the legend of Nanjing dried salted duck
Legend 1
In the early Qing Dynasty, there was a place called Chebanqiao outside Hanximen, Nanjing. The south of the bridge is connected with Qinhuai River, and the west of the bridge is a large pond. There is a local resident named Shen Da. He has neither property nor occupation, so he can only rely on water to eat. Every spring and summer rainy season, he goes to the river to catch snails every day and sells some money to make a living. But after winter, the river is frozen, and snails have nowhere to catch, so they have to be hungry and suffer from hunger and cold. One day, I suddenly thought of the ducks that eat snails from snails, and thought that I would raise some ducks, so that I might not have to worry about food in winter. So in early summer, with the money saved from selling snails in spring, I bought dozens of ducklings, raised them at home as soon as possible at first, and ate some tender grass every day. When the ducks grew bigger, they rushed to the river ditch to find their own food. In winter, the ducks were very fat. At this time, Shen Da sold the drake first for some money to live, and then sold the remaining female ducks when they were finished.
In the second year, the capital was more sufficient, and more ducklings were bought than in the previous year. In the third year, more ducklings were raised, but it brought more trouble. Residents living nearby also began to bother him, because these ducks swam around the river all day looking for food, stirring the river into mud soup; Sometimes even flocks of ducks run to the beach to eat other people's washed vegetables. One of the residents, Lu Aquan, was scouring rice by the river one day. All the ducks came to peck at it. Ah Quan was busy dispersing it by hand, only to knock over the rice basket and spill all the rice on the bottom of the river. At this time, Shen Da was not there. Ah Quan was furious and ran home to find a wooden stick and hit all the ducks, killing three of them at once. When Ah Quan saw that the duck had been killed, he told the bystanders not to tell Shen Da. Those residents also hated him for raising ducks, and they all promised to keep secrets for him and leave each other.
A moment later, Shen Da came. Ah Quan told him that there was a rumor about duck plague in the market recently. At first, he didn't believe it. Just now, he saw your ducks foraging in the river. In a blink of an eye, three of them died by the river. You should sell dozens of ducks before it is too late, or they will lose money if they are all infected with the plague. Shen Da took it at face value, saying that since the duck plague was caused, it would be better to kill them and marinate them with salt until the end of the year. Ah Quan, afraid of being late, took the initiative to help him kill the ducks, so he drove all the ducks home and killed them one by one, receded their hair, cut open the belly of the ducks, took out their internal organs, salted them with pepper and salt, and put them in a big earthen jar to cover them. Then I sold the gizzard and duck feathers, and the rest of the pieces were distributed to Ah Quan and my neighbors. Everyone took the pieces of the ducks and told them how good they were and went home happily. Here, Ah Quan was secretly proud when he saw Shen Dazhong's move. Fortunately, it was winter, and the ducks were marinated for 2 days, and then they were taken out and hung to dry. In a blink of an eye, on the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, Shen Shit took these dried ducks to the market for sale. Passers-by saw that the ducks were flat and meatless, and no one would buy them. Shen Da waited in the market for a long time, but he didn't sell any ducks. He had to go home and passed by his aunt's house. He went up to talk to his uncle and talked about the previous things. My uncle laughed: "You were teased by others, but fortunately, these ducks won't go bad. You just salted them with salt and crushed them with big stones. It must taste good, but it's not good to flatten them, so no one bought them. I'll clean them up for you." Say that finish, ask Shen Da to carry the duck into the door, take some bamboo roots for the fire, peel them a little, and feel much better in the duck stocks.
The next day, Shen Da took ducks to the market to sell, and buyers rushed to buy them. One load of ducks was sold at a good price one after another, and the profit was much higher than that of selling live ducks. In the New Year, I prepared wine and rice, invited my uncle, Ah Quan and neighbors to have a wedding banquet, and thanked my uncle and Ah Quan for their help. Ah Quan and his neighbors wanted to harm him, but he made more money by making mistakes, and he was very envious. In the spring, everyone learned from Shenyang University and raised ducks, and their business became more and more popular. Up to now, they still sell well all over the country. Because these people have lived in Dongbanqiao for a long time, they got their name: the ducks in Dongbanqiao, so they are called "salted ducks".
Legend 2
More than 1,4 years ago, southern China was under the rule of the Southern Liang Dynasty. Liang Wudi Xiao Yan reigned for more than 4 years, indulged the aristocratic landlords to live a luxurious and decadent life, and Liang was on the verge of decline, and the "Hou Jing Rebellion" gave Liang a fatal blow. Hou Jing, a general of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, was a cunning and fickle villain. Because he was at odds with the new rulers of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, he led his troops to surrender to the Western Wei Dynasty. Soon he changed his family and joined Liang Wudi. Liang Wudi is not a kind person and wants to hand over Hou Jing to the Eastern Wei Dynasty. In exchange for Xiao Yuanming, the general of Liang captured by the Eastern Wei Dynasty. On hearing of the rebellion, Hou Jing led an army to quickly break through the capital of Liang, Jiankang, which is today's Nanjing, and surrounded Liang Wudi in Taicheng, the seat of the palace. In order to attack Taicheng, Hou Jing built a mountain outside Taicheng, trying to be condescending and take advantage of it. The soldiers guarding Taicheng also piled up heaps of earth mountains in the city to resist the rebels. Because the war is so fierce, soldiers often don't care about eating. It was autumn, sweet-scented osmanthus was fragrant, and fat ducks were on the market. The women in Jiankangtai City cleaned up the fat ducks, cooked them with spices and salt sauce, wrapped them in lotus leaves and sent them to the front. Because there are many soldiers, sometimes many ducks are bundled together and carried up the mountain. The soldiers then open the bundled ducks and cook them with water, so they can be eaten. This delicious and convenient duck is called "salted duck" by soldiers. Since then, dried salted duck has become a famous dish of Jiankang. Unfortunately, the salted duck didn't help Liang soldiers defend Taicheng. Taicheng was finally breached and Liang Wudi was starved to death.
Although the dried salted duck tastes delicious, it has been destroyed many times, just like the disaster-stricken Nanjing City. It was not until 1 years after Liang Wudi that dried salted duck flourished again in Hushu Town near Nanjing.
Legend 3
Hushu Town, 6 miles away from Nanjing City, was originally a big lake with white waves, surrounded by reeds, and many wild ducks were born in the dense reeds. One year, two brothers who fled from the north set up tents around the Great Lakes. They were good hunters, but they had nothing, so they had to hunt wild ducks for a living. The two brothers are highly skilled in duck hunting. Besides eating by themselves, they can also sell the ducks they catch. Sometimes the raw ones can't be sold out, so they are cooked and sold, and the cooked ones can't be sold out, so they are simply salted. The longer the wild ducks in the tank are marinated, the stronger the old brine will be and the more fragrant it will be. The two brothers sold the salted wild ducks to the people, which was very popular and the business was getting better and better.
However, the weather is unpredictable. After several years of drought, the great lakes gradually dried up, and the exposed lake bottom was filled as fertile land by landlords. The lake surface became smaller and smaller, reeds became sparse, and there were fewer and fewer wild ducks. The two brothers had to change the salted wild ducks to pickled domestic ducks, especially the domestic ducks produced in Hexian County, Anhui Province. After autumn, they made them fat and tender, which was better than the wild ducks. The business of the two brothers grew bigger and bigger, and their technology became more and more sophisticated. Not only were they famous for their lake cooking, but even people in Nanjing had to rush to the lake to buy them. Seeing that there are more and more people coming to buy ducks in Nanjing, the two brothers simply opened the dried salted duck shop to Nanjing, which can not only expand their influence and open up the facade, but also bring convenience to Nanjing people who like dried salted ducks. After the two brothers entered Nanjing, they gradually spread their skills abroad, and more and more people made dried salted ducks in Nanjing, and finally exported them in large quantities and became famous all over the country.
Nanjing's salted duck was "cooked" in the war, and it was improved by two unknown brothers, and became a representative food in Nanjing.
Nanjing salted duck and salted duck sell well, thanks to the successful development of fresh-keeping technology. In the past, due to poor packaging and short preservation time, long-distance transportation was easy to deteriorate, so foreign customers had to "look at the ducks and sigh." In order to overcome the difficulty of vacuum packaging, Nanjing Duck Industry Group invested hundreds of thousands of yuan and repeated experiments with the whole truck of ducks, and finally succeeded. At present, a whole duck can be preserved for 3 days at 5 degrees Celsius and for more than 3 days at 3 degrees Celsius without any preservatives after vacuum packaging.
Duck gizzards are the most delicious, and the manufacturing process is quite complicated. First, cut the duck gizzards, scrape off impurities, wash them in a jar, add appropriate amount of salt, marinate them thoroughly, and then sun them for a day or two. Then, press the palms hard and then sun them again. After the water is completely evaporated, the volume becomes smaller, and they can be hung in a ventilated place, which will not be bad or stale for a long time. Like salted duck, it is a specialty of Nanjing, which has both chewy head and unique flavor, and is a wonderful product for drinking and eating. Nanjing people like to use it for appetizing after illness, and it has the effect of clearing away heat and detoxifying. It can be seen that "food may not be seen in temples, but food often hides between the streets" is really reasonable.
"Four pieces of duck" is also a delicacy that we Nanjing people often eat, that is, the wings and feet of a duck, which is delicious after being braised in soy sauce. Many famous restaurants in Nanjing often fry seasonal vegetables with duck viscera, which is much more tender than fried beef. The most wonderful thing is "duck tongue soup". Before cooking, you need to grab it with salt to remove blood, and then wash it before putting it into the pot. Stew it with cored ginkgo or wax gourd, it tastes fresh and tender, and it can't be square.
People in Nanjing eat ducks. Duck blood is generally used to cook tofu, and it is cut as big as tofu. Unlike Sichuan's "duck blood tofu", Nanjing's "duck blood tofu" only puts onions and ginger, while Sichuan's puts a lot of peppers, an ordinary home-cooked dish and two different methods. There are two ways to teach: one is to eat fresh and refreshing, and the other is to eat tears. It's a matter of opinion if you taste it.