My hometown Dongshan Island is located at the intersection of East China Sea and South China Sea. Since long ago, there has been a well-known home-cooked dish called "Four Scholars". To be precise, it's a traditional dish with soup and vegetables.
The practice of Sijinshi soup is actually very simple: cut the washed squid or dried cuttlefish vertically into blocks along its veins and put them in warm water for soaking. Then, add the soaked dried seafood and the soaked soup to the pork pieces with moderate fine fertilizer and boil them together, filter out the floating foam, then break the tofu pieces and cook them together, and finally add the garlic pieces to boil the whole pot, add fish sauce according to their respective tastes, and remember to sprinkle "Lingdao" pepper when you take the pot, which will make the taste more fragrant and palatable. This is the traditional dish that people on the island never tire of eating-Four Scholars.
It seems simple, right? But I can tell you that this is the current taste, and the ingredients of the improved "New Four Jinshi Soup". It is different from the traditional four-Jinshi soup practice and food selection. According to the introduction of the elders, the four ingredients that the traditional Four Scholars in the ancient city must choose in the early days are: dried dog and mother fish (preserved snake mullet), pork breast with skin, local white tofu and seasonal white garlic (garlic segment).
As far as the dried fish of dog mother is concerned, it is not simple, but actually it is quite particular. To cook a "four Jinshi", first of all, the mother dog breast should be dried by fresh "black dog mother fish" which grows in the local island reef and has dark skin color. If it is produced in the Taiwan Province Strait or the South China Sea and other peripheral sea areas, the taste of the caught "mother dog" and "mother dog" (local accent, referring to foreign articles) is obviously much worse. Of course, people who are skilled in cooking in the ancient city even divide the dog and mother fish into "coarse scale", "young (fine) scale" and "brocade scale" according to the shape and color of fish scales, so as to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages by quality, choose the best from the good and choose carefully.
Another example is the choice of pork breast, so it is better to choose the pig's front breast, with its thick skin, more fat and less lean; White tofu is made of local white tofu; Because the above ingredients can withstand long-term boiling, the characteristics of each ingredient can complement each other and taste fresh and sweet. The choice of garlic segments can be exquisite, which is called "garlic turn", that is, big white garlic is cut into segments. There is a taboo rural saying here. In the early days, people described a family as "extremely poor", and compared it with a saying: "Poor enough to cook a lamp at the end of garlic and make urine" (the lamp makes urine, which is the fuel waste left after guiding the green lamp in the temple to ignite). Therefore, the garlic ingredients used in the Four Scholars only choose the garlic white part, and the garlic green and garlic tail part is abandoned because of taboo.
Island people "eat mountains by mountains and eat the sea by the sea" has been the principle of feeding since ancient times. You don't have to ask for delicacies. You can cook a delicious dish with fresh taste just by raising your hand.
In the early days, people pursued the original taste of food, and the requirements for ingredients were extremely strict. Four Jinshi Soup, which is also a soup and a dish, is especially warm and proud when people can serve an orthodox four Jinshi soup at festivals or banquets for relatives and friends. It can supplement high-quality protein, and has the effects of improving intelligence, strengthening brain, clearing away heat and diminishing inflammation, moistening skin, invigorating spleen and tonifying kidney, etc., and is suitable for all ages.
With the rapid development of social economy, material life is more colorful, and many traditional recipes have been improved by people's selection of materials, constantly catering to the rhythm and taste buds of modern people. Four Jinshi, an authentic dish of ordinary people, ushered in a new life. In terms of material selection, people make full use of the advantages of island resources, and use eel, dolphin, octopus, squid, cuttlefish, oyster and other seafood, which is dried as the main material, instead of the traditional common dried fish, and boiled with pork chops or pork belly to make the base soup, and then put in tofu and garlic pieces to cook the delicious Dongshan Island home-cooked dish-Sijinshi soup.
I've always been puzzled. Why is such an ordinary dish for the people paid to the name of the tall dish and called it "Four Scholars"? In this regard, I have consulted many elders. I wonder if the origin of the name of "Four Scholars" is related to the selection of scholars in the imperial examination, or is it a hope for the people?
Regarding the origin of the "Four Scholars", it can be said that there are different opinions.
There is a legend here: in the winter of a certain year in the Qing Dynasty, the hometown island, which is a fishing industry, was suddenly hit by a bad natural disaster. "There was no farming in the sea" and "the northern ship of merchants' trade was almost sunk by huge waves", and the ancient city was depressed and the people were miserable. On New Year's Eve, a large number of good businessmen cut four big pigs in the ancient city and donated a small piece of pork to each family to talk about "eating meat for the New Year". People take out the only preserved fish that have survived the winter at home, add tofu and seasonal green garlic, and cook them in a large pot as a "cooking dish". At this time, it coincides with officials visiting the ancient city to show sympathy for the people. The official suddenly smelled the fragrance of the dishes in the room, looked around and found that it was the fragrance of a pot of dishes on the table. After tasting it, he was full of praise and asked why it was a famous dish. Unable to respond, the squire who accompanied him had a brainwave and casually replied, "Four Scholars". The "Four Scholars" got its name.
How many years have passed, people on the island have a preference for this soup dish. "It has been handed down from generation to generation as the name of the Four Scholars", "Anyway, the good food is delicious, and the four scholars who are eaten by the government and the people are * * *".
From people's attention to this soup, it is not difficult to imagine that it has the potential to celebrate and hope. Because in the early home island, similar to the "big events" such as the launch of a manufactured ship, the completion of a large building, the wedding ceremony, the birthday of an elder, the opening of a shop, and the success of a child's studies, the host family gave a banquet to welcome guests, and the soup dish "Four Scholars" must be served, which means "all eyes are in harmony", and everything is smooth and auspicious.
The "Four Scholars" soup is full of fragrance before it is cooked, which makes people drool and can be smelled far away in the neighborhood. This dish can be cooked in almost every household in the ancient city of the island. At present, the restaurant stalls on the island, Sijinshi has almost become a signature dish, and foreign tourists also know how to order this soup. They think this dish is "neutral and realistic", which combines the freshness of the sea and the taste of the mountains, is not fierce and wild, and has the cultural characteristics of ancient city meals. The boss in charge of welcoming guests and ordering food said with a smile: If you eat my "Four Scholars", you will be healthy and promoted to a higher position. "My daughter is smarter and can read".
I thought, the green garlic and white tofu of the four scholars doesn't mean to be clear and white; Cuttlefish (cuttlefish) is entrusted with the cultural inheritance of the fragrance of Han ink from generation to generation; And pork belly represents a variety of things in the world ... Private thought, is a kind of interest.
My children who are studying abroad, every time before going home for a holiday, my lover begins to plan how to manage the food and make the children eat more palatable. In her subconscious mind and concept, children leave their hometown and go out, as if eating "almost junk food", which is not fresh with little nutrition. "How can it compare with the seafood on our island?" This is due to her complex about the local eating habits, and the dish "Four Scholars Soup" will also bear the brunt in her pre-arranged recipes.
"Four Jinshi", a golden combination of four kinds of ingredients, nourishes the taste buds of people in hometown, and is also the "Four Jinshi" of soup and vegetables, which is "delicious" and makes people "better". It carries the memories of the island's hometown flavor from generation to generation ...
Draft 20 18/06/ 13