Eat happily,

I'll wait for you at Sanlian Cuisine

Text/Mei Shanshan

Picture/documentary "Looking for Dongguan"

Twenty-seven years ago, the old couple in machong, Dongguan decided to turn their first floor into a small store specializing in ribs and rice.

fresh ribs, bought and chopped into small rows of suitable size. Marinate with salt, cornstarch, garlic oil and fermented soybean, and steam in a large stove for 3 minutes. Rice is ordinary rice, and it is steamed faster by heating water. Steamed ribs and rice were buckled, and a few spoonfuls of homemade lard and chives soy sauce were the only food in this store at that time.

There is no name. Laocai's shop is simple in decoration, simple in content and ordinary in taste. Looking around China, there are not tens of millions of such mom-and-pop shops, but also millions. Only one thing is strange: the old materials open at 3 am every day and close at 6 am when they are sold out.

even today, it's hard to find a second snack bar with such business hours, which has been open for 27 years.

1

When it comes to Dongguan, the first thing that appears on many people's faces is a meaningful smile. Then I thought of mobile phones, "world factories" and friends who moved to Dongguan to "go to sea".

No one will associate Dongguan with delicious food, and few people remember that less than 3 years ago, this place called Dongguan was just a collection of 28 rural towns.

"The golden sunshine, the green banana forest and the silvery river are all brightly colored ... around the village, along the river bank, in the small garden, on the house wall, litchi trees, longan trees, guava trees, banana trees and papaya tree are all in full bloom, which seems to make people smell fragrant flowers and fruits ..."

This is the writer.

Today, Mayong is the largest professional town of plastic electronic products in Dongguan, but in 1993, bananas were the most famous place.

At that time, almost everyone in the town was growing bananas. The criss-crossing rivers and fields, and the high-temperature sunshine that never stops all the year round, allow bananas that are both water-loving and hot to grow with high quality.

the life of banana farmers is hard. Because the sun is too hot during the day, most of the most exhausting work will be completed in the early hours of the morning. Therefore, banana farmers rest at sunset, get up at two or three in the morning, eat a high-calorie breakfast enough to support their physical strength, and get busy at noon.

That's why Uncle Cai opened the door at 3: a.m., and that's why he chose ribs rice, which seems to be the staple food of dinner: there is meat, fat and carbohydrate, and the calories are high enough to support the banana farmers' physical strength for enough time.

when the work is finished, the banana farmers bring home the green bananas that are not sold in the daytime, and the wives start cooking time.

The starch content of green banana is high, and it is almost not converted into sugar at all. As long as the gum and acidity in it are cleaned, the taste of cooked taro is almost the same, and it is a little tighter than taro. It is a unique basic "vegetable" in Mayong.

First blanch the green banana, cut it into slices with the same thickness, then cook it in the sugar water of ginger with brown sugar, and finally add the soaked laver. This is mashong's banana laver syrup. You can drink it while it's hot or when it's cold.

seemingly dark cooking is actually a simple imagination of banana farmers to make the best use of their things and replenish their physical strength. Although 27 years have passed, Ma Yong has long lost the scale of industrialized banana planting, but it has long been everyone's eating habit to eat green bananas.

Braised Goose with Green Banana, Braised Meat with Green Banana, Fried Eggs with Banana Flowers, and Banana Buds as Soup ... You can see these dishes when you walk into any small restaurant in Mayong. They represent the past that the town has been giving up, and they also give the soul to this now fully industrialized city.

You know, Dongguan is not without delicious food, but it hides behind the supersonic development of the times, and we need to dig it with our heart.

2

As one of the only four prefecture-level cities without districts in China, Dongguan * * * is divided into 28 towns, 4 streets and 1 economic functional area, and its topography includes mountainous plain and coastal water towns. Almost every town has its own characteristics because of its different specialties, plants and farming history.

Ma Yong is a typical water town.

The textbook Humen in Dongguan, which is famous for Lin Zexu's Destruction of Opium at Humen, is a seafood town.

It's no exaggeration to say that the natural conditions of Humen are simply that God enjoys seafood: it is located in the alluvial plain at the mouth of the Pearl River, where salt and fresh water meet and there are many plankton. Marine life is only strong and fat, with the sweetness of river fresh and the compactness of seafood.

Like the local specialty, Ma Xia is named for its sesame-like spots on its back. In order to adapt to the salty changes of seawater, the body will produce more free amino acids, also known as umami substances, which is the best in shrimp.

heat a dry casserole, stir-fry onion, ginger and garlic, add mashed shrimp, and immediately sprinkle with rose wine-in an instant, the smoke filled with rose fragrance filled the casserole. Cover the pot and simmer for a few minutes. Shrimp meat is fresh and sweet, while absorbing the aroma and essence of rose wine. Take a bite, heaven and earth.

There are also local Humen crab cakes, which are cooked from seafood restaurants to roadside food stalls: once the crabs are opened in four, they are mixed with minced meat and egg liquid, sprinkled with a lot of white pepper and fresh nine-story towers, steamed first and then baked, and then forced out by fierce fire. A bowl on the table is still sizzling, which is quite imposing.

take a bite, and the burnt aroma is mild and spicy with white pepper, and the aftertaste is a little similar to the herb fragrance of perilla mint. People who have a light taste are probably not used to eating at first. Compared with highlighting the sweetness of crabs, this dish emphasizes the fragrant taste and the first-class meal.

3

But this season, the most important place to go is the mountainous area in the east of Dongguan. First, the seaside is still a closed fishing season, and there is no particularly fat taste; Secondly, litchi in the mountains is just ripe, which is a good time to taste.

It takes less than an hour and a half to drive from Guangzhou to Xiegang Town, the easternmost town in Dongguan. It has Yinping Mountain, the highest elevation in Dongguan, and one of the oldest litchi forests in Dongguan, which mainly grows two kings of litchi: Guiwei and glutinous rice paste.

this year is litchi year.

Take a straw mat and lie down under the tree. You can eat lychees that are about to fall to the ground with your mouth open. One turns over and another hits the face, and you don't have to sit up when you sit. It's just a fairy way to eat litchi.

Eat enough lychee, and then go to the farmhouse next door to have a freshly baked roast goose made of lychee wood, so that the fragrance of lychee wood can be moistened in the crispy and juicy goose meat. As long as you are good at making friends, come to Dongguan this season. Litchi and roast goose in the mountains alone can make you eat forever.

When you are full of wine and food, you will have the illusion that this is Dongguan when you overlook the flaming lychees everywhere under the lychee tree. Is it Dongguan, which is famous for its mobile phones, factories, immigration, technology and speed?

There is no doubt that it is Dongguan, a city where future and reality coexist.

It also has an ancient soul, but it's all hidden in the smell of the streets and lanes of this city, waiting for you to dig one by one.

(This article is inspired by the documentary "Looking for Dongguan")

Author's file

Mei Shanshan

A heavy fat addict

Having eaten and drunk in new york for 6 years

Now living in Beijing

Working on writing related to eating and drinking

Welcome to Sanlian Cuisine

Eating and drinking together

Submission email.