Maolin, an ancient town in Anhui: a unique food culture

Maolin, an ancient town in Anhui Province

Maolin was founded in the Northern Song Dynasty, with a long history and rich culture. Known as "a famous town in the south of the Yangtze River", it is also known as "Xiaojing County Town and Damaolin Village". The area is surrounded by green hills and running water. Dongxi Town and Xi Gu are surrounded by water, and Kuishan Mountain stands out. In the past, there were seven piers, eight temples, nine wells, thirteen alleys, thirty-six pavilions, seventy-two gardens, one hundred and eight doctor's palaces and more than twenty memorial archways, which were very large in scale. There are still more than 300 Ming and Qing style mansions.

Maolin is located in the mountainous area of southern Anhui, in the center of Huangshan Mountain and Taiping Lake, and belongs to Xuancheng City, Anhui Province. It is an important town in the southwest of Jingxian County, 36 kilometers away from the county seat, with a total area of 233 square kilometers and a township area of 2.6 square kilometers.

Maolin is located in Jingxian County, southern Anhui Province. Because there are many official families in history, life is extremely exquisite. In the traditional rural banquet, a whole set of dishes is naturally formed, and it is said that there are "twelve bowls" and "eight bowls". Because everyone knows and loves them, these dishes have been handed down to this day. In Jingxian County, most people who attract guests in the name of local dishes pretend to be Maolin local dishes and Maolin family banquet dishes.

According to legend, Wu Fangpei was from Maolin, and he was a scholar in 49 years of Qing Qianlong. He used to be Zuodu Imperial Doctor and Guanglu Doctor. He is a first-class civil servant. When he retired from his hometown, he brought back two excellent chefs from Beijing. There is a man named Pan Xi 'en, a scholar in the 16th year of Jiaqing, and a doctor named Pan Cun Rong Lu. When he returned to his hometown, the emperor gave the court a set of recipes and two chefs. In this way, Maolin diet has both the nature of mountains and rivers and the true story of imperial cuisine. The combination of folk characteristics, royal demeanor and the flavor of the ruling and opposition parties has become the unique culture of Maolin diet.

12 bowl

The order of serving at the banquet is: Zi-Stewed hoof; Ugly cold salad; Yin-three fresh soup; Tang Maochang; Steamed meat with aged powder; Fourth, pure yam soup; Noon paste; Weizi cake; Shen-braised fish pieces; You-braised pork; Hey-cooking; Yuan haipu Why do recipes have to be arranged by earthly branches? This symbolizes that Maolin's food culture is inclusive and absorbs the strengths of many families.

The upper part of the pork leg

A lively banquet

Stewed hoof

"Twelve bowls of Maolin", the top dish is this "braised hoof". Yi language, pictophonetic characters. Beside the shape is "bone", which is connected with meat; Next to the voice is "Next". Read the third sound. This word is a dialect word, awkward and thigh-shaped. Especially the meat on the thigh of a pig, which is also called "hoof".

"hoof" refers to the source of materials; "Braised in soy sauce" refers to the cooking method. The combination of the two is "hoofing". Braised hoof mustache is the best of local fine pig breeds, with a hair body of 150 kg and a length of 60 kg in one year. What is "dug" from four thighs is called "truth". Among them, the two front legs are called "Zheng Zhou"; The two hind legs are called "secondary weeks". Anything "dug" from other parts is called a "fake". The hoof is "dug", usually about 3 kg.

Wash and scrape the hooves first, boil the whole soup and fry it until golden brown. Spread red yeast, add rock sugar, and cook soup for two hours in a hurry. When it is half cooked, add star anise and other seasonings, some of which are covered with tofu skin and stewed with charcoal. Depending on the thickness of pork skin, it varies from half an hour to an hour. You must scoop soup from the pot with a spoon from time to time, and then pour it back on the noodles to keep them smooth and prevent wrinkles. This is called "Gai Tang".

Under normal circumstances, the taste of a banquet, a chef's kung fu and a braised hoof can be roughly seen. The guests gently clamped the ends of chopsticks, and everyone picked up the meat and ate it. At the same time, they saw it from their eyes, tasted it from their mouths and immediately commented on it. It is really "good knowledge of cooking".

Ugly cold salad

The first dish of "Twelve Bowls of Maolin" is "Stewed Toilet", which is full of belt meat, but a little oily. And the second course of "Twelve Bowls of Maolin": "Cold salad". Compared with "braised hoof", it is only a combination of meat and vegetables, and the shade is suitable. "Cold salad" is the homonym of "two companions". Cold dishes are mixed and eaten by two people. Marriage and longevity are the most suitable, and young couples will always be partners.

"Cold" dishes, the main ingredients are water chestnut, spinach and old soybeans; The ingredient is tofu skin; Seasoning: salt, sugar and sesame oil. First, wash a big fresh water chestnut, peel it and slice it, then wash, roll and cut the spinach, add stewed old soybeans and softened tofu skin, add more sugar and a little salt, drop sesame oil and mix. A salty and sweet, light and refreshing "cold salad" is completed.

Yin Sam sun decoction

The third course of "Twelve Bowls of Maolin" is "Three Fresh Soups". Ingredients: pork liver; Ingredients: "three fresh"-chestnut or lotus seeds, yam, mushrooms (dried); Seasoning: rock sugar, salt, monosodium glutamate. Mainly mixed with three materials. It's time to wash, scrape, peel, soak, stew and cut. Then boil water as the base material, first put mushrooms and pork liver, then put chestnut yam, and then put seasoning. Spoon evenly and put in a bowl. A bowl of steaming, delicious and delicious "three fresh soup" was presented to the guests.

Maochang decoction

In Twelve Bowls of Maolin, the fourth lane: "Intestinal soup". Cut the pig intestines, wash them, cut them into sections, and simmer them with canned pottery meat and charcoal until they are slightly thick, but it is just right without any effort. Add a little salt and chopped green onion when cooking. The main points of this dish are: first, the odor of the intestine must be removed without washing the bitterness of the intestine; Second, the soup can't be stewed, and it must be crystal clear; Third, don't stew the intestines tightly or rotten, and pay attention to the heat.

Steamed pork with old powder

Lane 5 of Twelve Bowls in Maolin: "Steamed Meat with Powder". Ingredients: pork belly ribs; Ingredients: spiced cooked rice noodles. Seasoning: salt, sugar, soy sauce, chopped green onion. First, cut the meat into small pieces, add salt, sugar and soy sauce, mix well, stir for one hour, mix well with rice flour and ginseng, and put it on a steamer (backed by soft tofu skin to prevent leakage and increase fragrance) for one or two hours. When the pork belly oil oozes out slowly, it moistens the cooked rice noodles, and the bones and rice noodles are fragrant together, and the meat pieces are stuck with oil powder and eaten together with chopped green onion.

Pure silicon yam

"Stewed hoof" has been served, and "steamed pork with powder" has also been used. Guests' stomachs are inevitably a little greasy. Then, a bowl of "scraping oil" but not hurting the stomach was served. This is the sixth bowl of "Twelve Bowls of Maolin": "Pure Yam". In other words, yam is the main ingredient, which can be cooked and slightly mixed. Yam, whose real name is Huai Yam, is a perennial herb with creeping stems and cylindrical tuberous roots. It is rich in starch and protein, and it is the top grade of mats. It can strengthen the spleen and benefit the stomach yin, and it can also be light and greasy. Why does yam still have its real name? According to Compendium of Materia Medica, in order to avoid Tang Daizong's taboo, it was changed to "potato medicine" and the word "yam" was deleted. In order to avoid Zhao's taboo, the word "potato" was removed, and finally it was called "yam"

Noodle sauce powder

The seventh course is the "paste powder" which is also called "Maolin three musts" with "Stewed hoof and steamed meat". Ingredients: colored lean meat; Ingredients: Broiler, sweet potato powder (preferably fern root powder or kudzu root powder); Seasoning: peanut powder, Jiang Mo, chopped green onion, shrimp, rice vinegar, salt, sugar and monosodium glutamate. First, stew lean meat and chicken into silk juice and remove the bones. Add all seasonings and thicken with sweet potato powder into a paste. Thick but not wrapped, slippery but not flowing, thick and even, you can see five-color spices. Sweet and salty, nutritious, smooth and refreshing, suitable for all ages. Not dry or thin, half-meat and half-vegetarian, eat it warm, protect and nourish the stomach. Paste powder, also known as "Maolin paste", together with "braised pig's trotters" and "steamed pork with powder", is only authentic by Maolin chefs and is known as the "three wonders of Maolin" in the world. Like other nine dishes, only Maolin chefs can cook original dishes, so it is difficult to find such delicious food when you leave Xikou. No wonder some people say, "A bowl of muddled Maolin paste makes a clean Maolin people!"

Weizi cake

Also known as Gao Descendants. Son, pun intended, refers to both eggs (Maolin people call eggs "chickens", which means the son of chickens, referred to as "sons") and "sons" of human descendants. Cake, pun intended, not only refers to the "nine-corner cake" with egg pancakes cut into diamonds as a delicious snack in Maolin Street, but also has the same sound as "Gao". Ingredients: earth eggs; Ingredients: minced lean meat. Seasoning: chopped green onion, Jiang Mo, vegetable oil and salt. Break a few eggs, drain the water in the pot, add lean meat, chopped green onion, Jiang Mo and salt, and beat into a thick paste; Then heat the pan, pour the oil, drain the egg paste, put it in the pan and bake it into pancakes. The pancakes are even in thickness, with egg yolk on both sides, and cut into diamond-shaped pieces after taking out the pan; Then put it in a large pot, add water and stew for half an hour to make the cake coagulate, get holes, peel and taste. Soup and water. Eat a cake, egg meat, onion and ginger, delicious and strong, layered with old skin and tender meat; Have some soup, it's slightly spicy and salty.

Braised fish in brown sauce

Ingredients: carp; Seasoning: salt, vegetable oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, Jiang Mo, chopped green onion, monosodium glutamate and Chili powder. Clean carp, cut into pieces, heat in a pan, pour oil, stir fry, pour rice vinegar and soy sauce to remove fishy smell and color, add water and white sugar,

Jiang Mo, Chili powder, boil for a while, put a little monosodium glutamate in front of the pot, and decorate the pot with chopped green onion.

Ni-braised pork

Ingredients: lean meat; Ingredients: sauerkraut. Seasoning: marinade, Chili powder. Firstly, clean the lean meat, cut it into pieces, put it into the pot, drain the water, boil the soup, take it out of the pot, pour out the cooked soup, put it into the marinade, add water and dot it with slow fire, then put it into the pot, cool it when the marinade is mature and slice it; Sauté ed sauerkraut with Chili powder, put half a bowl of substrate, cover the braised pork slices evenly on it, and serve to entertain guests.

Xu snacks

Ingredients: pork belly, dried bamboo shoots; Ingredients: soy sauce qianzi; Seasoning: salt, lard and sugar. First, soak the dried bamboo shoots, stew them, wash and filter them, cut them into sections, and shred them in qianzi for later use. Heat lard to make a base, stir-fry pork belly to get oil, add water bamboo and qianzi, add appropriate amount of salt, a little sugar, heat stew, fragrant oil, My Sweetie, and serve in bowls.

Ocean drift circle

First, add glutinous rice, Jiang Mo and onion rice into the meat paste, knead them into meatballs the size of marbles, cook them in a boiling pot, add salt, sugar and broth, and then take them out of the pot.

At this point, all the "Twelve Bowls of Maolin" have been served. The whole table is half meat and half vegetarian, and the ingredients and soup are well balanced. "Half thin and half dry, half water and half mountain." Chopsticks and spoons are used together to enrich and moisten. The above twelve bowls are all traditional "main courses" and also have "plates". Generally, peanuts, preserved eggs or salted duck eggs, fruits or canned food, fried square cakes, etc. There are no rules, it all depends on the skillful skill of the chef.

There is a very important premise to do a good job of "Twelve Bowls in Maolin": all vegetarian dishes and raw materials must be local to Maolin. Shan Ye pheasants, fresh fruits, ferns, bamboo shoots and Chinese toons are all sent from heaven, and they are all in front of the door and behind the house; Stewed cook the meat, eggs, mushrooms, peppers, soybeans, green vegetables and tofu are all produced in China. Rice, oil, salt and delicious food can still be cooked neatly. Even ordinary people celebrate the New Year, which is the way they cook and eat at home.

In these twelve bowls, except for four essential dishes, such as roast pork, steamed rice noodles, batter and cakes, other dishes can also be changed. For example, cook the meat can be replaced with "lion's head", that is, pork balls, stewed meat with sea cucumber or whole chicken, and mixed vegetables can be replaced with cold jellyfish skin. Besides twelve bowls, you can also add dishes, and the number of dishes is not limited. Usually, you can add "eight-treasure rice, crystal sugar lotus seed soup, small fried meat in home cooking, boiled meat or stir-fried dishes to the restaurant menu, and sober up and serve in home cooking.

This set of dishes has no commercial name, but it is related to tradition. The dishes should be rich, the big bowl should be full, and all the dishes that the guests like to eat should be added for later use, so that the guests can eat and drink enough. Cooking should master the temperature, so that it is suitable for all ages and everyone is satisfied. The taste of dishes is different from that of home-cooked dishes, which are mainly salty, spicy and sour, while most of the dishes in the twelve bowls are sweet, which makes people feel strange to eat. The number of twelve also means that every month is good, every year is rich, and guests of different genera will be happy and healthy. Satisfied the guests' good wishes of sharing happiness and praying.