People who often eat western food are probably familiar with macaroni, but do you know that it has a relative in China? It is "cat ears". It is said that Kyle Polo likes to eat China's cat ears, so he learned how to do it, copied it when he went back, and then mass-produced it by machine, which evolved into macaroni today.

Authentic cat ears are really a delicacy in China, but now there are two kinds, one is Hangzhou cat ears, and the other is Shanxi cat ears. Cat's ears evolved from pulled pieces, and together with pulled pieces, they have become two major patterns in Shanxi's noodle kingdom. There are dozens of different methods and names in folk dining tables and street restaurants, and they are famous in Ming-yang Gap.

In southern Shanxi, pulled noodles are also known as water pulled noodles, and the areas around Houma and Linfen are commonly known as "turtle jumping off a cliff". It is to make white flour into balls, fill the basin with water after waking up, pinch them into thin slices as big as copper coins one by one, put them into a pot, cook them, and eat them with brine. Large merchants in Jinzhong are choked with oil, which is called oil pinch. Nowadays, it has evolved into rolling the noodles into strips, holding the strips in the left hand, and pulling the noodles into small pieces with a thumb's belly in the right hand, which are called small pulling pieces or pinching bumps. After being cooked and fished out, it can be covered and poured, wok or fried. It is not only a kind of home-cooked pasta, but also pays attention to eating it before the departure of men and women when they get married in Jinzhong, which means "pinching bumps at the age" or "kissing bumps", which means peace through the years. In Jinnan, the rolled dough is mostly torn into large pieces by hand, put into a pot and cooked, then dipped in vinegar and mixed with oil to eat chili pepper garlic, which is called wiping the piece or pulling the piece; If the minced onion, ginger and garlic are mixed with Chili oil and mixed with various seasonings, it is called oil-splashed monkey noodles, which is a delicious food enjoyed by the family.

Picked-up pieces, especially water-pulled pieces, are the ancient method of making soup cakes in Han Dynasty. After the Northern Qi Dynasty, it was also called "Jia", and the court set up a soup official to make them. Later generations mostly made buckwheat, and in the Song Dynasty, they entered the market, and both monks and vulgar people ate it. Lu You's poem said that "the monks who cooked buckwheat were divided" ("The Wall of the Temple"). The Jin dynasty began to develop into a cat's ear, and there is such a story circulating among the people. In the fifth year of Jin Taihe, Yuan Haowen went to take the exam, and when Yangqu met two geese, one hunter won one, and the other died in a mournful voice. Yuan Hao asked about his feelings, bought a pair of geese and buried them on the bank of Fenshui, wrote "The Poem of the Wild Goose Hill" and rubbed them skillfully as a sacrifice. Now, Qiu is a historic site, and its words are still fragrant. Skillful noodles have become a delicious food for people to express their feelings (Face the World). At that time, Qiao Mian spread among the people, and it was called Ge Mian. The method of making Qiao Mian was to knead it into small pieces and then twist it on the panel to form it. Later, Mr. Fu Shan wrote "Gecuo Xiaofu", and in "Jietuo Nanfu", he praised that "ice silkworm was crawling at the beginning, with a crooked tongue. Tender and difficult to chew, fragrant and heart-warming. "

Gerou noodles were originally made for offering sacrifices to geese, but in the Yuan Dynasty, horse-riding hunters regarded it as a good food for hunting, called "Maqi", and entered the royal banquet (Grand View of Imperial Meals in China in Past Dynasties). Today, Loufan, Yangqu and other places are still used to eating "covering the sparrow's cake" and "beating the sparrow's noodles" during the Laba Festival, that is, twisting the noodles into a pile, rubbing them into a rub, cooking them, taking them out, and sprinkling a little in the yard to show covering the sparrow and beating the sparrow. In Taiyuan, there are also people who call Gerou noodles "Ma Shi", which is the homonym of "Ma Qi". In the Yuan Dynasty, Eating Meals is about to record a kind of "noodle with chicken head powder", which is a kind of dough sheet about the size of copper coins. It can be seen that the pulling piece and the cat's ear began to develop in parallel in the Yuan Dynasty. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Gerou noodles were widely eaten by Shanxi people and spread to Shaanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan and even the south of the Yangtze River. According to legend, when Qianlong went down to the south of the Yangtze River, he praised it, because it looked like a cat's ear and was called "cat's ear" ("Famous Food Story"). After liberation, Lao She, a famous writer, tasted this noodle in Jinyang Restaurant and wrote a poem praising: "Hump bear's paw can't boast, and the cat's ear plucks the fish."

Cat's ear pasta has been passed down and developed among the people, with many methods and different names. For example, Jinzhong method is to knead buckwheat noodles into finger-thick strips, pinch them into bean-sized pieces, and twist them into small flowers in the heart of the left hand, which is called "Geduo" or "rolling bumps", while others hold them in both hands and twist them on the panel. People in northern Shanxi directly put noodles between the ring finger and the middle finger of their left hand, pinch them into small pieces with their right hand and twist them in the heart of their left hand, which is called "buckwheat noodles". In the area of Lanxian County, Shanxi Province, white flour is diced and twisted with chopsticks to make a small nest, which is called "Pearl Gewo". In the southwest of Shanxi Province, such as Jixian County, people pinch out a piece from the reconciled buckwheat dough with their right thumb and forefinger, and rub it with their thumbs on a grate made of slender sorghum stalks, which looks like an iron gourd on a spinning wheel, also known as "buckwheat noodle iron gourd", and eat it with mutton fried with sauerkraut. The most elaborate production is the rub pea in southern Shanxi, which is made of wheat flour and dough, rolled into square pieces, kneaded at one corner first, and then squeezed horizontally from the intersection, showing a hollow ingot shape, such as two peas connected together, so it is also called "rub pea".

There are dozens of kinds of cat's ears, which are not only made of buckwheat flour and wheat flour, but also made of bean flour, oat flour, sorghum flour and other raw materials, with different vegetarian toppings, vegetable codes and small materials. They are very popular among the people, not only as daily fancy pasta, but also for entertaining guests and wedding banquets. Jinzhong Jiexiu paid attention to the son-in-law eating cat ears at his father-in-law's house, and took it as a compliment. In Jinnan, before men and women married, the victim distributed flour to neighbors, and everyone in the village began to knead it, following the custom of helping each other when something happened.

In June, 2008, the State Council awarded Shanxi cat's ear making technology as a national intangible cultural heritage, which has become the wealth of Sanjin culture and a pearl of China food culture.