Lin Qingxuan: Human Character from Food

Sometimes life is so simple that I am surprised at myself. In particular, the desire for food is almost completely transcendent, and when faced with food that other people consider to be very good, I don't feel moved at all. On the contrary, in the streets and alleys of their own found some unobtrusive things, there is a feeling of amazement, and slowly savored a philosophy, as I often say, good things are not necessarily expensive, bland things have their own flavor.

In Taipei, a dark alley on Siwei Road, there are several Shandong hometowns open steamed buns store, said store is because it is really small enough, often the boss is the shopkeeper, but also steamed buns. These steamed buns store, morning and afternoon open cage once, open the cage when the water is filled with gas, some of the old townspeople addicted to eating steamed buns have been waiting in line outside.

Hot, strong Shandong steamed buns, a only five dollars, that just from the cage drawer by the boss of the big hand grabbed out of the steamed buns, there is a kind of traditional countryside aroma, very tasty, but also very sturdy, ordinary people can not eat a meal of this kind of steamed buns. I eat the steamed buns as a snack, the pure wheat flavor is evocative, sometimes walk a long way, just to buy a steamed bun.

The steamed buns in this alley are probably the best steamed buns in Taipei, only to be forgotten. Some steamed bun stores also sell vegetarian oil cake, a big one, can be steamed, fried or baked, and when eaten with thin rice, it is really a delicacy on earth.

Speaking of oil cakes, in the back of the Dinghao market, there is a dumpling seller Beiping Hall, famous for "hand grasping cake", the cake is baked with a basket, the cake is the whole pick loose, and sheep and fragrant, with a handful of hand grasping to eat. I occasionally pass by, I buy two cakes home, while drinking Narcissus tea, while grasping the cake to eat, if encountered a rainy day, it is more feel that the cake has an indescribable flavor, as if it is the rain in the green shoots of the same.

When it comes to daffodil tea, it is found in the road stalls on Xinyi Road. For those who are accustomed to drinking jasmine tablets, daffodil tea is even more upwardly elevated, as if sitting on top of a mountain and listening to waterfalls, daffodil tea without losing its flavor, still retaining a clean and fragrant temperament, which is really hard to imagine for those who have never had a drink.

Shui Shien tea is good, a friend of the frozen tofu is better. He went on a good frozen top oolong tea stew hard tofu, to the tofu into a golden brown when the fish up, cut into a side by side, with a white porcelain plate, eat with salted crispy peanuts, tasting such tofu, sitting in the building is like sitting on the weeds, there is a refreshing aroma.

Sometimes food can be like a fan in a painting, or a sketch in an article, a violin solo in music, although the pattern is small, the wisdom is very full. Frozen tofu is so, in the South Gate Market, there is a North and South goods sold in the "osmanthus sauce" is also so, that osmanthus sauce with a thumb-sized bottle, it is incredibly small, but once you open the osmanthus aroma woke up from the bottle, fine osmanthus petals are still like alive, just in the vase fell asleep.

Osmanthus sauce can be added to any drink or tea, add a bamboo stick to pick out a drop, a cup of water will be moistened by the fragrance, like the autumn courtyard in the full bloom of osmanthus, the air is full of floral fragrance. I only know that there is honey, plums and osmanthus flowers in osmanthus sauce, but I don't know how to make it. When I asked the owner, he smiled but didn't answer. "Could it be an ancestral recipe?" The heart rose such a thought, but did not want to ask in detail.

If the cinnamon sauce is a work of art, the cassia is a work of art. On Ren'ai Road, I sometimes come across an old man selling cassia seeds, picking two large baskets covered with white cloth, the first basket is written "cassia seeds", the latter basket is written "Chinese coffee". The first one is a basket with "cassia" and the second one with "Chinese coffee". When selling, they use a long wooden ladle, which is quite ancient.

I heard that "cassia seeds" is a mountain herb shrub, the seeds are ripe, hot fried, brewed with eyesight nourishing the kidney effect, but I buy cassia seeds just like the old man's way of buying and selling. And reminds me of my childhood in the mountains picking cassia seeds in the countryside in Taiwan, cassia seeds called "rice tea", summer night drink is always with a sky full of fireflies into the throat.

For people who can come up with some strange ways to make elegant food, I always admire, in the Shida Road alley there is a store selling yogurt, the boss told me that he once experimented with making yogurt, in order to make the cheese fermentation, put the cheese in the pot, wrapped in a quilt, and at night, also held sleeping, and then he found out to do the best temperature and time of the yogurt. Now, of course, he did not use the quilt, but he made the cheese white and fine like cotton, the entrance into the spring, if not earlier to hold the quilt, I am afraid that there is no such fire.

What goes with that beautiful yogurt? The rye bread is not dry like other breads, but contains some water with a strong flavor. Once I asked the cook, I learned that it is made of rye and malt, and the malt is watery, which makes the rye bread there unique, and the cook who came up with the idea of adding the malt had a malt in his heart.

Food is originally like this, people always choose their own preferences, which are often very close to their own character and nature, so from a person's food can be seen his personality.

But not quite, in the streets and alleys of Tonghua there is a stall, set up two vats, the right side of a tank to sell "honey tea", the left side of a tank to sell "bitter tea", honey tea is sweet to the top of the bitter tea is bitter to the bottom of some people love sweet, but some people love that kind of bitterness. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands dirty.

"There is also one kind of person, he first drink a cup of bitter tea, and then drink a cup of honey tea, both have to taste ." The boss said, but he also laughed: "But I've never seen people who drink honey tea and then drink bitter tea, see the world people love the first bitter after the sweet, do not like the first sweet after the bitter it!"

Later, I became the first to drink honey tea, and then drink bitter tea, the boss anxiously asked me how I feel?

"When you drink bitter tea, you can especially recall the flavor of honey tea." I said, and we both laughed out loud.

The onlookers next to me applauded me joyfully.