how to soak crucian carp and pepper together in Xinfan [10]. The writing date of this article is unknown, but it is mentioned that He Zitao died in 1982, and the first edition of Miscellaneous Talks on Sichuan Cuisine was published in 1990, which is probably between 1982 and 1990.
1983, when Mr. Luo Changsong talked about the practice of fish-flavored shredded pork [1 1], he said:
However, when it comes to fish-flavored liver tablets,
However, this view is not found in other books, and it seems to be a family statement.
This is the first time I have seen fish coriander without pickled pepper. It can be seen that the discussion on the origin of fish flavor will affect the summary of fish flavor and the development of fish coriander. Simply expressed as
1. Soak live fish with Chili → Fish chili pepper → Fish-flavored shredded pork → Fish coriander with pickled pepper.
2. watercress fish → fish-flavored shredded pork → fish-flavored other dishes can use watercress, and the onion, ginger and garlic taste is more important.
1997 Mr. zhong Fuhua summed up the theory of naming three kinds of fish flavors [12].
Among them, the homophonic theory that "fish flavor" is "Yuxiang" was put forward by Barbara Tropp, an American. It seems that no one in China has heard of this statement, so we won't discuss it.
On the theory of soaking fish, Mr Zhong's criticism is:
I agree with the first question, does the pickled pepper soaked in fish really have a special fragrance? But the latter point is problematic. For the spread of the term "fish flavor", the word "fish chili pepper" is enough, and it is not necessary to use fish in pickled peppers everywhere. Now there are fish-flavored eggplant seeds learned from Sichuan cuisine in Guangdong cuisine, and even pickled peppers have never been used.
He holds the imitation theory that fish coriander comes from fake fish sea pepper:
After only a few months, Mr. Luo Junhua questioned the above [13], and I will briefly summarize it.
Doubt 1:
If the "fake fish sea pepper" uses celery, it will not taste the same as what Mr. Zhong Fuhua called "fake fish sea pepper" and "fish flavor". But I haven't seen it, so I have to consult Fang Jia.
Doubt 2:
But he said:
This argument can be said to have no support. Moreover, the pickled vegetables used for pickled fish taste very different.
20 15 In July, Mr. Zhong Fuhua came across the above and wrote an article in August to refute it [14]. This article is actually a bit biased, such as questioning:
In fact, Mr. Xiong Sizhi first talked about the history of kimchi from the History of Chinese Ceramics [15], and archaeology is also an extremely important link in the textual research of diet.
In response to Mr. Luo Junhua's doubt 2, he said that this is because the "salt merchant banquet menu" may not be complete. This is true, but it is not helpful to prove that the fish flavor comes from fake fish pepper.
There is no response to the doubt 1.
Mr. Zhong Fuhua changed his argument at this point:
However, he put forward a new argument:
So is the fake fish sea pepper imitating pickled fish or imitating douban crucian carp? I saw Mr. Zhong's description and thought it was more like pickled fish.
I have a few questions about Mr. Zhong's argument.
1. Do you want to reuse celery for fake fish and sea pepper? There is a big difference between the practice and the smell of fish.
2. Why must there be fake fish and sea pepper first and then fish-flavored shredded pork? The information provided by Mr. Zhong did not prove that the fake fish pepper was produced before the fish flavor, but it could be that the fake fish pepper and the fish-flavored shredded pork were produced independently. Even if the fish-flavored shredded pork was first produced elsewhere, it would be completely reasonable to spread the fake fish pepper to Zigong.
In fact, textual research on diet is a very difficult thing. Each hypothesis has some truth, but it may also have its own problems. After finding the problems, we need to find information to repair the hypotheses as much as possible, otherwise the more it is delayed, the more likely it will become a headless case-solving.
Summarize all the above hypotheses and my questions.
1. Soak live fish with Chili → Fish chili pepper → Fish-flavored shredded pork.
My question: Fish chili pepper and Fried Meat with Pickled Pepper are both found in Chengdu Overview, but there is no name of fish fragrance. Why did it take decades to get the title of fish-flavored shredded pork?
2. 1. Bean fish → Fish-flavored shredded pork
My question: the popular fish-flavored shredded pork has no watercress, and the proportion of sweet and sour in the seasoning of watercress fish is also very different from that of fish-flavored shredded pork. Moreover, there were many ways to cook fish in Sichuan in the late Qing Dynasty. Why must it be bean fish?
2.2. Pickled fish → Zigong fake fish and sea pepper → fish-flavored shredded pork.
My question: the taste of fake fish and sea pepper seems to be different from that of fish-flavored shredded pork. The age of fake fish and sea pepper is unknown, and the causal relationship is unclear.
In terms of the age of hypothesis, the age of version 1 is the latest, probably in the 1970s.
Mr. Zhong Fuhua wrote in 20 12 [16] that:
I don't know which Taiwan Province cookbook was published in 1956. If it is correct, it may have existed before the founding of the People's Republic of China, so it was brought to Taiwan Province. So version 2. 1 became popular earlier, and version 2.2 was put forward later by Mr. Zhong.
No matter which version, it is actually a fish-related thing to illustrate the fragrance of fish.
Let's assume that there was a dish for cooking fish in the Republic of China, and let's call it "A Fish". Ideally, "A fish" has a historical record exactly earlier than fish coriander, and uses exactly the same seasoning as fish coriander, and the seasoning ratio is similar, so I tend to conclude that the name of fish coriander comes from "A fish". The question is whether we can find such a dish.
The key points of fish and coriander seasoning are nothing more than three points: 1, pickled pepper, 2, onion, ginger and garlic, 3, sweet and sour. If fried meat with pickled peppers is earlier than fish and coriander, and onion, ginger and garlic are too common in Chinese food seasoning, I want to put forward a new hypothesis that "A fish" is sweet and sour fish. I first saw the sweet and sour taste in Wu's Zhong Fu Lu in the Song Dynasty, and there were some books in the Qing Dynasty, but without exception, they were all used in making vegetables. The popular sweet and sour pork ribs, sweet and sour fish, sweet and sour pork, and pot-stewed pork all have a long history. In fact, it was the first time that I saw someone cooking meat dishes with sweet and sour in the Qing Dynasty when I was sorting out books in the late Qing Dynasty, such as A Survey of Chengdu. (There is another example of using sweet and sour mutton liver in Excerpts from Four Seasons Recipes. However, although this book was written in the late Qing Dynasty, the date of transcription of the manuscript is unknown, and it has not been proved by Chengdu Overview and Banquet Rich and Disgusting. )
Then, because the meat dishes cooked in sweet and sour are only found in fish at first, if this seasoning is applied to shredded pork, there will be shredded pork with fish flavor. But I immediately had a question myself. During the Republic of China, Sichuan cuisine developed a series of stir-fried dishes with sugar and vinegar. Why is it that only those with pickled peppers are called fish-flavored? Mr. Fool said that Sichuan-style sweet and sour fish is mixed with pickled peppers and onion, ginger and garlic, and the "sweet and sour crispy fish" in the 1960 recipe also uses pickled peppers and sweet and sour [17]. So my hypothesis becomes:
2.3. Sweet and sour fish in the late Qing Dynasty → pickled sweet and sour fish → pickled sweet and sour fish+shredded pork → shredded pork with fish flavor.
This hypothesis still lacks sufficient support, especially the introduction of sweet and sour fish in the late Qing Dynasty is brief, no pickled pepper is seen, and the proportion of sweet and sour fish is unknown. Because 1960, many dishes in "China Famous Cookbook" were summarized orally by the master who grew up during the Republic of China. I assume that this kind of pickled pepper prepared by every family was applied to sweet and sour fish during the Republic of China. But I still hope to see more information about the Republic of China. I searched and found nothing. Please give me more comments and supplements.
After the completion of this article, I had a discussion with @ 京京京京. He doesn't think it's necessary to correspond the fish fragrance to a specific dish (that is, the "A fish" assumed above). I quote his opinion as follows:
Can be written as:
2.4. Fixed combination in cooking fish seasoning → Fish-flavored shredded pork.
The support of this hypothesis comes from the cooking dishes of Sichuan cuisine in the 1960s and 1970s, and many of them use this seasoning combination, such as catfish with watercress (all of which are silver carp in books, and catfish is commonly called silver carp in Sichuan), sweet and sour crispy fish, shredded yellow croaker, pickled fish, mullet [18] and garlic roast.
However, it should be noted that vinegar can remove the earthy smell, and there have been many studies both in practice and in science. The two main substances causing earthy smell, earthy odor and 2- methyl isocamphanol, are tertiary alcohols in structure, and can be dehydrated into tasteless olefins even under the condition of weak organic acids [20].
In this article, I am especially grateful to @ 京京京京京京 for the old recipe information provided.
References:
[1] Fool. Talk about eating on weekends-the mystery of fish flavor [ol]. (2004-09-17) [2016-03-16]. /post-books-50876- 1.shtml
[2] Xiong Sizhi. Collection of Cooking Essays [M]. China Prospect Publishing House, 1986: 14.
[3] Fu Chongju. Overview of Chengdu (below) [M]. Bashu Bookstore, 1987: 279.
[4] Zeng Yi. Feedback [M]. China Commercial Press, 1984: 16.
[5] China's famous recipes (the seventh Sichuan flavor) [M]. Light Industry Press,1960:142-143.
[6] Chongqing cookbook [M]. Revolutionary Committee of Chongqing Catering Service Company, 1974: 22.
[7] Sichuan Menu (1) [M]. Sichuan Vegetable and Aquatic Food Service Company, 1977: 1 1.
[8] Feng Ruiyang. Without fish, why is it called fish fragrance? [J]. Food Science and Technology, 1979, 9: 009.
[9] Wang Kun, Song Ru. Fish flavor in Sichuan cuisine [J]. Food Science and Technology, 1982, 1: 020.
[10] Che Fu. Talk about Sichuan food [M]. Life? Reading? Xinzhi Sanlian Bookstore, 2004: 146.
[1 1] Luo Changsong. Preparation of several fish-flavored Sichuan dishes [J]. Food Science and Technology, 1983, 5: 035.
[12] zhong Fuhua. exotic origin "fish flavor" [J]. Sichuan cuisine, 1997, 7: 039.
[13] Luo Junhua. "Fish flavor" does not originate from Zigong folk ── Query on Zhong Fuhua's article "Exploring the Origin of Fish Flavor in Foreign Countries" [J]. Sichuan Cuisine,1997,1:029.
[14] Zhong Fuhua. The wonder of Sichuan cuisine-Talking about the origin of fish flavor-Reply to Mr. Luo Junhua's query on the article "Exploring the Origin of Fish Flavor" [ol]. (2015-08-10) [2010] /Content.aspx? nid=6390
[15] Xiong sizhi. from the special "dowry" to the invention age of kimchi [J]. China food, 1987, 7: 036.
[16] Zhong Fuhua. Marriage between fake fish and sea pepper and fish-flavored shredded pork [ol]. (2015-05) [2016-03-16]. /Content.aspx? nid=6390
[17] China's famous recipes (the seventh Sichuan flavor) [M]. Light Industry Press,1960:133-134.
[18] China's famous recipes (the seventh Sichuan flavor) [M]. Light Industry Press,1960:15-146.
[19] Sichuan menu (1) [M]. Sichuan Vegetable and Aquatic Food Service Company, 1977: 158.
[20]Pahila J G, Yap E E S. Reduction of off-flavour compounds (geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol) using different organic acids[J]. AACL Bioflux, 20 13, 6(6): 5 1 1-5 17.