Chapter 10 Fuyang yellow croaker

I once discussed with Brother Cheng Shaoguo, a disciple of Lin Jinlan, how to eat yellow croaker in Wenzhou. Wenzhou people eat seafood. I have seen it from Dahongmen Zhejiang Village in the south of Beijing. They eat seafood every meal, mostly clams.Zhejiang Village... is it still there?Leaving the capital city, I lost my self-confidence to achieve a great literary career in Beijing with such arrogance back then, fled to Shennongjia virgin forest to grow tea, and became a farmer who depended on the land for a living. Sometimes I can recall some deeds in Kyoto.Lin Jinlan is from Wenzhou. Before meeting brother Cheng Shaoguo, I always thought that the novelist Lin Jinlan was a native of Beijing.

I remember sitting by the Dalongqiu Lake in Yandang Mountain. We drank Yandang Yunwu and talked about literature, Wenzhou and food.Wenzhou’s mountainous ingredients are not listed, they are mainly bamboo shoots that grow all year round, and people in Wenzhou eat seafood.Brother Cheng Shaoguo said that yellow croakers are white when they are salvaged from the sea, and gradually turn yellow until golden and turn gray.He said that the yellow croaker is the freshest when it is put into the pot when it is golden.I once ate such a yellow croaker in Ruian, which weighed three catties and six ounces. It was steamed with Shaoxing rice wine, and it was very delicious.

In Beijing city, it is a little far away from the sea, no matter how much you eat, you can’t eat yellow croakers that are getting golden brown. After the famous Beijing rain in summer, I returned from Shennongjia to Beijing after a long absence.First eat Dadong Roast Duck, then eat Dadong Sea Cucumber, eat roast lamb at Bianyifang on Chaoyang Road, and have a drink with Mr. Fu Yang from Gongti Youjing Pavilion, so we agreed to go to Youjing Pavilion to eat yellow croaker. There are bound to be some wonderful encounters in life. Mr. Fu Yang’s Youjing Pavilion has been drunk twice. This time, he did not plan to drink when he returned to Jingyuan, because he had eaten caviar in autumn last year.I know that I can actually eat caviar once, but Taoist has become a farmer in the virgin forest, thinking about the tea garden in Shennongjia, so I don’t want to stay anywhere longer. The significance of time to agriculture is quite great.But later, after all, I couldn’t bear the temptation of paying foreign food, and I made an appointment to go to Youjing Pavilion, which is opposite to the No. 12 stand of Beijing Gongti, that beautiful and high-end restaurant with a water pavilion. Beijing then reinstalled into ancient buildings.

As usual, I ate some Fu Yang's snacks, such as yam and jujube paste, short ribs, mother's braised pork...a yellow croaker was served.Yellow croakers weighing about two or three are placed flat on an oval dish.In order to eat yellow croaker well, Mr. Fu Yang specially designed a small shovel-shaped fish knife, which reminds me of the coins of Zhou Shijin, Zheng and Ji - shovel coins.The yellow croaker is steamed after eight-year-old Huadiao and soaked in rice wine. The fish is very peaceful, like the night moon on the Gongti water pavilion, silvery white and slightly bright, filled with the breath of water.

eat fish.Mr. Fu Yang performed a special fish knife. He cut the yellow croaker into four pieces from the back, belly, front and back, and ate the back first.Mr. Fu Yang said, starting from this piece, it is fresh and tender.However, I have always eaten fish from the belly.In fact, there is no need to pay too much attention to where to start a fish that is not big to eat, because everyone has to eat one fish.However, I have not changed my previous habits. I eat the belly first, and the back of the fish is firmer than the belly, and then the back of the yellow croaker from Fuyang is quite tender.

The yellow croaker meat is white, as fine as fine porcelain, tender and fresh in the mouth, and the aroma of tiny rice wine lingers from the inside of the fish.During this time, there is a slight sourness. It turns out that each yellow croaker has two small lemons cut into it, and squeezed and poured on the fish before eating.This acid, a pure natural acid, works great.Sitting on the water pavilion with Jing Pavilion in Gongti, the willows are blown by the breeze, the moon is bright and white, and the lotus on the water shakes the moon shadow, but there is no sound of frogs and oars, otherwise a yellow croaker will lead people back to the south of the Yangtze River.

Thinking back to the time of the Three Kingdoms, the capital of the state of Wu... In Ezhou now, there is Liangzi Lake, and there is an island in the lake.It is called Liangzi Island. Su Dongpo crossed the river to cook fish and drink with local gentleman Pan Dalin in his spare time. That water town is a paradise for fish. I remember that I ate Wuchang fish on Liangzi Island. I feel similar to eating yellow croaker in Youshuixie and Youjing Pavilion in Beijing.Fresh and tender yellow croaker with a bit of rice wine marinade and citric acid, I ate it with French Bordeaux red wine, leaving only a few fishbone on the edge of memory.

Indeed a wonderful drink.As the small yellow croaker, it seems nearly equal to the Wuchang fish.Cut with a knife and picked up with chopsticks, the regular pieces of small yellow croaker are enjoyed by diners like me.I can only admit in my heart that Fuyang yellow croaker has just reached the taste of human beings. I suggest that Mr. Fu Yang name this yellow croaker as Fuyang yellow croaker, and gradually introduce Fuyang-style Shanghai-style Chinese artistic conception dishes.How delicious is this fish?After I finished eating the yellow croaker, I searched the plate with my chopsticks, and ate those tiny minced yellow croaker meat one by one.A fish, like a dream, swims into my taste memory this summer, it is not the lotus in the water, it is the beam of light beyond the lotus, a ray of warmth rises from the soft coolness.

Yellow croaker, ray-finned fishes, perciformes, perciformes, totoaba, yellow croakers.In fact, I have eaten so many yellow croakers, but I still can't remember the whole class of yellow croakers, only the families and genera can still be remembered.If so, the taste of yellow croaker is indeed more familiar than its origin.However, knowing the taste, the gentleman does not ask the origin, the world is about the same.