Zhenjiang "Three Monsters" and "Three Mountains"?

There are three famous mountains in Zhenjiang, namely Jinshan, Jiao Shan and Beigushan, all of which are scenic spots.

Zhenjiang Sanguai, vinegar is not bad, meat is not a dish, and the lid is cooked in a noodle pot.

Zhenjiang three strange

Zhenjiang, a famous cultural city in the south of the Yangtze River with a long history, is known as "the first mountain in the world" with many scenic spots and historical sites, beautiful natural scenery and magnificent landscapes. The most famous scenic spots are the three mountains along the Yangtze River-the steep Gubei Mountain, the beautiful Jinshan Mountain and the majestic Jiao Shan, which are collectively called "Jingkou Three Mountains".

The famous city is famous for its delicious food since ancient times, and the legend of "Three Monsters" in Zhenjiang is ancient and charming. There is a catchy "Three Strange Ballads" circulating in Zhenjiang: "The vinegar is not rotten, the meat is not ripe, and it is cooked in a noodle pot", so it is a pity not to go to the Great Wall and taste the "Three Strange".

Let's talk about the first strange: balsamic vinegar is not bad.

As the saying goes, seven things should be cooked: oil, salt, firewood, rice, sauce, vinegar and tea. Vinegar is the first of five flavors: sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and salty. Vinegar is a traditional acidic condiment in China. The ancients gave vinegar the reputation of "God of Food". For thousands of years, people have to add some vinegar when cooking, such as frying, frying, mixing and frying. , to fishy taste. If you taste crystal pig's trotters and crab soup packets, dip them in balsamic vinegar and add shredded ginger, you will feel fresh and fragrant. As for baked mandarin fish with vinegar, sweet and sour pork ribs, etc. , are famous dishes in Jiangsu, with unique flavor. When Su Dongpo, a poet and gourmet in the Song Dynasty, tasted shad in Jiao Shan, Zhenjiang, he wrote a poem praising: "Braised whitebait with ginger and purple vinegar, the snow bowl is more than two feet high, the peach blossom is still spring, and the taste is better than perch."

In China, wine-making has a long history. The ancient book "Book of Rites" recorded in "Talking about the Public" that "Song Xianggong lost his wife. Sugar is meat sauce and acyl is vinegar. It is estimated that vinegar has been brewed in China for at least 2,600 years. Zhenjiang balsamic vinegar is famous at home and abroad for its "sour but not astringent, sweet but slightly sweet, strong color and fresh taste" and has won many awards at home and abroad.

When it comes to making vinegar, there is an old legend circulating in Zhenjiang. It is said that vinegar was created by Du Kang's son Heita. That year, after Du Kang invented brewing, he found that the water quality in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in Zhenjiang was good, which was conducive to brewing. So he and his family came to Xiaoyu Lane in Zhenjiang and opened a small winery to make wine and sell wine. Black tower is boundless in strength, simple and honest and hardworking, and all the heavy and rough work at home is covered. At first, I didn't know the purpose of distiller's grains, so Heita put distiller's grains in a big barrel and poured it into two loads of water in the Yangtze River. Tired, I took a jar and drank eight or nine pounds of home-brewed rice wine, and then fell asleep. In my dream, it seems that an old man said, Heita, on the second1day, at sunset, you have to make sauce. When I woke up, it turned out to be a dream and I didn't care. After more than 20 days, the house was full of fragrance, and Du Kang and his son were puzzled. Looking around, the original distiller's grains have become a sweet and sour sauce. What did Du Kang say it was called? Heita said: "The distiller's grains have been soaked for 21 days, and only when there is a single time can the pulp taste so good. Isn't the word "vinegar" added in 21 days? Let's call it vinegar! " The story of Du Kang brewing vinegar has been handed down. Until today, vinegar is still 2 1 day.

Zhenjiang aromatic vinegar contains 17 kinds of amino acids by scientific determination. The main organic acids are acetic acid, lactic acid, pyruvic acid, formic acid, malic acid, citric acid, succinic acid, monooxydipropionic acid and so on. They are produced by fermentation of plant raw materials and are necessary for human metabolism. Organic acids can play a good role in promoting metabolism, diuresis and intracellular oxidation and reduction. Zhenjiang balsamic vinegar also contains a lot of carbohydrates and a little alcohol. Carbohydrate, as the source and carrier of energy, as one of the elements of metabolic intermediates and as the regulator of protein hydrolysis, plays an important role in human physiology.

Speaking of balsamic vinegar, let's talk about the second strange dish of improper meat.

When it comes to cooked pig's trotters, you can see them everywhere. Braised trotters, spiced trotters, sauced trotters and broth trotters have their own characteristics. However, with strict selection of materials, fine processing and delicious taste, Zhenjiang's crystal hoof should be the first to be popularized. Crystal pig's trotters are delicious in meat color, white and smooth in skin, frozen in brine, crispy in meat, fat but not greasy, thin and toothless. Therefore, there is a poem in the neighborhood saying, "The scenery is infinite and golden, and I love Beijing meat more. It is not greasy or crisp, and the crystal dishes are slightly red and tender." Crystal vegetable hoof is a flavor dish developed on the basis of the ancient dish "boiled pig" and crystal cold pottery. "Boiled pig" and crystal vegetable hooves come down in one continuous line, and the materials, hooves, salt and pepper are basically the same, and the production method is basically the same. They all use old brine and alum to clarify the original soup and freeze it. The difference is that "boiled pigs" do not need salt water, while crystal vegetables and hooves use salt water. So some people call it "Yao hoof" and "Yao meat", while others call it "nitrate meat" and "frozen hoof". There is also a beautiful legend among the people. One of Zhang, who went to Yaochi to attend the flat peach party of the Queen Mother, passed by Zhenjiang and smelled the smell of vegetable hoofs. He quickly got off the donkey and came down to eat the vegetable hoof, even forgetting the flat peach party, so it was delicious. Eating pig's trotters with shredded ginger and balsamic vinegar tastes better.

According to the records of Dantu county, Zhenjiang crystal hoof has a history of more than 300 years. Wang Xiang, a folk literary artist in Zhenjiang, wrote an article about the earliest recorded meat in Zhenjiang. There is such a passage in the article: The words in Sixty Stories by Ding, a beginner in the late Ming and Qing Dynasties, can also be proved. The twenty-seventh chapter of synopsis of the golden chamber (continued from Jin Ping Mei) and the third newspaper "Dong Yujiao has a bright moon and sails. After a while, the bartender added a new seat and eight bowls of dishes; It was a plate of tender white fish, a plate of roast fat goose, a plate of tender steamed and glittering boiled hoof, and a plate of Jinhua ham and bacon, red, white and bright; A plate of lobster sauce fried gluten, spelled with silver silk cake fresh; Then a plate of fish-scale shad steamed with red distiller's grains, and a plate of Zhenjiang roasted turtle. The peeled amber is like an apron and soft as fat. Another plate of Suzhou crispy snails, two large plates of crispy crystal horns, and a bowl in front of everyone. This dish of Elsholtzia crystal cooking hoof is known as the crystal dish hoof. If you take the exam again, its history will be earlier. In the early 1980s, Lu Jiu Mang, curator of Zhenjiang Museum, told the author that if there were nitrates in China, there would have been bacon, but its production method gradually evolved into today's production method.

There are as many as fourteen processing procedures for making crystal dish hoofs: mainly selecting hoofs (pig's front hoof is the best), removing hair and bones, poking irregularly on lean meat with iron solder several times (in order not to puncture the skin), then evenly sprinkling nitric acid water (with low concentration), kneading with coarse salt, stacking them layer by layer in a curing tank, curing for 7 days (with the change of climate, the amount of salt and the curing days are the same) and adding water.

There are many exquisite dishes and hooves. In order to meet the needs of customers with different tastes and fully reflect the characteristics and flavor of color, aroma, taste and shape of dishes. Different parts of the hoof can be cut into various pieces: two pieces of meat above the front hoof claw are cut into pieces, which are like eyes and soft and delicious, and are called eye vegetables; The meat next to the front paws is cut and bent like a jade belt, and its meat is extremely fresh and tender, which is called a jade belt ditch dish; There are fat and thin parts on the front paws, which are really delicious and fragrant, called triangular ribs; A clean piece of lean meat, with a thin bone on the upper part of the hind hoof, is called Tim Deng's stick waist, which is fragrant and tender, and is most popular with people who like to eat lean meat. Pig's trotters can be used as the main course of the banquet; It can also be used to cook hoof noodles when eating morning tea; It can also be cut into pieces and put on a plate for breakfast, so there is a saying that "hooves are not vegetables". Crystal trotters are not only delicious on the table, but also good gifts for friends and relatives. Put a banquet vinegar (Zhenjiang Hengshun balsamic vinegar) in the crystal hoof gift box, which is convenient to carry, prolong the shelf life and facilitate tasting.

Let's talk about meat first, and then talk about the third monster: the cover of the noodle pot is boiled.

"Cooking the cover in the noodle pot" is a creation in Zhenjiang cooking skills. Pot cover noodles, the noodles used are "jumping noodles". The so-called "jumping noodles" means that the kneaded noodles are placed on the chopping board, and the operator sits on one end of the bamboo pole and the other end is fixed on the chopping board, jumping up and down, dancing acrobatics, repeatedly squeezing into thin dough and cutting it into noodles with a knife. This noodle has pores, and the marinade is easy to taste, chewy and unique in taste.

As for the name of noodle soup, there are many varieties. If saury is listed in early spring, the new noodle soup should be "saury noodles"; There are "long fish noodles" in summer; There are all kinds of "covers" in autumn and winter. The noodle soup that you usually eat is red noodle soup. It is said that people in Zhenjiang didn't need a pot cover before, but sister-in-law Zhang of a small noodle restaurant accidentally covered the pot cover and put the soup pot cover into the noodle pot by mistake, which had an unexpected effect. This method was used later. When the noodles are put into the boiling water pot, covering the noodle soup with a small pot cover can achieve the following benefits: First, the raw noodles are put in portions, and the cooked noodles are not sticky and accurate in specifications; Second, when the noodle soup is boiled, it is easy to remove floating foam and keep the noodle soup from turbidity; Third, noodles are easy to cook, not raw or rotten. According to the local tradition, when customers come to the store to eat noodles, they usually bring all kinds of vegetarian dishes, such as pork tenderloin, pork liver, beef, eggs, fresh bamboo shoots, green peppers, Chuanxiong, small vegetables and so on. Cooked in a noodle pot, and then mixed with noodles to eat. For the convenience of customers, some shops have prepared "clear". The so-called green noodle is a kind of noodle sauce made of various vegetables, which can be divided into raw and cooked. Raw garlic flower, garlic paste, pickles (spring pickles); Cooked vegetables include Chinese cabbage, Ligusticum chuanxiong and green pepper (washed and cooked with boiling water, cut into shreds or segments). In short, choose different vegetables to make green heads with the change of seasons. Due to the dissolution of various meat and vegetable flavors in noodle soup, noodles taste more delicious and are deeply loved by diners. No wonder when Emperor Qianlong went down to the south of the Yangtze River, he tasted this noodle in Zhenjiang and was full of praise for its delicacy.

Zhou Boyi, a scholar from Zhenjiang in the late Qing Dynasty, said in his book "Yangzhou Dream": "We cherish the expenses and sit in the teahouse of the teaching field early, and dozens of guys buy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil to mix under the surface, saying that we love cleanliness." The so-called "dry mixing" means that the cooking method is quite special: first, the noodles are cooked in a noodle pot, then the noodles are picked into clear water with a bamboo spoon to make soup, dried with a bamboo spoon, poured into a bowl, and mixed with spices such as sesame oil, soy sauce, shrimp skin and garlic. Eating in the mouth is tough, refreshing and delicious. This kind of noodles is very popular in summer. It can be eaten alone or as a side dish when eating porridge.

When we read and taste the "three strange songs", we will appreciate the charm of the "three strange songs" more.