When I think of borscht, I think of the appetizers that come with it, white soup or red soup, and I usually choose the latter. I usually choose the latter. When I eat it, I take a bite of the soft buttered bun and then a big sip of the sweet and sour appetizing red soup, which makes my mouth water.

I used to think that the story of borscht was to be found in the usual Hong Kong-style Western food and tea dishes, but it never occurred to me that the earliest origins go back to the glamorous old Shanghai, where Chinese borscht originated. How has the flavor we love been refined, when did it first appear in Hong Kong, and what are the interesting dietary changes behind borscht? The Peninsula and you traveled to Shanghai in the 1920s and Hong Kong in the 1940s to explore borscht's delicious history.

Originally, borscht was a staple food for Russians, made from locally produced beetroot, potatoes and bones, and eaten with a spoonful of sour cream for a sour and salty taste.

The reason why borscht has traveled so far to China has to do with a historical event, yes, the Russian October Revolution, which we learned about in high school.

The Russian aristocracy, or White Russians for short, lost their hereditary wealth and were forced to leave the country, fleeing to Europe and China's Shanghai and Tianjin.

Walking hard to a foreign land, can not sit on the mountain and wait for death, so some of the White Russians opened a bakery, Western restaurant to make a living.

Shanghai at that time, there is French food, Italian food, in many Western food, borscht dishes, large pieces of folder against food, a few coins can be eaten in the Western flavor, but also opened up the world, naturally very popular.

Of course, in addition to cheaper, Russian cuisine has been improved in accordance with the Shanghai taste: like the beetroot must be put, know that the Shanghai people are not accustomed to eating, the chef used the Merlin brand ketchup and cabbage instead of the former to take the color, and the latter to take the taste of vegetables. With tomato sauce is still too sour, the chef thought of using butter sautéed, add sugar method to acid and beef, potatoes, onions simmering for a few hours, it is a pot of fresh with sweet, thick and not greasy, eat sticky vegetables diced borscht ah ~ authentic way to eat, to be accompanied by the oldest Chang bakery borscht bread. It is so long and sharp that Eileen Chang once praised it in her book.

After it was introduced to Hong Kong, borscht was also called "pork bun". Cutting the center and sandwiching a piece of pan-fried pork chop, it is the pork chop bun we often eat in cafes.

Guangdong has soy sauce western food, Shanghai has borscht

By the 1940s, some of the Cantonese and Shanghainese people smuggled into Hong Kong for development, soy sauce western food, Russian western food, two major genres of food also followed the migration over.

Shortly afterward, these owners who had operated western-style restaurants in Shanghai made a comeback and opened a large number of Russian-style restaurants in Hong Kong, with famous ones such as Salina and Queen's Hotel.

Parents at the time would occasionally take their children for borscht and saw steak. Food writer Ouyang Yingji remembers his childhood when he and his grandfather would dress up according to the dress code and sit squarely in the restaurant, learning table manners.

The times they are a-changin', and as more and more exquisite and expensive Western dishes become available, the Borscht cuisine is slowly declining, and the only remaining Russian restaurant is the Empress Hotel, which is still popularized by his older brother's film "Alfie's Story".

-The movie poster was also shot at the Queen's-

Till now, the only popular Russian dish is borscht, which is also made from canned soup.

We all know that people in Guangdong and Hong Kong have an obsession with soup, and that even a fast-food meal must have a case of soup.

But back then, Hong Kong was like the north and south of the country, and very few people would take the time to make a bowl of soup, so this canned borscht, which only took a few minutes to heat up, was naturally a household staple.

Later, this trend even affected cafes: they used the canned soup to make a variety of red and white soups, or add pasta and spaghetti to make a variety of flavorful dishes.