Noodles in Shanxi (Story)

Shaved Noodles - Knife-shaved Noodles is the most representative noodle in Shanxi, which can be regarded as one of the best in the world and has a history of hundreds of years. Legend has it that after the Mongol Tartars invaded the Central Plains, they established the Yuan Dynasty. In order to prevent the "Han Chinese" from revolting, they confiscated all the metal from every household, and stipulated that ten households should use a kitchen knife to cut vegetables and cook in turn, and then return it to the Tartars for safekeeping after use. One day at noon, an old woman made a dough of sticks and sorghum flour and asked the old man to fetch the knife. As a result, the knife was taken by someone else, the old man had to return, when out of the gate of the Tartar, his foot was touched by a piece of thin iron, he picked up and put in his pocket. When he got home, the pot was boiling and the whole family was waiting for the knife to cut noodles. But the knife did not retrieve, the old man anxious round and round, suddenly remembered the iron in his arms, took out and said: use this iron to cut noodles! The wife took a look, the iron is thin and soft, muttered: how can such a soft thing cut noodles. The old man said angrily, "If you can't cut it, cut it". "Chop" word reminded the wife, she put the dough on a board, left hand up, the right hand holding the iron, standing in the pot of boiling water, "chop" noodles, a piece of noodles fell into the pot, cooked and fished into a bowl, poured with marinade for the old man to eat first, the old man ate while saying: The old man ate and said: "very good, very good, in the future do not have to go to get a kitchen knife to cut noodles." The word spread from one to ten and from ten to a hundred, spreading all over the land of Jinzhong. So far, Pingyao, Jiexiu, Fenyang, Xiaoyi and other counties in Jinzhong, regardless of men and women will cut noodles.