What is the flavor of Guizhou?

How to define the "flavor of Guizhou" is a difficult question, because it is much more than the familiar "sour" and "spicy".

Geographically, Guizhou has been a "foreign land" for a long time in history, far away from the central government, and most of the people living here are non-Han Chinese, so it is not too much to say that the underlying flavor of Guizhou flavor is the flavor of ethnic minorities.

Guizhou is rich in flavor and unique, but it has not been known as "Guizhou cuisine", in addition to its dishes are heavily influenced by neighboring provinces, but also because Guizhou cuisine has not developed a unique culinary techniques. The heart and soul of a "cuisine" is the way it handles the ingredients.

Located in the southwestern borderlands of Guizhou, although this is the cooking skills of the poor place, but just a few big provinces surrounded by the cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, spicy and fresh, Hunan cuisine, barbecue and strong, Cantonese cuisine, light cooking, with the road traffic in Guizhou formed the taste of the confluence. At the same time, Guizhou as a large province of immigrants, the interaction of different periods of immigrant flows fundamentally created the characteristics of "Guizhou cuisine" - fusion, which is a kind of delicious regardless of the origin of the flavors of the sea and rivers of qualities.

If you want to experience the "flavor of Qian", which was born from the transportation of Qianjiang, then Anshun, located in the middle of Qianjiang, may be one of the best destinations for you.

1. Anshun snacks with a commercial aura

Anshun has a well-developed trade and commerce, which has led to a wide variety of local snacks. Anshun was founded in the Ming Dynasty, the geographic location is in the "lock Yunnan-Guizhou", is the main channel of the Yunnan-Guizhou fortress, Anshun gradually became an important port of Guizhou Province, known as "the crown of the trade". The Qing dynasty Wu Qijun in the "Dian line chronicle" depicted the picture of the year - "Anshun City around nine miles ...... Jia people far set, far better than Guiyang".

Waiting until the Republic of China, Guizhou open smoking ban, advocating the planting of opium, for this reason, Sichuan, Hunan, Guangdong, Gui and other tobacco merchants gathered in Anshun, Anshun jumped to become a large-scale distribution center, according to the "Renewal of the Anshun Prefectural Records," records, "all the way to the convergence of merchants, gauze, silk and satin, the light of the strange and bizarre; foreign goods, foot head, fight strange and colorful; the business of the flourishing, the A in the province. "

Commercial activity to promote the formation of Anshun business circle pattern, "from the city gate to the Grand Cross Bell and Drum Tower, the street is long more than miles, three feet wide," to the north of the three, "one pass Chiang Nga Street, the second pass Wangchun Terrace, the third pass Rulin Road," to the south of the four mouths, "one pass Caojia Street, the second pass Wangchun Terrace, the third pass Rulin Road," to the south of the four mouths. "one pass Caojia Street, two pass Biyangwan, three pass Gufu Street, four pass Tongzhi Lane", Anshun snacks on the business district was born, flourish and spread, these snacks snacks, in fact, is the diners countless picky mouth test out.

2. "Guiyang's wear, Anshun's eat and drink"

Anshun snacks of the dense, even the provincial capital of Guiyang have to courtesy of three points. Gufu street seems to be low-profile several noodle stalls, said each have several generations of inheritance, each one is considered a long-established.

The best way to get around Anshun City is to eat your way through it. Of course, this is not my idea alone, every visitor to the old city of Anshun, would like to try the "over the street tone", from this end of the street to eat that end of the street, from this street to eat that street, free and free.

Wrapped rolls are a classic cold snack in Anshun, where diners can choose from four secret chili sauces. Tomato meat sauce when the entrance, the first powder skin crisp cool, followed by filling, was wrapped up sour radish, mung bean sprouts, crispy soybeans are extremely crisp ingredients, sweet and spicy and a little sour, between the lips and teeth feel relaxed and refreshing. The spicier pickled-pepper wraps continue the refreshing overall flavor, with a slightly overbearing spin on the rich spiciness of the chili sauce, making it necessary to eat several of these in quick succession before you can stop.

The wraps are meant to be bite-sized, but with market demand comes larger wraps that are more filling, as well as the ability to mix and match your own side dishes and sauces with the rice wraps.

There's always a frying pan boiling in an unassuming corner by the side of the road. Egg cakes are deep-fried to a golden crisp, so you can't help but pick up a steaming cake and just pop it in your mouth. But this egg cake, need to be drizzled with hot sauce and folded ear root to eat, is considered to eat right.

The deep-fried egg cake is native to Zhenning, and is made like a "sandwich": first it is made with rice and soybeans, then mixed with rice and vermicelli, then pounded and grinded into a paste and put into a metal hexagonal mold, filled with stuffing, then filled with batter and deep-fried to a golden brown and then taken out of the box, with a crispy shell that is golden and an inner flesh that is snow-white.

Anshun snacks have always been rich in oil and spices, but there is no fire, sticky teeth. Due to the influence of the southeast monsoon, even in the coldest month of January, the lowest temperature in Anshun is maintained at 4 degrees Celsius. No winter, summer environment, shaping the Anshun snacks cold, hot both pattern, hot food gathered and eat, sweating, cold food fresh and crisp, painfully extreme.

3. The fancy combination of rice and spicy

Anshun snacks have two souls - chili and rice.

One big reason why the original flavor of Anshun snacks cannot be replicated in foreign countries is that the freshness of chili peppers is impaired. In Anshun, if the chili is not good, the snack brand can not stand firm.

To chili pepper as an ingredient derived from a variety of meal seasoning, is the soul of Anshun snacks. It can be said that each of the old chili sauce is an exclusive secret recipe, the taste is different. Home-brewed chili peppers are not difficult for Anshun people. Every year in August and September, when morning glory peppers and wild green peppers are on the market, families in the city start to make "bad chili peppers" in the most traditional way.

"Bad chili pepper" is the Guizhou "chopped pepper" called, take fresh chili, add ginger, garlic cloves, raw pepper and other accessories hand chopped, and then into the salt, sugar, white wine, seasoning, into the altar marinade. After half a year of resting and fermentation, by the end of the year, the bad chili peppers in the altar released a hint of sour and spicy aroma, even if it is successful.

Anshun people are always a little less interested in pasta, but are excited to study all kinds of rice. Whether it's rice syrup or rice noodles, all that matters is freshness, and the local light food industry, which has always been well developed, operates around the clock to provide a constant supply of ingredients for every discerning mouth in the city. Anshun has a rice milling industry, rice flour industry, soybean flour industry, tofu industry and dozens of other kinds of rice milling industry, the use of stones to grind rice into rice, or with the help of water milling, feed the city more than a thousand rice workers. Rice flour industry with rice milled into rice flour, made of flour fine uniform and clean, the most adapted to snacks.

Patty cake is the most common food in Guizhou, the raw materials are glutinous rice, can be roughly divided into three categories of eating, fire-roasted, deep-fried, eating, that is, the glutinous rice pounded into a patty cake, placed in an iron pot with temperature, pulled into a small ball, wrapped in sweet and salty fillings, while pulling the side of the food. Fire-roasted white patties, not stuffed, sliced and baked, covered with soybean noodles can be eaten; bean paste, as the name suggests, inside the package of bean paste filling, flat round; fried patties, patties, slice patties, slice cake poop, bean fried poop.

Ching Ming Po is the local people of Qingming grass and rice noodles advanced play, the master took glutinous rice noodles and japonica rice noodles, plus Qingming grass, water began and noodles, the combination of the two kinds of rice, neutralized the excessive glutinous sticky, but also with a hint of a woman's tenderness. I eat Qingming Po is bean paste filling, bite down half a mouth, the smell of bean paste floats out, eat in a hurry, the aroma spreads to the nasal cavity, straight to the heart of the sweet, is a kind of down-to-earth and with a little lively sweetness. Southwesterners prefer a savory filling, using bad chili peppers with minced pork and dried tofu.

There is also a creative morning snack called "fried rice", where rice and oil are artfully mixed and boiled, and a spoonful of Qianzhong specialty "citation" is added, and the sticky, rich rice and the hot oil mixed with the flavor of the rice comforts the empty stomach early in the morning. The deep-fried rice keeps its crunchiness and flavor.

4. The life of Anshun people starts from the table

Consumption life has made the food of Anshun more and more expensive, and it has also raised the passion of Anshun people for food. In the late Qing Dynasty, Anshun's catering industry began to develop rapidly, "renewed Anshun Fu Zhi", "the market boom, a big difference in the past. Merchants make a lot of money, life is becoming more extravagant; to feasts, the past, but the dish dish, eight bowls, hoof head, today is the sea cucumber seat, shark fin seat, barbecue seat."

No matter which class, but all willing to pay attention to the family, the hostess has a good cooking. All seasons of the year, all the production of seasonal snacks, March 3 to do Ching Ming Po, April 8 to eat glutinous rice, September sunshine patty cake, the first eight days of Lunar New Year and should be boiled Lunar congee, food taste, unlimited joy.

Dai Mingxian once mentioned in the "one man's Anshun" in the small town of Anshun, the sound of the city, "before and after the third night, the city is silent, the only 'fried rice sugar to open --' the sound of hawking! ", in addition, there are also a few sporadic noodle shop business, in the long night quietly spit out white vapor, wait until the day is a little brighter, "selling sweet wine -", "Yin Tuo Po mixed sugar poi! " , "Hot - Gao-Ba-La!" Accompanied by a shouting, the sky into a greenish-white color, daylight gradually shaking eyes, Anshun old city more and more lively, slipped to the East Street area, looking for the sound and taste, you can find a wonderful breakfast hall.

Anshun people also have a set of funny breakfast "lingo", more cooking oil said "Manzi foot", do not spicy, onion called "free red", "free green", more soup is called "soup wide", and even spoons and chopsticks have nicknames - "duck" and "artemis pole". The name of the restaurant is "Ankou".

Breakfast in Anshun also has a distinctly fusion flavor. Broken pastry buns are a Yunnanese snack, but they are also found all over Anshun. Only in the morning you can buy freshly baked buns, while hot bite open a bite, you can see layers of crispy skin, with pork savory filling, melt in the mouth, mouth and mouth. Wrapped rolls are also the most common snacks on the streets of Anshun, usually sold by the box, go home on the way to buy a box, take home young and old.

Every morning, it is always a good choice to have breakfast on Rulin Road. The old street's green stone pavement has been worn smooth by time. As long as there is a day of Linlin snacks, the small town will always remain calm, simple and calm posture, as the years themselves.

Originally taken from the book Guizhou, with additions, subtractions and changes