Chapter 87 Dumplings in the Industrial Age

Northerners eat dumplings and like to wrap them by themselves.In the old days, making dumplings was a festive program for the common people during festivals.It can be seen that the northerners are skillful in making pasta.Practice makes perfect, because northerners love to eat and often make pasta (especially dumplings). Regarding dumplings, the northerners have a famous saying: "There is nothing better than dumplings." It's a bit like listing it as the best in the world.No one, at least in the North, has disputed this statement—it is almost the accepted truth.In fact, southerners also love to eat dumplings, but they are not very good at making them, and their techniques are rusty, and their shapes are rough, as clumsy as children making clay figurines. Compared with them, northerners can be called sculptors.Therefore, when looking for dumplings, southerners often go to restaurants.Restaurants selling dumplings also display their signs: "Northern dumplings" to flaunt their authenticity.Dumplings are about to become a patent in the north.

In modern society, the food culture has been greatly enriched, and even northerners don’t eat dumplings very often—even if they eat them often, they don’t necessarily make them by themselves.There are plenty of bags of quick-frozen dumplings in the mall, and you can buy them and store them in the refrigerator, so you can eat them whenever you want.Most of the quick-frozen dumplings are produced by machines.Making dumplings with a machine?This must have been unimaginable to the ancients.It is impossible to imagine that making dumplings will become industrialized.I am in the north, and it has been a long time since I have eaten handmade dumplings.To be honest, I have a slight resistance to quick-frozen dumplings, not to mention whether refrigeration will compromise the original deliciousness of the dumplings, just imagine the dumplings sealed in this plastic bag-it actually ran out of the factory assembly line Yes, mass products belonging to machines seem to lack a little human touch.Maybe I'm not the only one with this prejudice.In the north, some dumpling restaurants also specifically indicate that they sell "handmade dumplings" to attract diners.It does appear that handmade dumplings do have more appeal than “machine dumplings” (as they are colloquially called)—the subtle difference between the two is psychological, if not taste.Because in the subconscious of diners, they still think that dumplings should be wrapped by hand.Handmade dumplings are the most classical.The machine dumplings are a bit more modern.

Making dumplings requires not only time, but also mood.There is a set of procedures that are not complicated but not simple, such as rolling out the dough, adjusting the meat stuffing, until it is wrapped and put into the pot.In the past years, the whole family reunited and made dumplings joyfully—like a group assignment, or, in other words, like a ritual.The fun of eating dumplings has already been paid in advance in the process of making dumplings.Perhaps, it should include this part itself.Dumplings made by hand, or made by relatives, have a special taste - the content is very rich.Now, you can eat dumplings made by machines at any time, which not only reduces our labor, but also reduces a lot of people-to-people communication and the fun we experience from it.The status of dumplings has been reduced: it has been reduced to just a kind of food to satisfy the hunger.This is my prejudice: Dumplings produced by machines are very pale.Pale dumplings.Pale life.