When Ala was a child, eating pao rice was a common meal. Most people don’t pay too much attention to breakfast in the morning. What they want is simple and fast - "pao rice" embodies this characteristic and is the best one. Grow food.

A few years ago, Shanghai media conducted a survey, "If you were asked to choose Shanghai cuisine, what would be your first choice?" Two Shanghai catering industry experts wrote quietly in the palm of their hands. The answer was then revealed at the same time. The two words in their hands were unanimously, "Pao Fan".

What is pao rice?

What is "pao rice"? Just take the remaining rice, add some water, and heat it on the stove. When the water boils, the rice is ready. If it's not winter, just brew it with boiling water in a thermos and it's ready to eat. On a hot day, you can also eat it by soaking it in cold boiled water - rice white soup is clear, light and oil-free, green and safe, better than "instant noodles".

People in Suzhou call this "rice soaked in porridge". I never understood why it was called this in the past; now I think about it, it makes sense: the remaining "rice" is "soaked" in water and becomes It becomes "porridge", so it is called "rice soaked in porridge". In Shanghai gossip, people who talk nagging are also called "rice soaked in porridge."

Shanghainese eat pao rice

Shanghainese like to "eat pao rice" for a long time. As for when it originated, it is impossible to verify, but it has a lot to do with Shanghai people's frugality and affordability. At that time, Zhou Xiangyun, a real estate tycoon in Shanghai, owned more than a dozen Shikumen and Xinli alleys with the word "Qing" on them, and was the fifth largest taxpayer in Shanghai.

◆ Zhou Xiangyun’s pao rice

Zhou Xiangyun is from Ningbo. When his father came to Shanghai from Ningbo, he took a boat filled with duck eggs, which some people called the duck egg boat. After Xianyu turned over, Zhou Xiangyun's living habits still retained traces of the old ones.

According to his nanny, the refrigerator at home is full of pickles, pickles, and yellow mud snails. I infer that this is used to "eat" pao rice - because old Shanghainese have the habit of "eating pao rice".

Telling Zhou Xiangyun’s story actually means that there is no shame in eating pao rice. Shanghainese are “people-oriented”. When they can’t finish dinner or sleep in in the morning, eating pao rice is the first choice. Everyone who has eaten soaked rice feels it: refreshing, the soup is soup and the rice is rice, unlike porridge, the rice is rotten in the pot and there is no twist. Moreover, porridge is very time-sensitive. Hot porridge burns your mouth, and when it is cold, it becomes hot again. It swells easily. If there is too much water, the soup will be clear. If there is too little water, it will be thick porridge and rotten rice, which will be tasteless.

The operation of soaking rice is also simple, it can be soaked twice at most, and the layers are clear. It would be great if there are some pickles, pickled cucumbers, and curd with strong flavors to go with the rice. Especially in summer or after staying up late, the taste buds are numb, pickled melon with rice is the best partner.

Make rice with side dishes

The author’s mother-in-law’s family is a local, and they also have a habit of making side dishes with the leftovers, such as “push and pull” green vegetables. , tofu, if you want to be "more sophisticated", just get some ham, short ribs, and if it's "more crisp", add ham and bacon. Pour them all together and cook rice with rice. The name is "vegetable rice soup", which often makes me This little Ningbo felt, "it tastes great"!

Of course, now that the conditions are better, most people are over-nourished and should eat less "vegetable rice soup". It will still cause increased uric acid, increased blood lipids, increased cholesterol and other minor ailments - local The cooking method of some thick oily red sauce is delicious, but it is still important to control your mouth.

Later, high-end restaurants began to sell "pao rice", but Ala also started to eat it: seafood pao rice, lobster rice and so on. Of course, there are cheaper ones too, with pickled rice being the most typical one, and almost every restaurant has it. Pao rice belongs to ordinary people. Who dares to show off luxury in the hall? If a bowl is worth hundreds of yuan, ordinary people in Ala will definitely fall down in fear.

Shanghainese people make a side dish called pao rice, which is actually quite talkative. The most common poor families can only eat pickled cucumbers, fermented bean curd, and radish tops.

Shanghainese people from Ningbo like to eat salted fish, shrimp paste, and smelly winter melon; Shanghainese people from Shaoxing like to eat musty dried vegetables and moldy vegetables; Shanghainese people from Jiangsu Province like to eat sweet and sour garlic; Shanghainese people from Sichuan like to eat spicy pickles. Shanghainese from Guangdong like to eat Qiaotou and spicy fermented bean curd... Anyway, Shanghainese from different origins all have their own unique favorite rice dishes.

Of course, there is another way that many people in Shanghai eat: buy a fried dough stick, break it into several pieces, dip it in soy sauce, and eat it with rice. This is called "little joy" in life. ——Last year, there was a debate on the Internet between netizens from the north and the south over "dipping fried dough sticks in soy sauce". In fact, there is nothing to discuss. China is so big and the customs and habits must be different. Everyone should not think that the other party is "weird".

I heard from the old people that in old Shanghai, when business owners invited senior managers to have breakfast, they would also eat steamed rice. Of course, the side dishes served with steamed rice must be a bit high-end, and one should pay attention to the "four basins": preserved eggs, Jellyfish skin, assorted pickles, and peanuts with fried moss; sometimes steamed buns, pot stickers, pan-fried and other dry snacks are added. Of course, there are some high-end Shanghainese people who don’t eat pao rice, so this is a shame.

Therefore, if you must find out what Shanghainese’s obsession with eating is, then “eating pao rice” must be one of them. Therefore, it is still our old saying: To understand Shanghai, you must Start with the basic necessities of life for Shanghainese!

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