Suqian people's diet left me two impressions. First, Suqian people have few breakfast stalls and too few patterns. Second, Suqian people like to eat pancakes. It is not surprising that there are few breakfast stalls and too few patterns in Suqian Renmin Street. Breakfast is not a dinner, and it is not regarded as a dinner at home and abroad. For example, old Beijingers and other elderly people in big cities in the north call breakfast "breakfast", which means "ordering" casually; Old Shanghainese people call it "eating snacks", but in fact, they only "click" in their hearts; Nowadays, people in Wuhan still call breakfast "premature", which means that "morning" only refers to "passing by"; Guangzhou people have alienated breakfast into "morning tea", and what's more, they regard eating breakfast as something like drinking tea. Of course, this morning tea has been alienated by Guangzhou people too much and turned into a delicious meal. How this is alienated is another matter. Although people with slightly better living conditions still attach great importance to breakfast as long as they are "ordered", "felt", "alive" and "delicious", there used to be a folk saying that "eat well in the morning, eat enough at noon and eat less at night", which means to eat well in breakfast. Of course, according to the current concept of health care, this statement is obviously backward. The correct statement seems to be: I don't have enough to eat at every meal, and I eat less delicious food at every meal. According to this concept, it is natural to eat a good breakfast. However, in the past, in the vast rural areas of our country, farmers could only struggle on the line of food and clothing. Two meals a day is enough, so why eat breakfast? Therefore, farmers and citizens in most counties, towns and some small places basically do not have the saying and habit of eating breakfast, let alone eating breakfast in the street. Suqian is a relatively backward prefecture-level city that has just been established. In the past, the living conditions and habits in rural areas will not disappear in a few days, so it is not surprising that there are few breakfast stalls on the street and there are too few patterns. Although there are some breakfast stalls in Suqian street with the acceleration of urban life rhythm and the improvement of living conditions, there are not many varieties. In addition to young people keeping pace with the times, milk, bread, eggs and fruits have been taken as breakfast. The popular breakfast patterns that can be seen are soybean milk, bean curd, steamed dumplings, pancakes and fried dough sticks, which were used as early varieties in the early days. It is the characteristic of big cities and old cities to spread more stalls early and have more patterns. Big cities have a fast pace of life and work and a high standard of living, so there are many stalls and patterns early, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, and especially Wuhan. The daily life of Wuhan people started "prematurely" in the street, and there were "premature" stalls everywhere in the streets. Steamed dumplings, Kangbing, steamed dumpling bean skin, Regan Noodles beef noodle nest, Zan eggs, wine paste, rice wine, steamed buns, cakes, oil cakes, fried dough sticks and meat pies are not listed here. It's really colorful. Some northerners who come to Wuhan on business are surprised: there are so many early tricks in Wuhan. When I arrived in Suqian, I never forgot it, so I had to do as the Romans do. Suqian people like to eat pancakes. I want to study why Suqian people like to eat pancakes. I think this involves the food culture of a place, so I want to study it. The impression that Suqian people like to eat pancakes is what I felt in front of Suqian's food market and cooked food stalls everywhere. I saw vendors selling pancake skins with electric cars everywhere in front of the food market. Whether it is an aunt or a middle-aged man or woman, as long as it is a Suqian person who has the responsibility to go home to cook, they often buy it back at the price of two pounds, three pounds and four pounds. I asked them if they often eat pancakes. They often answer that they often eat. My impression is that rice, steamed bread and pancakes are the staple foods of most Suqian citizens. I asked them how to eat, and they replied that anything would be fine. Stir-fry with meat rolls to soak soybean milk and millet porridge, or chew it dry directly, all of which are delicious. As a Northeastern told me, potatoes are delicious no matter how they are cooked. I ask them why they like eating, and they often answer with a smile. An old woman told me that pancakes are not only delicious, but also healthy. I think it is really enlightening. I have seen the largest number of pancakes sold in the back street cooked food stall in the downtown area in front of the primary and secondary schools in Suqian Hospital, and there are also the largest number of adults and children sitting and eating pancakes. Nowadays, milk bread can be seen everywhere, and some Suqian people regard pancakes as dry food, roll onions and garlic, and fill their hunger in parks and leisure places of large and small tourist attractions. So, I was deeply moved: Suqian people like to eat pancakes. I feel that Suqian people like pancakes, so I want to guess why Suqian people like pancakes. The motivation is to evaluate the food culture of Suqian people. There are so many staple foods all over the country that I can name a few: Huangqiao sesame seed cake, Huangshigang cake, Beijing pancake, Anhui Kangbing, Yongjiamai cake, Indian Philippine cake, as well as big cake, soft cake, big cake, oil cake, fried cake, thousand-layer cake, chopped green onion cake and sesame alkali crisp cake. Why do Suqian people only like pancakes? Besides, Suqian is not the hometown of pancakes. The hometown of pancakes is Linyi, Shandong, north of Suqian. Jinan, Qingdao, Weifang, Yantai and Taian belong to Shandong Province and surround Linyi, but they are not as popular and enthusiastic about pancakes as Suqian in other provinces. Why do Suqian people prefer pancakes in Linyi instead? I think this reflects a little bit of Suqian people's food culture. Why are there pancakes in Linyi, Shandong? I think this is related to Linyi's special agricultural production conditions. In my opinion, the local dishes cooked by farmers all over the country can be roughly divided into two categories in terms of function. One kind is holiday snacks. In the countryside, under the historical conditions at that time, we had to make some local cakes to celebrate the New Year. These are all fresh, exotic and easy-to-preserve holiday foods that we usually can't eat. They are not only used to entertain guests, but also to enjoy life is sweet after a year's hard work, such as sticky rice cakes in the northern suburbs of Beijing, glutinous rice cakes in the south and glutinous rice cakes in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which are found all over the country. One is the dry food needed for daily work. Farmers living in mountainous areas have remote and scattered land. In order to go out early and return to the mountains at night, they need to bring some dry food. Under the historical conditions at that time, they could only make their own dry food to satisfy their hunger. Most of these foods are as chewy as compressed biscuits, can bear hunger and are not perishable, such as wheat cakes in Yongjia, Wenzhou, and steamed bread with choking noodles in some places in Shandong. Linyi is surrounded by mountains, and the pancakes in Linyi naturally belong to the dry food needed for daily work. The real Linyi pancake, I think, is just the pancake skin used by Suqian people to eat pancakes now, that is, pancakes without stuffing, rather than all kinds of meat, eggs and vegetables pancakes that Suqian people eat now. These pancakes are modern Linyi pancakes, and Linyi people at that time were not qualified to eat these pancakes with stuffing. It can only be that people in Yimeng Mountain area during War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the Liberation War gave it to the Eighth Route Army without stuffing it. I think the original Linyi pancake without stuffing has eight characteristics, namely: single raw material, simple cooker, easy to make, simple frying process, crisp texture, easy to preserve, not easy to deteriorate, diverse eating methods, and it is good for your health if you eat it often. The raw materials are single. The raw material for making Linyi pancakes is only fine corn flour, and occasionally only one kind of wheat flour may be needed. You don't need chopped green onion, ginger and garlic, sweet-scented osmanthus stuffing with bean paste and jam, or even oil and salt, just like your baked sesame cake, baked kang cake, wheat cake, Philippine pie, soft cake, layered cake, chopped green onion cake and alkali shortcake. It's even simpler than making steamed bread with powdered alkali noodles. It can be said that Linyi pancake is the single raw material in the world. Cooking utensils are simple. The cooker for making Linyi pancakes is mainly a flat round iron plate with a thickness of about one centimeter, which is used to "fry" cakes, plus a bamboo or wooden push rod for laying cakes and a triangular flat thin iron spatula for lifting cakes. There is no other cooker as complicated as an oven steamer. These three cookers were relatively easy to make by hand under the rural conditions at that time. The most important iron plate is actually not round, which has nothing to do with the overall situation. This kind of iron plate does not require the shape of the pot, concave bottom pot or convex bottom pot. It is the simplest of all iron pot appliances, and it can be easily built with an iron plate about one centimeter thick. I'm afraid there is no simpler cooker in the world than making Linyi pancakes! The preparation is easy. The most time-consuming and tedious thing to do is to prepare, even if it is compiling a computer program. Before compiling any core operation program or other information processing program, a lot of tedious initialization and data preparation are needed. It can be said that the preparation of anything is the most annoying work, but the preparation of pancakes is extremely simple and will never bother you. Pancakes are made from raw corn flour to the work of pouring corn flour slurry on an iron plate and frying pancakes on a flat hot iron plate with corn flour slurry. Therefore, in the preparation of all pancakes, there are only two things to do, one is to mix the cornmeal slurry, and the other is to heat the iron plate. Mixing cornmeal slurry is so simple that even children can do it as easy as blowing off dust. Although moderate viscosity is required, if it is thicker and thinner, it can be adjusted in time and conveniently, which will not affect the frying of pancakes. The requirement of iron plate heating is not high. In order to save trouble, some people have used electric heating now. Where there is coal, coal can be burned to keep warm. There is a lot of firewood in Yimeng mountain area, and it was difficult to burn coal in those days, so it was mainly to burn firewood to heat iron plates. It is difficult to control the flame of firewood and stabilize the temperature of iron plate, which will not affect the frying work of pancakes. Because the frying process of pancakes is to fry cornmeal slurry by releasing the heat (heat storage) stored in the iron plate, instead of frying cornmeal slurry by using the instantaneous heat transfer of the iron plate, the flame jump and temperature fluctuation will not affect the frying quality of pancakes, and anyone, whether adults or children, can ignite. Compare the pancake making with any other cake making, and you will know that the pancake making is really too easy. Just like making simple chopped green onion cakes, the same preparation work from white flour to raw chopped green onion cakes involves a series of complicated preparations, such as kneading white flour with live white flour, washing shallots, cutting shallots, mixing them with chopped green onion, and rolling them into raw chopped green onion cakes, not to mention the complicated preparation process of making layered cakes and pies. You said that through this comparison, you will know whether the preparation of pancakes is extremely easy and whether the frying process is simple. The frying process is the working process of frying raw corn flour slurry into pancakes on an iron plate. Here, I borrowed the technical term "firing process" from cement and ceramics, and called the process of frying cornmeal slurry on iron plate into pancakes. Obviously, frying process is the key technology to make pancakes. Generally speaking, the process of making all cooked food and operating everything on the pot is the key technology, and of course it is also the most difficult operation technology to master. However, "frying process" is an exception. This key technology may not seem simple, but it is not difficult to operate. My feeling is that the "frying process" includes three processes: spreading cakes, pancakes and lifting cakes. If it is cold, a "cold cake" hardening process should be added. The pancake process needs to complete three sub-processes: drying, ripening and embrittlement. "Spreading the cake" is to spread the prepared raw corn flour slurry thinly and evenly on the iron plate. "Pancake" is a kind of crisp cake with little water content, which is matured by the complex biochemical and physical changes caused by heating corn flour slurry with iron plate. To "lift the cake" is to take the crispy pancakes out of the pot and prepare them for human consumption. "Drying" is to remove the moisture in the thin corn flour slurry by physical preheating, "ripening" is to make the raw corn flour undergo complex biochemical changes into mature pancakes by continuous heating, and "embrittlement" is to make the cooked pancakes overheat properly and continue to undergo chemical and physical changes into crispy pancakes by continuous heating. It seems that the frying process of pancakes is not simple, but the operation is not complicated. The reason is also very simple: the whole frying process of pancakes is to complete the indirect heating conversion process through the release of "heat storage" of thick iron plates, rather than directly heating the cornmeal water slurry through the instantaneous temperature of iron plates generated by burning coal or firewood. Because the indirect heating frying process is completed by releasing heat storage, the so-called "temperature" problem does not exist in the frying process like other food "making processes". It is very simple to master the "temperature", and the cake will not be "fried" if you are not careful. When you just "cook", you should pay attention to the "heat" and don't burn the pancakes. It is also very simple to prevent burning, because when the cooked pancake is heated continuously, there will be a "boundary temperature difference" at the edge, and the principle of "expansion with heat and contraction with cold" will inevitably make the edge of the pancake automatically "tilt", so that you will know that it is "brittle" to "hot" and it is time to "cook" and ensure that it will not be "fried" too much. So the frying process of pancakes is very simple. Crispy in texture. The main and non-staple foods on the dining table include boiling, steaming, boiling, stewing, frying, roasting, roasting, frying, branding, stewing and reheating. Different methods, different nutrition and different texture. Some are fragrant, some are crisp, some are soft, some are crisp, some are burnt, and some are lubricated. Linyi pancakes are crispy and chewy. Crispy and delicious when imported, gluten tastes longer after imported. I think the crispy ribs of Linyi pancakes are the result of "heat storage" and "frying" with iron plates. Generally speaking, "fried" means "fried". Because of the large heat capacity of oil, it is easy for oil to absorb heat and difficult to release heat. Food is always wrapped in hot oil, which is naturally "suffering" and its uncomfortable scene is unimaginable. This is what people mean by hating a person very much. My feeling is that as a result of being tortured by oil, the food is cooked to the end, leaving only the skeleton. Of course it's crisp, and it's fragrant, so it's crisp. Food can also be fried on a hot iron plate. I haven't heard of it before, but I met pancakes this time. Think about it carefully, this is really a kind of "speculation". Think about it, iron plate has a large heat capacity, and it is easy to absorb heat and difficult to release heat. Strangely, a thin layer of corn flour, spread on the hot iron plate, is painless. This is what ants on hot bricks usually mean. As the name implies, the nickname of pancakes probably comes from this. The fried ones are called oil cakes, and the ones fried on iron plates are directly called pancakes. But frying on iron plate is different from frying in oil. Oil "frying" is "oily liquid frying" and iron plate "frying" is "iron solid frying", which is oily and violent, iron and mild. Fried food is wrapped in hot oil, which is easy to "fry" to the end. It must have been bitten without smelling it, and it was definitely not bitten, so fried food is not gluten food. Pancakes fried on iron plates are different. The cornmeal on the iron plate is slowly fried by the iron plate, and there is room for ventilation and deflation on the surface of the cornmeal. The water in the corn flour is also emptied and the gas is released. Dense, natural and chewy, so Linyi pancakes are crisp and chewy. Easy to preserve and not easy to deteriorate. This is the characteristic of China farm dishes. The majority of farmers in our country have been living in extreme poverty for a long time, and some foods are always preserved as much as possible, especially some foods that can be used to entertain guests, hoping to be preserved for a long time. Under the scientific and material conditions at that time, it was impossible to preserve food by modern biological or chemical methods, so many primitive physical methods were invented to preserve food. For example, water seal isolation air mildew prevention method, Wuhan people soak in water mildew prevention is this method; Exposure and water retention method, Wuhan people expose glutinous rice flour and shredded beans for a long time until they are completely dehydrated, which is this method; Hammering, densification, dehydration and degassing are used to prevent bacterial reproduction. They are used to keep fish fresh in Fujian patties and Wenzhou fish cakes, and also to keep rice cakes fresh in most places in the south. Although these methods are primitive, they are the safest, most environmentally friendly and very effective food preservation methods. I still appreciate these methods, and I hate chemical corrosion protection very much. There is also a traditional and simple food preservation method in rural areas of China, which I call "heavy salt preservation method". This method is very popular in the vast areas of southern China where the climate is warm in winter, such as preserved fish and bacon in Hubei, smoked fish and bacon in Hunan, salted duck in Nanjing, Jinhua ham and Wenzhou fish. Sauced meat, etc. This method is to increase salt immersion or smoking for a period of time and then hang it day and night, so that the protein and fat of fish can react with sodium hydroxide to produce a pickled food with certain fish composition and taste. Once I helped my wife pickle bacon and bacon, and found that I sprinkled a lot of salt into the fish, but I deliberately attached salt to the skin of the fish. This method is actually a biochemical preservation method. After the biochemical reaction of heavy salt, it not only loses the original flavor of fish, but also produces a harmful carcinogen. Although most of them have become local food, young people are eating less and less. I think Linyi pancake is a kind of food that is very easy to preserve and not easy to deteriorate, but its preservation method is not easy to deteriorate, but it is different from the above-mentioned preservation method, so I named it "thin slice heating, dehydration, degassing and frying" The fresh-keeping principle of Linyi pancake is that the corn flakes spread on the iron plate are very thin, which is easy to completely dehydrate and degas when heated, and bacteria are not easy to reproduce, thus achieving the purpose of fresh-keeping. Linyi pancake, a special preservation method, is not only a purely physical preservation method, but also does not lose the original flavor of pancakes, so more and more people eat it, which is very vital. There are many ways to eat. According to my observation, there are three ways to eat pancakes in Linyi: hot, warm and cold. "Hot eating" means eating pancakes while they are hot. In the past, when people were poor, they probably ate pancakes directly from Regan Noodles. Most pancakes should be saved for dry food when they are hot. At present, the meat-filled pancakes, egg-filled pancakes and vegetable-filled pancakes in the cooked food pancake stalls on the streets of Suqian are the most typical ways to eat pancakes. "Warm food" means breaking cold pancakes and throwing them into hot soybean milk and hot millet porridge to stir the temperature, and eating them with soybean milk and millet porridge. Generally speaking, there are two ways to eat "cold". One way is to make pancakes with meat and egg rolls before eating. Generally, Suqian people will roll (wrap) their favorite cooking when they eat pancakes for dinner. Another method is to chew raw onion or garlic leaves on cold pancakes. Farmers used to work in the fields and fight in the Eighth Route Army. Now some people travel abroad as dry food. All kinds of eating methods have their own convenience and taste, but basically they don't lose the crispy texture of Linyi pancakes. All kinds of meat-filled pancakes, egg-filled pancakes and vegetable-filled pancakes spread on the street have not lost their crisp texture, but also added the flavor of various meat, eggs and vegetables, which is more beautiful and unique; The pancakes soaked in hot soybean milk and hot millet porridge spread early add a lubrication to the crispy taste of pancakes, which is easier to satisfy people's habitual tastes and meet the dietary needs of "appetizing and moistening" shortly after getting up in the morning; The family sitting together to eat pancake rolls (steamed stuffed buns) and stir-fry is full of local customs and family atmosphere because of the monotony of pancake skin; When going out to eat pancakes, rolling an onion or garlic on dry food will really show the "cow" and "elegance" of Suqian people eating pancakes! After all this thinking, I really think that the sentence "You can eat any pancake, it's delicious, and it's beautiful" is not empty talk. Let's compare the method of making pancakes with hot soybean milk and hot millet porridge with fried dough sticks steamed bread. Fried dough sticks steamed bread softened and melted when soaked in hot soybean milk, but the pancakes soaked in hot soybean milk and hot millet porridge are still golden pancakes! I can't help thinking of the famous Wenzhou seafood and Sichuan cuisine here. There are many kinds of seafood in Wenzhou, including all kinds of marine fish, shrimp, crab, seaweed, conch and shell. However, in order to maintain the original flavor of seafood, no matter what seafood, it is relatively simple to eat, either steamed and fried or boiled and eaten raw. I admire Suqian people, there are so many ways to eat a pancake skin! Although there are many ways to eat Sichuan food, there are countless main ingredients, auxiliary materials and condiments they use. Suqian people eat more pancakes, the main ingredient is only pancakes, and the auxiliary materials and condiments are much less. In this sense, I still have to admire Suqian people. Eating pancakes often is good for health. This sentence was told to me by an old woman in Suqian. At first, I just felt knowledgeable, but I didn't understand. How much nutrition can a piece of corn flour have? I have only heard that eating whole grains will always make me sick, but I have never heard that eating cornflakes can be good for my health. I only heard that ginseng bird's nest is good for health. I haven't heard that eating cornflakes can supplement your body. Just a woman's opinion. This time, knowing the crispness of pancakes and understanding that "eating pancakes often is good for health" is like opening a doorway. Don't pancakes have the characteristics of "gluten"? What is gluten? My understanding is that pancakes are biting, not easy to bite off, not easy to chew, and not easy to digest when eaten in the stomach. This is the last sentence, and there are many articles. Pancakes, after heat storage, dehydration and degassing by iron plates, are relatively dense, not "falling into the mouth", and it is not a problem to digest the gastric juice immediately after eating in the stomach. First of all, the pancake fragments in the stomach should be hydrated, replenished and rubbed for a while, and the gastric juice can slowly play its role and transform pancakes into biological energy. Therefore, when you just eat pancakes, like Daoxiao Noodles, you often feel that there are earthworms crawling in your stomach. Pancakes and ribs can be hungry, indicating that pancakes are not easy to digest and people can tolerate things that are not easy to digest. It can be seen that people's digestive ability must be very strong, and people's digestive ability is very strong, that is to say, this person can eat anything, and the food is delicious and effective. Among many factors that affect his health, diet is of course the first, and his health will certainly be great. Therefore, it is very reasonable for the old woman to say that "eating pancakes often is good for health". This reminds me of a sentence that a distant aunt of mine once told me: people who like to eat "glutinous food" live long. "Nuoshi" Wuhan people refer to Ciba Yuanxiao made of glutinous rice. Ciba Lantern Festival is sticky and generally difficult to digest. If you can eat, you can eat anything, and your body will be fine naturally. "Eating pancakes often is good for health" and "People who like eating glutinous food live longer" are really similar, or great minds think alike. My distant aunt comes from a well-known family and has a high education. Her words have always been very authoritative to me, and I have some experience myself, so I don't doubt that "people who love glutinous food live long", and naturally I am convinced of the old lady Suqian's statement that "eating pancakes often is good for health". Among the eight characteristics of Linyi stuffing-free pancakes mentioned above, the first four characteristics can be summarized in one sentence, that is, "simple method": single raw material, simple cooker, easy production and simple frying process; The last four characteristics can also be summed up in one sentence, that is, "eat many flavors": the texture is crisp and tender, easy to preserve and difficult to deteriorate, and the eating methods are diverse, which is the basic reason why Suqian people like to eat pancakes. There are also cultural reasons, involving the food culture of Suqian people. It is also a close neighbor of Linyi, the hometown of pancakes, and also the same province as Linyi. Why are Jinan people, Qingdao people, Taian people and Weifang people less interested in pancakes than Suqian people? Obviously, there is a problem of food culture and even regional culture. My idea is that in another article in the series Impression of Suqian, I have already said that God and the land god are too partial to Suqian people and give them the best climate and water and soil conditions. They eat whatever they grow, just sit at home and eat without doing anything, just thinking about eating better. Suqian people always think that they are northerners who are similar to Shandong people, with similar languages. They eat corn and wheat in the north, and their social development and living standards are similar. Under this condition, Suqian has developed that Suqian people don't want to go far, go to the world and leave their hometown. Even if Sunan is a paradise, it is difficult to leave such a good place. Therefore, Suqian people have become people who stick to the quasi-northern homeland and hope to live the most leisurely life in the most convenient way, thus forming the regional concept and culture of Suqian people. In terms of diet, Linyi pancakes are "simple" and "multi-flavored", which are close to the regional concept of Suqian people, so they often eat Linyi pancakes. If they eat too much, their taste is good, their throat feels good and their stomach feels good. Over time, these tastes, throat feeling and stomach feeling are all good, which will sublimate into a kind of aesthetic feeling. After a long time, aesthetic feeling will form habits, and conversely, "habits become nature". This food culture strengthens the regional culture, so Suqian people like Linyi pancakes more and more. Here, we might as well summarize the food culture and regional culture of Suqian people. The food culture of Suqian people is to enjoy all kinds of delicious food with simple cooking methods. The regional culture of Suqian people is to enjoy colorful life in a convenient way. This kind of food culture and regional culture are not only the characteristics of Suqian people, but also the advantages of Suqian people.