According to the classification of "Zigong Yanbang Cuisine" by Chen Maojun, Yanbang Cuisine consists of four sections: Yan merchant dishes, Yan Gong dishes, Baba banquet dishes, and home-cooked dishes.

Chapter One: Salt Merchant Cuisine As the name suggests, the main audience of this cuisine is salt merchants.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zigong began to produce well salt, and during the Sui and Tang Dynasties it became famous throughout Sichuan.

After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the rise of artesian wells, the Zigong salt industry gradually prospered.

During the Qianlong reign, it became one of the five major central production sites in Sichuan, and during the Jiadao period, it became one of the three major central production sites in Sichuan.

During the reign of Emperor Xianfeng and Tongzhi, it became the center of Sichuan well salt production.

The leader in Sichuan's salt industry.

Especially during the Xianfeng period, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom occupied Nanjing and Hui merchants lost the Huai salt market.

Since Huai salt could not be transported to Hunan, Wuhan and other places, the Qing government ordered "Sichuan salt to be used in Chu". As a result, Hui merchants, Qin merchants, Shanxi merchants and merchants from all over the country entered Sichuan with huge sums of money and occupied the Sichuan market.

People came to Zigong to invest in digging wells, collecting brine, making salt, and selling salt. Zigong's salt industry prospered unprecedentedly and became the "richest place in Sichuan".

As a result, some of the richest salt merchants and salt industry families in Sichuan began to appear. They created economic miracles and wrote the myth of wealth in the corner of southern Sichuan in southwest China.

According to the records of Fushun County in the late Qing Dynasty, there were hundreds of large and small salt merchants in Zigong, and thousands of indirect salt merchants relied on the salt merchants' industrial chain to survive.

During this period, the "Wang Sanweitang" represented by Wang Langyun, the "Li Siyou Tang" who took the lead in opening up the Chu'an market out of Zigong, the "Hu Shenyitang" which made its fortune by relying on good business reputation, and the famous "Yan Guixin Tang" were born.

Known as the "Four Big Four": "Wang, Li, Hu, and Yan".

During the Anti-Japanese War, the coastal areas fell, and the second "Sichuan Salt Benefit Chu" occurred in history. The Nationalist Government increased support for the production and marketing of Sichuan salt, and the Zigong salt industry once again became brilliant, with the emergence of "Hou Ceming, Xiong Zuozhou, Luo Xiaoyuan, etc."

"Yu Shuhuai" and other new four major families.

In June of the 33rd year of the Republic of China (1944), at the "National National Savings Donation" meeting in Zigong, salt merchant Yu Shuhuai donated 10 million yuan.

Under his leadership, Zigong salt merchants donated generously one after another. In just 35 days, a huge amount of 120 million yuan was raised. In this donation campaign, Zigong's donations ranked first in the country.

These wealthy salt merchants have become important consumers and promoters of Zigong cuisine.

The delicacies and delicacies are no less than those of the palace, and the ostentation is no less than that of the government.

Its dishes are characterized by high-end, novelty and novelty.

1. The Thirteen Taibao Plain Banquets. Here I would like to especially mention my maternal grandfather Miao Huawu. As the chef of Yu Shuhuai, the richest man in Zigong, he had superb cooking skills and was good at innovating in dish design. The legendary "Thirteen Taibao Plain Banquets" is my maternal grandfather.

Invented by Miao Huawu.

The "Thirteen" in "Thirteen Taibao Vegetarian Banquet" refers to twelve dishes plus a stewed pot rice.

The twelve dishes are cooked lettuce, roasted eggplant, stir-fried tender beans, stewed taro, braised cabbage, fried peanuts, simmered red potato, roasted chestnut, fried tofu, stir-fried shredded radish, steamed glutinous rice, and boiled yellow flower ear soup.

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It seems simple, but it actually involves thirteen cooking techniques: cooking, searing, stir-frying, stewing, simmering, deep-frying, simmering, roasting, pan-frying, sautéing, steaming, boiling and stewing.

Cooking also requires extraordinary sophistication.

To cook lettuce, lightly fry it in hot oil, then add soy sauce and other spices.

To cook the eggplant, first remove the eggplant skin, fry it in oil, then add stock and cook over medium heat until the juice is reduced.

To simmer red potato, use washed red potato and simmer it in charcoal ash.

Roasted chestnuts are roasted on an iron plate with a fire underneath.

Frying tofu means frying "yellow on both sides". Slice the tofu and fry it in a pot with low heat and oil until both sides turn yellow. Then add stock and simmer. When the juice is reduced, add garlic sprouts and stir-fry.

Although it is a vegetarian banquet, it consumes materials, time and labor, which is not comparable to ordinary meat banquets.

2. Autumn fish In the rivers of Dengguan, Zigong, there is a kind of autumn fish that has a short fishing season, has no scales, is delicious, is small in number, and dies immediately when it comes out of the water.

The so-called autumn refers to the season.

After the beginning of autumn in Fushun County, it is called the end of autumn.

The Tuojiang River rises in summer, the water level increases and the water quality becomes turbid.

When the water becomes cooler after the beginning of autumn, it is called autumn water.

Autumn fish is actually a kind of fish that is produced in the Tuojiang River in Fushun County near Luzhou, such as the nearest section of the Yangtze River, during the autumn season.

Liu Guangdi, one of the famous "Six Gentlemen of 1898", once wrote a poem called "We make an appointment to have a meal to end the autumn and fish in a boat at the foot of Baohua Temple": "We have good wine and supper together at night, and the fish is fragrant and we talk to end the autumn. We sit in the tender coolness,

It’s a good month to watch people swim. “The scientific name of the autumn fish is copper fish, and its common name is golden loach and autumn fish.

In the early years of the Republic of China, Wang Xingyuan, the general manager of "Wang Sanweitang", was particularly fond of this fish.

In order to eat the freshest fish, he asked the shopkeeper in Zhengguan branch to prepare a pot and stove, catch the fish in a net early in the morning, and then cook it in the pot.

After it is cooked, immediately put it into an iron pot with a noodle loader and keep it warm over low heat.

Then the salt workers took turns carrying it and went straight to the artesian well.

In addition to sprinting, there is also a trot along the way, which is completed in sections like a relay race.

There are two main cooking methods for autumn fish: traditional bean paste and crispy skin.

3. Dew fungus: Dew fungus refers to the fungus that is still stained with dew when picked at four or five o'clock in the morning, so it is called "dew fungus".

In winter, diluted cow dung is poured on the exposed rocks, and the grass that grows next spring will be lush and insect-free.

In late spring, a small fungus sprouts from the grass. It has a short, yellow-brown stem and looks like a mushroom outside the mouth. Its delicious taste is better than any other fungi. It is called dew fungus.