Shen Jialu "The Old Taste of Shanghai, An Inconclusive Story

Diet is a big deal for ordinary people. Three meals a day go hand in hand with health, with mood, and with life. When you are full, you want to eat well, and when you eat well, you want to eat out of flavor.

The old flavor of a place, there are always endless stories, it is not only with the legend, food, terroir, customs, etc., but also with the history of the region, the humanities accumulation, related to our family, and personal history of growth.

The Sequel to the Old Taste of Shanghai by Shen Jia Lu treads on this track, frequently touching readers' memories and awakening the return of taste buds. We can then understand the flavor of Shanghai through several stories.

The Mid-Autumn Taste of Jiangnan Water

The reason why the old taste is reminiscent of the past is that half of it stems from the fat in the body is thin and barren, and half of it is slowly precipitated by virtue of time. A British writer said: the past time is good. The beautiful imagination and the small fortune of falling through, inadvertently for the past covered with a layer of golden light, so, Grandma braised pork on the table to occupy the C seat.

When I grew up, I ate Xinya's Rose Cream, Coconut Cream, and Apricot House's Superior Five Kernels, and realized that there is a sky beyond the sky, and that the small mooncakes with mottled pastry in the small street store could not be expected to be the back of their minds. As a "national memory", mooncakes with five kernels have been criticized and criticized a lot lately, which makes people angry. Do you know how troublesome it is to make a five-kernel mooncake? It is a big project just to gather all the good nuts and melons together. Plus tongue enjoyment, layers and layers of surprises, middle-aged and elderly fans of it never leave, but also a salute to the spirit of craftsmanship.

In recent years, the market competition is fierce, the moon cake flower head turn really fast, from crayfish to cheese and bacon, from pickled dukkha to flow heart milk yellow, singing and dancing, colorful clouds chasing the moon. But the focus is mostly on the filling, not much mention of the crust. In fact, it is the combination of filling and crust that makes for a rich and flavorful seasonal dish. Nowadays, most of the new mooncake fillings come from delicacies, and whether they taste better with the crust is something you have to eat to find out. This year, I had a handmade mooncake with two types of crusts, one crispy and one soft, and a double filling, a combination of chestnut and bean paste, green bean and old fragrant yellow (Buddha's hand), with a beautiful shape, clear contours, elegant style, and timeless flavor, which sincerely interprets the essence of the mooncake.

Chinese people like to commemorate a festival or season by chewing on certain foods, a cultural directive that has been passed down from generation to generation of the farming civilization. In the beautiful expectations of market prosperity, *** consumption, boosting domestic demand is still in line with the wishes of the general public, so we have to have in mind that, in addition to moon cakes, there are still many flavors worth enjoying when the autumn is high.

For example, the soybean, taro, salt water a boil, the most flavorful seasonal vegetables, soft and sticky. Beans to "cattle pedal flat" for the best, sticky and soft out of the same kind of many. Sugar taro carrots are not eaten by many people now, in the past is the patent of the old granny. Taro boiled to half-cooked and peeled, back to the pot to cook until crispy but not rotten, add brown sugar to enhance the flavor and color, and then pour a small spoonful of sugar cinnamon after the bowl. The old granny solemnly served it to her young grandson, and every wrinkle on her face seemed to be singing a childhood song. As the years go by, this face will be turned into a bronze relief in the memory of the young grandson.

Orange and yellow divided into orange and green, the lotus pond to stay heron. After the gorgonian out of the water, the fruit is bigger than a pomegranate, the town in the afternoon, sitting in the river under the porch shed of the old lady carefully peeled out the bejeweled chicken head rice, bagged for sale, accidentally peeled and broken, keep your own to eat. Some tourists think it is too expensive to pick the cheaper dried goods, which is the standard "foreign plate". Fresh chicken head rice elasticity, glutinous nature and the style of Qingfen, other ingredients can not be replaced, and sweet peas, river shrimp stir-fried together, red, white, green color pleasing to the eye, taste elegant, once a year to eat on the satisfaction.

Sun-dried chicken head rice in the aroma and taste are inferior to the seasonal fresh, can only burn gorgonzola congee, burn mung bean soup, or do gorgonzola cake. Gorgonzola cake is also a kind of Jiahu fine point, but not easy to do in their own homes. Not long ago at the Xingguo Hotel ate a gorgonzola cake, to sugar pickled pears into the filling, slipped into a small dish of peach gelatin soup, as if the re-creation of Penglai Fairyland.

Eat shrimp wild rice, stewed wild rice, bad oil wild rice, pond root, water chestnut, water chestnut. When I was a kid, I didn't have the conditions to eat seasonal fruits regularly, and my dad would hold two sections of old lotus root home from the grocery store, wash and peel the skin, and put the slices in a tall bowl, and eat them while reading a book, and the spider's web of fine threads would often be tied at the corner of the mouth, and this is the "lotus root breaks the threads," ah. Raw lotus root slices are not very sweet, but in the crispness is better than the autumn pear, the juice in the teeth in and out, quite interesting. The whole lotus root is filled with soaked glutinous rice, warmed up and cut into thick slices, like agate embedded in white jade, poured with osmanthus sugar oil, can be served.

The lotus root is best in one section, but the market sells more than two sections. Cut the section, you can see that most of the nine holes. Nine holes is the pond lotus root, also called white flower lotus root, if it is eleven holes, is the field lotus root. There are also seven holes, called safflower lotus root, which is especially valuable. The lotus root is juiced with pear and sugarcane to make a thirst-quenching drink.

"Pei pond fresh products, the first in the fall and diamonds" (Zheng Yimei words). The red rhombus has sharp corners, the Suzhou people commonly known as "water guest", "Youyang Miscellany Chopper" that there are two horns for the rhombus, there are three corners, four corners for the air, the later mixed called "rhombus", eaten raw with the pond lotus root is as fresh and lovely. After peeling the rhombus fingers were dyed red, to the next day to wash thoroughly, but the countryside girl happy.

Lotus roots, diamonds, water chestnuts, etc. can also invite sweet peas, wild rice, black fungus, etc. to join, to do a plate of seasonal stir-fry, not big to send rice, with rice wine has a clean air.

Xin Qiji "and Zhao Jinchen send bad crab" poem: "the human world is slow and urgent need to talent, Guo Suo can make the wine ban open. A water and a mountain for fifteen days, never can things do not rush each other." Mei Yaochen's poem "Wu Zhengzhong Leaves Live Crabs on the 10th Day of February": "Every year, I sell river crabs to the rice collectors, but in February, I can see where they come from. The red cream in the belly is as fat as marrow, and the green shell in the storage tray is bigger than a cup." After the fall, the water temperature of rivers and lakes gradually cool, hairy crabs also completed the last molt.

Jiangnan's autumn is never short of river food, white fish, white shrimp, Mandarin fish, crucian carp, perch, mackerel, chub, snapper, eel ...... is not also very fat?

When will the moon come? In addition to mooncakes, we have many other beautiful things to share. Nowadays, we need to emphasize more on the relationship between human and nature, and to appreciate and pass on the Chinese civilization through festive food.

Bud ginger and purple vinegar sizzling anchovies

Into the restaurant dinner, often before the menu is opened, the waiter can not wait to ask: Mr., to a fish ah?

Shanghai people eat, fish is indispensable, to get a mouthful: the annual surplus. But what exactly to eat fish, but a lot of care, if you come to a star-spotted or Su Mei, the bill is inevitably alarmed; to a braised bream, not to avoid the shabby phase; squirrel Mandarin fish, sweet and sour has long been appetizing. So please will eat friends sip, rather choose bamboo shoots shell fish, halibut, (fish + back) fish, if there is a wild Mandarin fish, then take steamed or vinegar pepper it. If you invite your elders to dinner, and the time is in late spring or early summer, then take a shad.

Yellowtail has been known as the "king of fish" reputation, and the swordfish, blowfish and known as the "Yangtze River three fresh". Yellowtail for the river spawning migratory fish, due to the annual timing of the early summer into the river, punctual and trustworthy, the ancients in the creation of the word, on the right side of the word fish plus a "time" word and the name. Eaters around the Yangtze River Delta have a deep affection for anchovies, and steamed anchovies are a seasonal delicacy that arrives in early summer as promised. Yangtze River anchovies produced in Zhenjiang is the most famous, Su Gang cuisine anchovies appearances are much lower than Mandarin fish, silverfish, snakehead fish, to eat anchovies should go to Zhenyang Hall. Zhejiang also has shad to the Fuchun River produced by the most fertile, but it is very strange, in Hangzhou Louwailou such a museum is also very difficult to eat steamed anchovies. Guangdong Pearl River shad is also a moment of choice to Shunde Ganzhutan produced the best, but the Pearl River shad than the Yangtze River shad in the end a little inferior.

Yellowtail is very delicate, it is said that once the fisherman touched its scales, the goods immediately immobilized, so Su Shi called it "scaly fish". From the Ming dynasty Wanli years, the Yangtze River anchovy become tribute, to the Qing dynasty Kangxi years, anchovies have been listed as "Manchu feast" in the important dishes. Yellowtail out of the water in minutes to corruption, local officials came up with a trick: the shad sealed in cooked lard, by the fast horse one stop after another to fly the Imperial City, the scene and the Tang Dynasty to send lychee to Chang'an Bo Guifei Queen smiled sweetly similar.

Yellowtail is mainly produced in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it is said to be dangtu to CaiShiJi area of the cross river yellowtail taste best, known as the south of the water treasures, ancient tributes to the thing, for China's rare and valuable economic fish. Due to overfishing and ecological damage, following the Yangzi crocodile, Chinese sturgeon, porpoise, cochineal fish, the Yangtze River shad also suffered a population crisis.

Come to think of it, this biological crisis quietly began half a century ago. I remember when I was a child, I ate so many times, a great deal of noise, my mother will not lose time to tell the story of the old days when the clever daughter-in-law ruled the anchovy filial piety to the in-laws, she will be the fish scales with silk threads strung up one by one to cover the fish, and then the net oil cushion in the body of the fish underneath, can be said to be immaculate. If this kind of story were to be told in the present day, the youngsters would immediately spit on it. However, mom steamed the section of anchovies, is absolutely the world's most flavorful, net oil strands penetrate into the fish, rich and beautiful, even transparent scales can be sent into the tongue sip a few times. Finally, the soup at the bottom of the basin also refused to give up, mixed with rice to eat, the fish juice fresh through each grain of rice, full of happiness.

However, at that time there seems to be no supply of anchovies in the grocery store, relying on relatives and friends from Nanjing, Zhenjiang and other places to bring, and not the whole, only a section of the palm of your hand as wide as the silver scales, has been flickering in the depths of childhood memories.

In the 1980s, the Yangtze River shad was basically extinct. The world's largest Yangtze River rare fish farming enterprises in the Ocean Group from 1993, is committed to the Yangtze River rare fish breeding, release, protection and development, through the whole simulation of natural migration ecology, successful breeding of shad, swordfish, sturgeon, cochineal fish, four gill perch and other rare fish in the Yangtze River, so the shad back to the table.

China's Yangtze River shad and the general restaurant to bring indiscriminate Myanmar shad is very different, the Yangtze River shad worth recalling the part of three layers. The first layer of fish scales is shiny and melts in your mouth, rich in collagen and good for skin nourishment. The second layer is the gray fleshy layer under the fish scales, which has a dense texture and is rich in unsaturated fatty acids, which can lower cholesterol. The third layer is the white flesh of the fish, which is delicate and rich in protein.

It is said that the anchovy is steamed to preserve the original flavor, such as too carved steam and ancient method of steaming two, I personally prefer the ancient method of steaming, to the traditional soy sauce water in Jiangsu and Zhejiang as the basis for seasoning, through the invocation of salty and fresh flavor to highlight the freshness of Yangtze River anchovy fat and tender. Tai Diao Steaming, is the use of Xian Heng Restaurant's Tai Diao wine, and then blended with a little rice wine and good wine, not only to maintain the tenderness of the anchovy meat, but also with the help of the wine will be the anchovy's fat tenderness to the extreme. Of course, with today's cooking equipment in restaurants, smoking is also a good option.

Lu Xun love to eat the strip head cake

Autumn is the season of harvest, new rice, garden vegetables, fresh water, North and South fruits come ...... Autumn is also the season of cakes. In the countryside, the new grain rolled rice ground into powder, steamed a few cages of rice cakes to celebrate the harvest. In the city, queues line up from morning till night in front of old shops such as Shen Dacheng, Wang Jia Sha, and Qiao Jia Jie for red bean cakes, yellow muffins, sticky rice cakes, pine flower dumplings, sticky millet balls, double-stuffed dumplings, and rose squares...... There are also longevity peaches and muffins, which are essential to the old-school Shanghainese celebrating their birthdays. When Shanghainese people move to a new house, they must buy a lot of Ding Sheng cakes to give to their neighbors. Ting Sheng cake has a thin waist and two large ends, shaped like a carpenter's mortise and tenon for joining wooden boards. The words "Ding Sheng" and "Ding Tongue and Groove" sound alike, like a mortise and tenon hammered into place, and hold the promise of a long and secure stay in a new environment. Ting Sheng cake is made in pairs, full of joy, and the light red color of the red currant powder is shyly hiding on one side, but it is definitely the most eye-catching. Ting Sheng cake should be steamed and eaten softly, the cake skin is still fluffy, fine as quicksand bean paste filling has been sweet to the heart.

Of all the cakes, I love the striped head cake. The red bean paste filling is squeezed by the glutinous rice skin, and it seems to break out of the cocoon, and the bits of sugar osmanthus sprinkled on the surface often shimmer like gold under the setting sun, which gives a solid texture to the taste. This small fortune is easily accessible to every Shanghainese. Contemporaries of the literati recalled Lu Xun, saying that when Lu Xun stayed up late to write his manuscripts, his regular midnight snack was strip head cake. "Zaifu bought them before he rang the bedtime bell and sent them into his room, and prepared them even more abundantly on Saturday nights." This is X丏尊在《鲁迅翁杂忆》一文里说的。

Some people say that Lu Xun's love of sweets is a habit he developed while studying abroad. The sand between the fingers in the book "Shanghai on the tip of the tongue" is that: "Lu Xun so night after night to eat strip head cake, but not tired, I am afraid to need to childhood on the bottom of the stomach, right. He was a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, and the area around Jiangsu and Zhejiang is precisely the area occupied by sweet and sticky cakes."

My hometown is also in Shaoxing, and I've been used to eating glutinous rice dumplings since I was a kid. I've always thought that Lu Xun would have preferred a different kind of cake, the cowpea cake produced in Shaoxing. It is made of glutinous rice flour and cowpeas, kneaded with a kind of juice made from the leaves of the black rice tree, rolled into a long, thick strip, steamed in a cage, and then sliced after cooling. In terms of appearance, the body is black, a few highlights, simply a messy head of coarse clothing burning girl, but the taste is good, unique local flavor, but also special hunger. Placed in a bamboo rice basket hanging in the window, you can put a long time not bad. So shaoxing people go out, go to relatives, cowpea cake is often prepared dry food soil meter. Shaoxing also has a fire hot cake, in the food store by chance, probably has been categorized as a non-heritage project!

Because of the connection with Suzhou, you can also find the thinnest and most expensive honey cake in Shanghai pastry stores. In his book "Gusu Food Story", Wang Jiaju reveals that honey cake is a famous product of Taoxiangcun. During Emperor Qianlong's visit to the south of the Yangtze River, it was presented by the Suzhou region, and Qianlong ate it and praised it, and ordered Taoxiangcun to customize it and present it to the palace. The next thing is that we are tired of hearing the routine, the emperor ate the dragon's face with great joy, a stroke of the pen inscribed "Taoxiangcun" three words. "In the old days, Taoxiangcun, Ye affected and, Zhao Tianlu and other stores to undertake orders, send cakes to the door, and on the spot open cut, weighing, packaging." In recent years, the return of traditional culture, every time this time, the cake store door to buy Chongyang cake young people lined up in a long queue, a buy is several boxes, go home to honor their parents, the beauty of the thick.

In ancient times, when it was time to climb the mountain and tie a dogwood on the arm, it was said to be able to avoid disasters and solve problems. "Who will be healthy at this meeting next year? Drunkenly take a closer look at the dogwood." These two lines of Wang Wei and Du Fu's poem have become famous lines that have been passed down through the ages. In the Tang Dynasty, the literati climbed the heights and inserted cornelian cherry blossoms in groups, similar to today's autumn excursions. In the Song Dynasty, eating cakes was added to this custom. Nowadays, people in Shanghai also hold building climbing activities on this day, and the Jinmao Tower and the Oriental Pearl Tower have become targets, which is an urbanization of the ancient custom.

Chung Yeung cake must be inserted on the small flag, a small flag means that there is a wind blowing, which is to indicate that the ascent, because only in a high place to clearly feel the wind blowing on the face ah. Less this small flag, Chongyang cake folk meaning to be greatly reduced. When I was a kid playing in a dim sum store at the entrance of the alley, the master used a bamboo brush broom to wash pots and pans and then took its bamboo threads to make small flags, so I got the itch and volunteered to help him make them. I had experience in making kites, so I could handle this with ease. Busy work all morning, the master praised me one by one, finished to send me two pieces of freshly baked Chongyang cake, I eat a piece, take a piece of home to my mother to eat, my mother can be happy!

Two years ago, I went to Suzhou, learned that the "tongue on the Chinese 3" just in the Chinese old store Huang Tianyuan filming to do the Chongyang cake scene, I asked the boss whether there is a small flag inserted, the answer is no, I listened to the urgent, and immediately suggested that he mobilized his staff to do a small flag inserted in the cake. In the episode of "Tongue on the tip of the China 3" that aired later, the cakes were eventually inserted with colorful flags.