Fujian cuisine is one of the eight major cuisines in China, the most famous of which is "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall", with extremely luxurious ingredients. It is made by simmering more than 20 kinds of raw materials and ingredients such as shark's fin, sea cucumber, chicken, tendons, scallops, shiitake mushrooms, abalone, bamboo shoot tips, pigeon eggs, etc. Its special and strong aroma can seduce even vegetarian monks. They couldn't control themselves and came over the wall. Hence the name. Ju Chunyuan Restaurant in the city is famous for this dish. Other restaurants of all sizes have this dish, but the ingredients used and the skill are quite different, so it cannot be compared to it. When I met Fu Chu, he asked about this dish and said he wanted to try it himself. When I found the information and sent it to him, he sighed and said he wouldn’t eat it. Because it is a famous dish, the price is so high that ordinary people cannot afford it, and reservations must be made several days in advance. Therefore, most of us eat dishes with this name without knowing the true taste of the dish.
Compared with the noble Buddha Jumping Over the Wall, other delicacies seem much closer. Some snacks have penetrated into people's daily lives and can be seen with a raised hand. I checked the information and found out that what I come into contact with every day belongs to the category of Fuzhou food culture. For example, the meat floss from "Dingriyou", the grilled flat olives from "Big World", the fish balls from Taxiang, as well as thread noodles, Taiping pork swallows, Tai Chi taro paste, pot side paste, light cakes, etc. These are the dishes that ordinary people eat. of gourmet food. The origin of the light cake is worth mentioning: During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Qi Jiguang was ordered to enter Fujian to fight against the Japanese. People in Fuzhou made a cake baked with flour and a little salt. In order to make it easier to carry, it had holes in the middle. Wear it with braised salt grass and hang it around the necks of the Qi army's soldiers. Later, in order to commemorate Qi Jiguang's fight against the Japanese, people called this cake "Guang Cake".
When I talk about food, I can’t help but think of the Taiwan Food Festival that was very popular a while ago. Most of the so-called Taiwanese delicacies are passed down from Fujian. For example, ordinary thread noodles, which they renamed noodles, can be sold for 20 yuan a bowl. Dragon whiskers are worth a lot of money after being squeezed by Taiwanese hands. I blended in with the surging crowd, tasting my home-cooked snacks, paying several times and dozens of times the price, and felt dizzy. The importance of packaging, government guidance, public opinion propaganda, and brand formation have truly taught each of us a lesson that cannot but make people think deeply. When I hear old people living overseas lamenting that fish balls and pot sides are like a thin thread leading them to their hometown, I can’t help but feel ashamed of my admiration for so-called Taiwanese food.
Thoughts
I really want to express my love for this city. After all, I will stay here for a long time, and maybe I will spend my later years here. My dislike for this city is like silk thread, hard to break. I have always said that this city has no characteristics, no cultural heritage, and no strong cohesion. As a member of the city, I have not fulfilled any responsibilities to the city. I only ask for things but not give them. During the selection of civilized cities, my husband and I took our son around on bicycles. When passing through a tunnel, our son suddenly jumped down, pointed at us and said: The civilized city will be destroyed in your hands! We laughed. We took this sentence as a warning and corrected our words and deeds all those days, but as time went by, everyone forgot about it.