More than a thousand years ago, Nuodeng started drilling wells to boil salt, which was once a precious resource. This thousand-year-old village flourished because of the salt wells, and was once a commercial center for ten thousand merchants on the Tea Horse Road, which still retains more than 60 prominent residential buildings from the Ming and Qing dynasties, and more than 20 magnificent temples, which can be imagined to have been a prosperous scene in those days. Now, countless tourists and diners step into the ancient village of Nuodeng, looking for Nuodeng well salt cured tongue delicious - Nuodeng ham, the continuation of the legendary story of Nuodeng.
Text/Yang Jiankai Photo/Yunlong County Propaganda Department Yang Xueyu Zhang Heng Yang Jiankai
This article was published in the November 2020 issue of Oriental Style magazine by Orient Aviation, and may not be reproduced without permission!
Nodeng Salt Boiler
The secret of Nodeng ham starts with Nodeng well salt. Nodeng Ancient Village is located about 7 kilometers northwest of Yunlong County, Dali Prefecture, which is a village built on the mountain with more than 500 families.
The first stop when you step into Nuodeng Ancient Village is the Nuodeng Salt Well, more than 20 meters below the hole of a large and a small two wells, it is said that there are more than 10 kilometers of canals, when the brine workers can walk through the canals. Immediately adjacent to the well salt in a creek with countless ducks, the villagers call it duck eggs turnip, from the turnip to pick out the taste of duck eggs has been quite like salted duck eggs.
Why is there a well salt resource here that has lasted for thousands of years? This is to be traced back to the Cretaceous period, the geological movement made here into an inland sea, and later with the continuous evaporation of water to form a hard salt mine, coupled with the rich groundwater, the formation of brine. Nuodeng very early to become the boiling well salt area, and because of the production of potassium-rich high-quality well salt and become the Southern Silk Road Bonanza Road on the extremely important site, the horse gangs will be the Nuodeng well salt to faraway places.
Nuodeng local people know how to boil well salt early, it is said that every family will boil salt. Today there are still a lot of people boiling salt in the village, Yang Binquan is one of the good hands, he is the inheritor of the Nodeng salt-making skills, his grandfather was a worker in the Nodeng salt factory.
"Boiling salt also boil people, especially hard." Yang Binquan this statement is not false. Nuodeng ancient village is located in the valley, a small alleyway is paved with green slate, three steps a step, five steps a, so far all the materials still rely on the back of the horse, used to boil salt brine of course is no exception.
After the rainy season, the brine in the salt wells has a better purity, and Yang Binquan and his family started to get busy, and they have to go to the well salt at the entrance of the village to carry the brine halfway up the mountain, and precipitate for 24 hours. He played the earthen stove in front of his house, and the huge iron pot can hold 400 city pounds of brine. Boiling salt is a work of strength, but also extremely test of patience, to constantly salvage scale, impurities, high-flame boiling 5 hours before crystallizing salt one after another.
Yang Binquan fine crystallization out of draining, and then use the mold to make a unified portion of the heap of salt. 400 city pounds of brine after more than 10 hours of boiling and cumbersome procedures, and ultimately can be made into 15 city pounds of Nuodeng well salt. Most of this high-quality potassium salt is used for curing Nuodeng ham, and more and more tourists as a souvenir.
Ancient Nuodeng Village
Under the 300-year-old green tree in Nuodeng Village, it is dusk, and schoolchildren are walking under the stone plaque of the ancient government office of the Tijiu Division, and there is a smell of food coming out of every house, and the rich aroma of Nuodeng ham makes people salivate.
In this ancient village famous for Nuodeng well salt and Nuodeng ham, almost every house hangs some home-cured Nuodeng ham. On this trip in search of Nodeng ham, I was also deeply shocked by the countless ancient Bai dwellings in the village." The traditional architectural layouts of the Bai people, such as "Three Square and One Shining Wall", "Four Harmonies and One Patio" and "Four Harmonies and Five Patio", have been completely preserved here. Through the elaborate wood carvings of doors and windows, distinctive beams, buckets, arches, pillars, eaves, etc., one can guess whether the owner's family used to be a merchant's family or a scholar's family. Coupled with the unique topography, the houses are scattered, households are connected, neighbors are in harmony, and the ancient style still exists.
One of the tourist attractions in the village is the Family Eco-Museum, which was built by Huang Wenguang, the 19th generation of the local Huang family, on the old mansion. The museum displays more than 340 pieces of old objects handed down from family to family, including a plaque from the fourth year of the Qianlong era, a uniquely shaped Jiema plate, and a five-compartment hot pot for banquets, etc., so that you can get a glimpse of the prosperity of the Huang family back in the day. Huang Wenguang said with immense pride: "Our ancestors came here from Fujian as a salt official, a **** out of four lifts, two jinshi, hundreds of tributes."
Yunlong County Cultural and Tourism Bureau, deputy director of the word Xuejun introduced, despite the remote location of Yunlong, inconvenient transportation, but the Ming and Qing dynasties, the literary style, talent. Only Nuodeng village, the lifts, Gongsheng, Xiucai countless. Only from a few households in Nuodeng family genealogy on the veracity of the tribute to more than 60, Xiucai has more than 500 people. Nuodeng ancient village in recent years, rapid development of tourism, mainly experienced two stages, in 2007, was selected as a national historical and cultural villages attracted a lot of tourists; and let Nuodeng fame is the 2012 documentary "Tongue on the Chinese" in a 6-minute-long about Nuodeng ham images. Nowadays, Nuodeng ancient village has more than 30 distinctive inns with more than 400 beds, and has become one of the most popular tourist destinations, with tourists from all over the world visiting this ancient village throughout the year.
Nodeng ham behind the huge industry chain
Not far from the ancient village of Nodeng Nodeng ham factory in Yunlong County, tens of thousands of Nodeng ham is quietly fermenting. Here are 1 year to 5 years of Nuodeng ham, salt mud ham has been deep fermentation for 5 years, the air is filled with extremely rich ham fragrance.
As early as 2003, Nuodeng ham factory in Nuodeng ancient village state-owned salt factory was established on the former site. The factory director is Nodeng people Yang Wusong, he is also the Nodeng ham curing skills of the provincial heritage. At first, the factory only cured seven or eight hundred hams per year, the total sales of only more than 300,000 yuan. 2012, "Tongue on the Chinese" began to broadcast, the factory's phone has not stopped, from all over the country telephone orders such as snowflakes fly, the factory only survived more than 4,000 hams will soon be sold out.
The market is hot, Nuodeng ham factory soon formed the "Yunlong Ham Development Association", 26 micro-enterprises and 46 members to join, and 176 file card households to establish a cooperative relationship, the formation of the "party branch + enterprise + association + farmers The development mode of "Party branch + enterprise + association + farmers". Today, Nuodeng ham plant curing more than 30,000 hams per year, the price of ordinary ham in about three or four thousand dollars a single, the highest quality single can only be sold to more than 6,000 yuan, annual output value of nearly 20 million yuan. Yang Wusong lively mind, very early online sales, products from the whole, above the meat block, three years to eat slices of ham diced fried rice material, soup material have, the price is also from tens of yuan to thousands of dollars, online sales accounted for 7% of total sales.
The development of Nuodeng ham can not be separated from the Nuodeng black pig farming. 2003, Nuodeng ham factory factory at the same time, and Nuodeng not far from the long new township, villagers Yang Juanhua began to lead the villagers to raise pigs entrepreneurship, and later set up a long new township, Yunlong County, Danyan field hog farming professional cooperatives. The development so far, the cooperative pig inventory 26,000 head, 60000 head of commercial pigs, last year's sales revenue is more than 90 million yuan mark, driving the local 1657 households to develop pig farming, out of a rely on industrial development to get rid of poverty, "blood" type of poverty alleviation road.
Nodeng ham industry can be said to be a vivid microcosm of the flourishing development of agricultural industry in Yunlong County. In recent years, Yunlong County to Nuodeng ham as the support of the whole industry chain of hogs, to create a "county a industry" characteristics of the industry, Yunlong hog industry output value has reached 440 million yuan, to become the local consolidation of poverty alleviation of the leading industries. Under the concept of "Concentrate on raising a good pig, doing a piece of meat, doing a fine leg, and unswervingly create a green food brand", Yunlong County is becoming a Chinese characteristics of fermented ham advantageous area, mountainous areas of planting and breeding combination of recycling agriculture test demonstration area, the plateau area of pollution-free and organic food branding pioneer area, and become a high-quality black hog fermented ham of the number and quality of the country's first area. quantity and quality of the country's first region.
Norden ham secret
On the Norden ham, Yang Wusong earliest memories of childhood grandfather gave him a raw slice. At that time, although every family in Nuodeng cured ham every year, but the ham can only be enjoyed when entertaining the most honored guests, and the slices are very thick, often thicker than the chopsticks, so as to show the host's generosity and hospitality. Every time he sliced the ham, Yang Wusong stared intently as his grandfather sliced out a bit for him to eat. "Chewing it in my mouth, I can't forget the flavor."
All of our ancestors have been curing ham, and Yang Wusong was already curing ham with his grandfather when he was 10 years old, and mastered the curing technique. Over the years, as the inheritor, he also hand in hand to guide the local people curing ham skills, brought out a lot of apprentices, the busiest time, more than 200 people team in the factory together curing ham.
Yang Wusong said, Nuodeng ham selection is very critical to choose the Nuodeng local black pigs, which in turn to the Longma Mountain area of the best quality of black pigs, excellent climate, altitude conditions, pure mountain springs, free-range combination of Nuodeng black pigs slow growth cycle. Nuodeng ham is selected from the hind leg of the pig at least one year, before curing, it should be dried for 12 hours, and then sprinkled with local 50 degrees of corn wine. The biggest feature of Nuodeng ham is that it is cured with potassium-rich Nuodeng well salt, and 10 kilograms of ham are usually cured with 8 taels of well salt. Nowadays, Nuodeng ham factory uses more than 10 tons of Nuodeng well salt a year. Salting requires patience and constant rubbing with both hands, thousands of times for each ham, during which the bright red pork gradually turns dark red. Finally, the hams are placed flat in wooden tanks and cured for 15 days, during which time they are constantly turned to make them evenly cured.
After that, it's all left to time, as thousands of hams hang in cool, airy rammed earth rooms, quietly fermenting, gradually releasing moisture and covering the surface of the hams with mold, all of which keeps the salt content low and the flavor strong. The local climate of Yunlong is particularly suitable for the deep fermentation of ham, with temperatures and humidity that are ideal worldwide, making it a natural place for fermentation.
The Best Year to Eat Norden Ham
After a year, these moldy "ugly guys" are ready to eat, but they are best eaten in the third year of deep fermentation. Three years of Nuodeng ham, meat firm, dark red color, like Spanish ham can be sliced and eaten raw, the taste is long and rich, let people scream. Yang Wusong said that last year a Russian girl ate 6 bags of raw slices in the factory, and then came back to the factory the next day.
Yang Wusong will also target the salt mud ham, with Nuodeng unique salt mud wrapped ham, can better prevent the oxidation of ham fat, which greatly extends the storage time, but also adds flavor, Nuodeng ham factory's first batch of salt mud ham just 5 years. Yang Wusong said that in addition to salt mud ham, the factory also plans to launch a series of deep processing products, Nuodeng ham pastry will soon be online sales. He also plans to Yunlong County's two geographical indications - Nuodeng ham and short-footed chicken, the two high-quality ingredients combined, made of cooked food to the market, so that more people taste the delicious Yunlong.
Nuodeng ham is very rich in eating, each part has a different way to eat. The part with bone is usually used to make soup, and the locals in Yunlong like to add melons and beans, dried cabbage and other stew, which has a mellow flavor;
The meat close to the bone is the best, and the Nodeng ham of the third year can be thinly sliced and eaten raw, and it can also be served with mustard;
The part with skin can be steamed, and it can be sliced into a large piece, which is fat and thin, and is purely soft and sticky;
The people in Dali love to have
In addition, Nuodeng ham is often accompanied by a variety of wild mushrooms, wild vegetables, vegetables, and so on, often thin slices can make the ordinary dishes have a good performance.