Chapter 12 Literati recipes

I like eating very much, and talking about eating is also very intoxicating.Especially when you want to be a gourmet but lack the necessary conditions (such as money), it is still a pleasure to talk on paper and create countless delicacies on a jade plate in your mind.It is a matter of course for literati to eat delicious food - in the old saying, this is called Yahao.It is said that before Jin Shengtan was beheaded, he left his last words to his son: "Remember, eating peanuts with dried tofu can taste like ham." Under the knife of the executioner, you can still never forget the taste of ham, and reveal the secret recipe of peanuts and dried tofu like escorting a family heirloom. This is called madness.But if a literati has neither obsession nor insanity, it seems that he lives too cleanly, which is not normal.It doesn't matter how Jin Shengtan commented, I have been thinking: How can peanuts and dried tofu taste like ham?I also tried it secretly at home, and I didn't feel the same.I think this is no longer the peanuts of the Qing Dynasty, nor is it the dried tofu of the Qing Dynasty.

In Taiwan, Liang Shiqiu recalled the thinly sliced ​​Tianfu cooked ham retailed by the roadside in Shanghai. He used these two sentences: "It is the best food with wine. I still have a lingering fragrance in thinking about it." He got a genuine one. Jinhua ham (thin and hard, estimated to be stored for a year), always go to a familiar shop and ask the boss to split it for you.The ham was cut into two pieces on the chopping board. The boss was stunned, his nostrils gaped, as if he could smell a strange smell, and exclaimed: "This is authentic Jinhua ham. I haven't smelled this smell for decades!" After sniffing and sniffing Could not bear to let go, and asked to give him the tip of the claw.Liang Shiqiu finally met a friend in the market, and praised the boss for his knowledge of the goods, so he simply gave them hooves and claws as gifts.The overjoyed boss even said that he would cook a pot of soup after returning home.

This is the real Jinhua ham, and even the leftovers are treasures.This is the real gourmet. A pot of ham and hoof soup makes him ecstatic. After drinking it, he may not know the taste of meat for three months.Looking back and thinking about Jin Shengtan's will, it doesn't feel weird.If there is ham in hell, Jin Shengtan will regard death as home. Living literati, such as Wang Zengqi in the older generation, are familiar with the five flavors of cooked food.Moreover, he often relishes talking in words, as if he wants to have a good time with endless aftertaste. Such an old man is destined to live a long life.He talked about the wild vegetables in his hometown, such as shepherd's purse, purslane, water shield, wormwood, and wolfberry head, all of which are rare, and the slightly bitter fragrance seems to linger on his lips.Talking about the courage required to "eat fugu desperately", "I have been studying in Jiangyin for two years, but I have never eaten fugu, which is still a pity."It seems that gourmets must not only have a good appetite, but also have a good guts.I had dinner at the same table with Wang Zengqi, and all the guests here regarded him as a woodcut recipe printed on rough-edged paper. The approach of the novel is even more interesting.Those who are delicious may not be good at cooking, but those who can cook must be delicious——Mr. Wang Zengqi is good at both.I have been to Pu Huangyu's Wang's house twice, and every time Wang Zengqi took me off the elevator with a vegetable basket, and he went to the free market by the way.Mr. Wang's vegetable basket project is as important as Mount Tai.A female writer from Taiwan came to Beijing, and asked Mrs. Wang to cook a meal for her. One of the dishes was roasted radish, and she was full of praise.Mrs. Wang explained: "Of course it's not bad to eat: those two days were the best time to eat radishes, they were all grown, but still very tender, not bran; and I used dried scallops to cook. She said that there is no such thing in Taiwan. Grow radishes." No matter how I heard these words, I sounded like a vegetable farmer or an authentic chef.

From Wang Zengqi’s mouth, I learned that the stinky tofu in Huogong Palace in Changsha became famous because a big man often ate it when he was young. The big man went to eat it later and said: “The stinky tofu in Huogong Palace is still delicious.” , so that in the "Cultural Revolution", two lines of characters appeared on the screen wall of the Fire Palace: "Supreme Instruction: The stinky tofu in the Fire Palace is still delicious." shy. In Beijing, among my friends, Gu Qingsheng likes cooking the most.He revealed it at a prose symposium.He said: This is similar to writing articles. They all pay attention to color, fragrance, and good articles must be authentic-I don’t like eating in restaurants on the street. Those dishes smell too much MSG. tasty. The editorial department of "Beijing Literature" is a suite with a kitchen. After Gu Qingsheng received the manuscript fee to treat guests, he cooked a table of Hubei-style banquets himself.It's not to save money, but to show your craftsmanship and intentions.The old man wearing an apron said that cooking has a special pleasure in the smoke.One night, Lao Gu and I stopped talking about literature, and instead recalled the beggar chicken buried in a pot and roasted in the wild fields of our hometown during the natural disaster years with reddish faces.He said that a few collections of essays were meaningless, and he really wanted to compile a cookbook. I said the title of the book should be "Literati Recipes", maybe every article is good prose.

There is a Sichuan restaurant in front of our Federation of Literary and Art Circles building, and the signboard was inscribed by Ai Qing.Those who come for business, those who come to submit articles, those who treat guests or are invited—this is probably the restaurant that receives the most literati in all of China.I often meet here with Zou Jingzhi from Poetry Magazine.Zou Jingzhi said: Even if eating alone, order a pot of boiled pork slices in red oil and a bowl of white rice.I read an essay by Jingzhi, which began with "good weather and good mood can always meet good friends. I went downstairs to have a glass of beer at noon, and the boss gave me a delicious dish: fried pea tips." For some reason, Jing His voice, face and smile were blurred on the paper, and a plate of pea tips that were still green and tender after cooking always appeared in front of my eyes. The world seemed to be shrunk in a white jade-like clean and flawless tray, serene and vivid.Jingzhi is really a Taoist person, so easy to be satisfied, a trivial thing makes him realize the integrity of life.Jingzhi has an unforgettable memory of hunger. He said: "People who don't know hunger are incomplete. It is said that burning cicadas has become a famous dish, and the price is not low. I ate it when I was young, and it was roasted over fire. Yes. Now, I don’t want to eat it.” The same cicada, but the mood of eating is different.Jingzhi, who used to write poems on a hungry stomach, was educated and brought up by hunger. "After the famine, I still have a deep love for food. I have held pastries with both hands for many years, and I am not willing to give up the skin. Slag".I suddenly felt that a poet who carefully holds pastries with trembling hands (as if holding a sacred object) may be the one who knows life best, and he has a love of food for life.I will always remember this slow motion.This is simply holding the conscience.

If there is a literati cookbook, this can be designed as the cover.