Chapter 102 Go to Zhouzhuang to eat fish

If you go to Zhouzhuang, you must eat fish. Zhouzhuang is an ancient water town in Kunshan, Jiangsu. It is surrounded by Chenghu Lake, Baixian Lake, Dianshan Lake and Nanhu Lake.very representative. Going to Zhouzhuang is not only to feast your eyes, but also to feast your mouth.In the beautiful and delicious Zhouzhuang, people will become greedy.If you don't eat fish, what will you eat?That doesn't mean it's a waste of time. Eating fish in Zhouzhuang can give you a different taste.Try it if you don't believe me.The so-called relying on mountains to eat mountains, relying on water to drink water-this time they are really close enough.You can eat on the arcade across the river, by the lake, or even on a boat.

Sea bass is a good example.The famous three delicacies of Xianjiang are sea bass, white clam and whitebait.Bass topped the list.Go to any restaurant in Zhouzhuang to order food, and the boss or waiter will be the first to recommend the newly caught sea bass to you.It is being raised in a water tank under the eaves. What's even more rare is that they will tell you some allusions like a well-trained tour guide.This allusion has actually been included in the dictionary of idioms, and it is called "Thinking of Water Shield and Perch".In the first year of Emperor Hui of Jin Yongning (301 A.D.), Zhang Han, a great literati in the court, could not bear the dark politics. He resigned from Luoyang and returned to his hometown on the pretext of missing the wild rice, water shield soup, and perch in his hometown when the autumn wind picked up. Fishing in the South Lake, reciting poems and painting, is a joy.On the surface, he dislikes the rough diet in the north, and a big bowl of wine and meat is not as delicious as a small cup of fish soup in the south of the Yangtze River, but what he really pursues is the detached leisure: "Life is so expensive that you can live thousands of miles. Do you want a magnate?"

This is simply another Tao Yuanming. Tao Yuanming didn't bend his waist for five buckets of rice, resigned as a small county magistrate, and drank wine from the west to pick chrysanthemums from the east.Zhang Han's official may be a little bigger, and he will also leave with the crown.The distant and gentle water shield perch further strengthened his determination to give up his official career and return to freedom: Huh, I just like this one!I won't play with you anymore! People have always used "the thought of water shield perch" as a metaphor for missing one's hometown and hometown.I already knew that.After coming to Zhouzhuang, it was the first time I heard that he was a local.It turned out that what he missed was the water shield and perch in Zhouzhuang.

Zhang Han's calligraphy is excellent, and his poems are also well written. There is a famous line "yellow flowers are like scattered gold".Li Bai spoke highly of him: "Zhang Han's golden sentence has been romantic for five hundred years." It is outrageous enough not to love Jiangshan and beautiful people, but it is easier to understand.Zhang Han is even more different: he doesn't love the country and loves food, and he abandoned high-ranking officials and rich salary for a bowl of fish soup.Is it worth it or not?Depends on who will judge.Ouyang Xiu was considerate and even appreciated Zhang Han's heroic deeds: "Clear Ci is not inferior to Jiangdong's name, but it is difficult to understand when it is sorrowful.

To commemorate this great hermit, the locals call Nanhu Lake Zhang Shiyu.Because it is the place where Zhang Han fishes and eats fish.The relationship between Zhang Han himself and Zhouzhuang is also a kind of love between fish and water. Zhouzhuang is Zhang Han's paradise.A paradise for one person.His joys and sorrows, ups and downs, only God knows. Speaking of Zhouzhuang, people will first think of Shen Wansan, the "big money" who generously sponsored Zhu Yuanzhang to build the Nanjing City Wall.There is still a famous dish in Zhouzhuang, which is called Wansan hoof. It is said that it is a must-have dish for the Shen Wansan family to entertain distinguished guests: "If there is a feast in the house, there must be crisp hoofs." I tasted it at Shenting Restaurant and bought an extra. Several bags are vacuum-packed, ready to give to office colleagues.Hope it brings them some fortune.

I came here this time, and there is another unexpected harvest: I learned that Zhouzhuang is the "origin" of the allusion "Thoughts of Water-shield and Perch".It turns out that apart from Shen Wansan, Zhouzhuang also has Zhang Han.In my eyes, the latter is even more interesting and attractive than the former. Shen Wansan is at best a material rich man.Zhang Han is not inferior, he is definitely a spiritual rich man.I think, no matter which dynasty you are in, there are always fewer spiritual rich people than material rich people, and it is also more difficult to do. No matter how soft the Wansan hoof is boiled, it is still a bit tacky.Not as good as Dongpo's elbow.It's even worse than Zhang Han's perch.

Zhang Han's perch doesn't seem to be swimming in the water, but in the air.Shadow-like food.Especially compared with the pragmatic Wansan hoof, it is completely pragmatic. During this meal in Zhouzhuang (drinking the local wine "October White"), I drank a little too much.I feel Zhang Han's perch swimming beside me, even between my fingers.If you let go, it will slip away.The name of this fish may be called "Freedom". When Zhang Han returned to this place with water shield and perch, he was free.It is a kind of freedom similar to Li Bai's "the emperor can't get on the boat".

If I can really be influenced by Zhang Han, I will be free.Swim, swim, fame and fortune are like floating clouds, like phantoms.The child is not a fish, who knows the joy of fish?The child is not me, how do you know that I don't know the joy of fish? If you go to Zhouzhuang, you must eat fish.Preferably sea bass.The perch that made Zhang Han salivate 1,700 years ago, the perch that made his heart panic when he thought about it, the perch that returned his heart like an arrow.We should try it too. Sea bass soup with water shield is listed as the three famous dishes in the south of the Yangtze River.Zhang Han made water shield and sea bass famous at the same time.

Bass has four gills and two gills.The perch produced in Zhouzhuang generally has two gills and no thorns on the back, but it has piebald spots. The meat is tender and has few thorns, and the mouth is soft.According to a travel brochure called "Nine Hundred Years Old Water Town Zhouzhuang": "There are many kinds of perch. The wild pond snakehead in the Xianjiang River can also be called perch. In March and April, when the cauliflower is in full bloom, the fish is the most It is fat, so it is also called cauliflower fish." Qing "Zhouzhuang Town Records" records: "Cauliflower fish is also called Tufu, and the perch that Zhang Han thought of was only two ears less than Songjiang perch, and it was served with new bamboo shoots to cook soup. The taste is the freshest.” It seems that when making sea bass soup, if there is no water shield, fresh bamboo shoots can be used as a substitute.The creamy water shield is quite delicate (it is called a "pampered aquatic crop", and it is only suitable for growing in Hong Kong where the water is warm, pure and calm), and the bamboo shoots are much firmer.No matter how tender the new bamboo shoots are, they are not as tender as water shield.Water shield, like the melt-in-your-mouth sea bass, is a retreat food.They're a great pair.Can you tell who is the main character or the supporting character?

Ye Shengtao also likes this one: "In the spring of my hometown, I eat water shield almost every day. It has no taste at all, and the taste lies in the good soup. But such a tender green color and rich poetic flavor, the taste of taste is really fascinating. In In the small river next to each street, there are always one or two uncovered boats resting in Shibutou, full of water shields, which are fished from Taihu Lake. If you want convenience like this, of course you can have a bowl of food every day.” In Zhouzhuang, I also saw with my own eyes the kind of small sampan fishing water shield.The water shield is very light, the sampan is very light, and the movements of the fisherman are also very light, as if afraid of disturbing the water shield floating in the water like a dream...

Xianjiang Sanzhen, in addition to sea bass, there are white clams and whitebait. White clam is a kind of shellfish, boiled in soup, the color is as white as milk, and it is very delicious.If you add a few pieces of bacon to cook, the taste will be more mellow.You can also pick out the clam meat, cut into shreds and stir-fry with leeks, which definitely compares to the ordinary shredded pork stir-fry with leeks. Whitebait is a kind of "miniature fish" (such as miniature novels), only 7 cm long and as small as a matchstick.No bones or spines.Wrapping eggs and frying is a common method.In Zhouzhuang, there are also restaurants making it into fish ball soup.Northerners are used to seeing big fish and big meat. When they come to Zhouzhuang, they should especially try the small whitebait (seems to be checked with a magnifying glass), it will feel very fresh. According to the book "Nine Hundred Years Old Water Town Zhouzhuang", fish is also a special product: "The body is about three inches long, with a small mouth and a big belly, fine scales, a flowery back, and a white belly. There are small thorns on the belly. Touch it with your fingers. The body swells up like a ball. When cooking, the back is embedded with fresh meat, and it is braised with heavy sugar. The meat is tender and very delicious. Suzhou famous dish  lung soup is well-known in the south of the Yangtze River, and you can also taste it in Zhouzhuang. The so-called  lung is actually the liver of  fish There is also eel with a strip-shaped body and rich nutrition (such a gentle name), the meat is more delicate and smooth than eel.Every year around the beginning of autumn is the flood season for eels. There is a local proverb: "Rice-cooked eels compete with ginseng". Due to the short stay in Zhouzhuang, or the wrong season, I have only heard about the fish and eels, but have not seen them.It is not necessarily a bad thing to leave a little regret.At least, this also gave me a chance to revisit Zhouzhuang - leaving some reasons. If you eat fish in Zhouzhuang, you should drink some wine, preferably the locally brewed "October White".The production method is: "Steam rice with new glutinous rice, add wine and medicine, put it in a tank, wait for it to become fermented rice, drain the distiller's grains, add river water and store it in a pot, and then put the pot next to the wall. After more than a month, it becomes the "Kobi Qing" with clear color and delicious taste. This kind of liquor is also made in October of the lunar calendar as a treasure, so people call it "October White". "Water Town Zhouzhuang") Zhouzhuang has good water and is naturally suitable for wine making.As early as the Qing Dynasty, the Zhenzhi recorded: "A Mudu restaurant invited winemakers from one place to brew it there. The taste was far inferior, and the water in the Xianjiang River in the South Lake made it better." In Zhouzhuang, eating fish raised in lake water and drinking wine brewed from lake water can be regarded as "turning the original soup into the original food". I was drunk before I knew it.I feel that my stomach, my lungs, and my heart are being melted by the clear lake water. Around the Qingming Festival in 1989, Taiwanese female writer Sanmao came to Zhouzhuang.According to the locals, it was raining in spring, and the large tracts of rapeseed flowers were washed to look like they had just been adjusted. Sanmao couldn’t get enough of them looking at them through the window, so he stopped the car specially, walked into the field, and reached out to pick them. Put a golden rapeseed flower in your mouth and chew slowly: "In Taiwan, rapeseed flowers are almost invisible!" Tears welled up in my eyes.Rapeseed flowers are seldom eaten raw, but Sanmao doesn’t do this, it seems that he can’t express his deep love for Yanyu Jiangnan.Between her lips and teeth is filled with the fragrance of the country.At noon that day, a banquet was probably hosted at Shenting Restaurant to entertain this distant visitor.Sanmao stared at the delicious fish, shrimp and seafood on the table, reluctant to move his chopsticks.After repeated persuasion by the host, she still stood on the stool first, and took a picture of the delicacies in the water town with a camera from the air, and then sat down to eat.As if afraid that the memory is not reliable.She said repeatedly: "Only when I return to my hometown can I enjoy such a rich seafood!" There is a fan tower in Zhouzhuang, which is located by the Zhenfeng Bridge.Originally named Deji Hotel, it was opened by a Zhenjiang native named Li.It is known as Milou because of the fragrant snow in the windows and the Wu boats parked in the door, which is a fulfillment of "everyone is drunk without wine, and the scenery is pleasant and charming".Milou had fascinated the poet Liu Yazi earlier. In 1920, when Liu Yazi came to Zhouzhuang, he invited colleagues from Nanshe several times to sing together in Milou poetry and wine, and engraved a series of works as "Milou Collection".He himself followed the original rhyme of the long narrative poem Yuanyuanqu, and wrote "Milouqu", which is also very popular.The poet compares the shopkeeper's beautiful daughter, Ajin, to Zhuo Wenjun, who is a loam.I went to Zhouzhuang this time, admiring the name of Milou, and I wanted to choose an elegant seat upstairs to have a drink, so as to stimulate poetry and leave a chapter or two.It's a pity that things are different and people are different. Milou has long since stopped selling alcohol, and it has been converted into a memorial hall for that Nanshe activity (named the patriotic education base in Kunshan City). I am obsessed with buildings, but I am not obsessed with buildings.Although it was an empty trip, the poem was written.The appendix is ​​as follows, as the end of this article: 〖"Without water, there would be no Zhouzhuang / There would be no night that opened me / Without water, there would be no boat to ferry me / There would be no hunchbacked bridge, and the second moon / Just as there would be no umbrella without rain. No home / Even if there is an umbrella, it is closed / Without water, there is no reflection in Zhouzhuang / The trees grow exponentially, and I find another home in the reflection /. I would like to degenerate into a fish / Or something else / And you , half swimming in the water / half swimming on the shore. The air is full of nets / I walk very slowly, very slowly... / The handkerchief that wiped the tears is dry / But the place where the handkerchief wiped / is still wet of……"〗