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Text | Dong Keping

Illustration | Zheng Li

The first time I ate West Lake vinegar fish was in the summer of 1986. After the internship, I returned to Beijing from Wenzhou, took a bus to Hangzhou all night, groped for friends in Hangzhou, and finally got a place to live, put down my luggage and went to the West Lake. I walked halfway around the West Lake and felt hungry at one o'clock in the afternoon. I just turned to the "Autumn Moon in Pinghu" and saw the building outside the building. I hesitated for a while and gritted my teeth and walked in. I can't remember how much I spent that day. I originally planned to take a sleeper and went back to Beijing in a hard seat for 29 hours.

This short stay is my first time in Hangzhou, and it is also my first time to eat vinegar fish from West Lake. Later, I went to Hangzhou many times, and tried to order this dish several times before. Until I ate the West Lake vinegar fish with mandarin fish instead of grass carp in Wangzhuang in 2003, I stopped eating it for more than ten years. There is no other reason, it is not delicious.

The first time is because I am not used to the freshness brought by sweet and sour. For a northerner, this taste is almost fishy. Later, I learned something about delicious food. I no longer judge a dish by my own taste habits, but I still can't like the taste of vinegar fish in West Lake. Among them, the vinegar fish in West Lake is getting worse and worse, and the value of grass carp is lower. Although it is a traditional famous dish, it is closely related to Hangzhou and West Lake, but it is really not delicious. Many local friends in Hangzhou say that they no longer eat vinegar fish from West Lake.

I didn't eat it before, and any animal fat is delicious; There are too many things to eat now, and people love Jiang Xian far more than grass carp and herring. A few years ago, heavy-flavored dishes were popular, and light dishes such as West Lake vinegar fish were easily ignored. Eating West Lake vinegar fish in Hangzhou would even be laughed at by Hangzhou people. It is a sad thing to say that traditional famous dishes have fallen to such a state.

Early that morning, I left Nanjing for Hangzhou, and got off the train and went to the Ziwei Hall of the West Lake State Guesthouse for dinner. In such a hurry, it is for a West Lake vinegar fish. Chef Dong Yehui told me that he made some improvements to the traditional West Lake vinegar fish and gave this dish a new life. Almost all the guests who eat in Ziwei Hall order this dish, and the feedback is also very good.

I asked Master Dong Yehui how to improve it. Master Dong said that it is very simple, that is, changing the fish. Grass carp was used in the past, especially in the West Lake. This kind of fish always has an earthy smell, and it is difficult for the traditional sweet and sour taste juice to cover up this earthy smell. The West Lake vinegar fish in Ziwei Hall uses clear water grass carp from the source of civilized Qianjiang River. Grass carp raised alive in clear water is tender and tender, without the earthy smell of pond fish, so it is naturally delicious. After a try, the fish really has no fishy smell, and it is tender, smooth and delicious. The sweet and sour juice and Jiang Mo promote and sublimate the fragrance of fish. This made me feel that the West Lake vinegar fish was really delicious for the first time, and I ate a West Lake vinegar fish cleanly for the first time.

A friend who went to Beijing recorded the production process that Master Dong said: "The civilized fresh water fish is improved, and the terraced fresh water has no muddy smell. The traditional production method is followed, and the fish is' raised' with water at 80-90 degrees (Celsius) to avoid the skin of the fish from cracking. It is also necessary to cook the juice with local rice vinegar and Huyang soy sauce in Hangzhou, and sprinkle Jiang Mo with garlic cloves, which is like eating crabs."

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