Chapter 52 Steamed buns, steamed buns and soup dumplings

In the Wu dialect of my hometown, the names of steamed buns and steamed buns are mixed, and buns and soup dumplings are not distinguished. Therefore, some people go to the vegetable market and yell at him to "bring some steamed buns/baozi back", but the result is often wrong.Later, the general consensus was as follows: steamed buns are fluffy, white and soft without fillings, steamed buns are fluffy and fermented with fillings, and soup dumplings are basically unfermented with thin skin and soup.There are a lot of Xiaolongbao in my hometown, so they are often called Xiaolongbao, Xiaolongbaozi, Xiaolongtangbao, etc., referred to as soup dumplings.It wasn't until I saw a soup dumpling that filled a plate in some places in Zhejiang that I realized that the world was so big that I was at a loss for words.It said that Fang Hongjian didn't know that associate professors still graded them, just like the British Dr. Johnson disdain to distinguish between bedbugs and fleas-this feeling is more or less realized.

In my opinion, the series of steamed buns and steamed buns are divided into those with fillings and those without fillings.Steamed buns without stuffing are divided into dry stuffing and soup stuffing. The former is steamed stuffed bun, and the latter is soup dumpling, roughly the same.Of course, this is a private definition, and it cannot stand academic scrutiny.It is said that Zhuge Liang defeated the Nanman class teacher, and the ghosts stopped Lushui from leaving, insisting on offering forty-nine human heads as a sacrifice, which is a bit like a bandit road tyrant.The prime minister knows astronomy from the top and geography from the bottom, and inventing a wooden cow, a horse, ten arrows and a crossbow is just a matter of flipping, let alone a mere ghost?Just take some dough with beef, mutton and pork hidden in it, and then write a sacrificial oration to coax the ghosts away.Probably the ghosts are more realistic: how can a bloody raw human head wrapped in meat stuffing taste delicious?But this thing is called "steamed buns" in Chinese, so most of the steamed buns are stuffed.

In order to show the difference, the steamed buns mentioned below have to honor the word "white" and call them white steamed buns. White steamed buns are a popular food, bland and tasteless, and generally dismissed by scholar-bureaucrats.Some people have verified that Wu Dalang's cooking cakes are white steamed buns, so it seems that he has a similar temperament.The white steamed buns are more than the top and the bottom is more than the bottom. After all, it is a staple food, and because of its whiteness, it can be regarded as the top grade of the staple food.In the movies of the old days, there are often dandies who disdain to eat white steamed buns. The old people who have passed through the hard times are heartbroken. How about..." It can be seen that white steamed buns and white rice are the best staple foods, and their status is generally much higher than steamed buns and steamed buns.

The white steamed bun is tasteless at first taste, but it smells like flour, and it has a slight sweetness when you chew it carefully. It is the effect of converting starch into maltose, so although it is bland, it is not unpalatable.Haobai Mantou tastes soft and chewy, as long as you dip it in a bowl of good soup, you will be transformed immediately.When Fang Hung-chien saw Fengrou, he suggested that it be eaten with steamed buns, as a local sandwich.In fact, why is steamed buns only delicious with meat?Pickles, garlic, and all kinds of sharp-flavored foods can be absorbed by you; dipping in vegetable soup and spicy sauce is also versatile.The most wonderful combination is the white steamed bun with shredded pork in Beijing sauce that I have eaten in Beijing.

Steamed buns give people the feeling of eating in the north. The noodles are wrapped with non-soup fillings, and what you eat is the softness of the buns and the sweetness of the fillings.Most of the meat buns in my hometown are stingy. When I took a bite, I felt that the filling was still ten miles away. After I took a second bite, I found that the filling had already entered the stomach. Probably the difference between a meat bun and a white steamed bun is that there is a piece of meat the size of a pomegranate rice in the heart, so I grew up. Not impressed with meat buns.Authentic Tianjin Goubuli has a great reputation, and I know it in Jiangnan.It is said that after eating hot food, dogs get headaches when they hear the sound, so they avoid it when they see heat. The dog ignores it so hot that the dogs have nowhere to talk, which is called "dog ignores it".Thinking about it this way, the taste should not be bad: the reason why the steamed stuffed buns just come out of the drawer are attractive is that they are hot. The skin of hot steamed stuffed buns is warm and soft, and the inner core is full of fragrance. If it is left to cool, it will be a disappointment.

I have eaten buns a few times in Beijing and Shandong, and they are indeed much better than those in the south.The noodles are well-raised and chewy, and the fillings are carefully prepared. There are countless gorgeous combinations of meat and vegetable fillings.I ate steamed stuffed buns stuffed with chives and eggs once in Madianqiao, Beijing, and a stuffed vermicelli with mushrooms, vegetables and fungus outside Xizhimen.And because of the heat from the steaming, an oily aroma was forced out, with a unique flavor. At that time, I only hated the lack of a bowl of porridge at hand, otherwise it would be a perfect match.When I was in Shandong, I ate a vegetable meat bun, which reversed my fear of meat buns.Young cabbage, garlic, soy sauce, minced ginger, pork, coriander, a resounding and fresh fragrance, plus the Shandong hero noodle skin is the best in the world, and it is served with seaweed and dried shrimp soup on the table at that time, which makes people unable to stop spooning.

In Eileen Chang, the hero goes around the back of the alley to buy spinach buns, resenting his wife for being inconsiderate of him and taking many detours.In fact, this lady knows the way of eating well: one has to look for such a unique flavor in the corner.Spinach is silky and juicy, and it must taste good when used as stuffing for steamed stuffed buns.When I was in Haining, I ate pork buns with pickled vegetables once, and I thought it was very creative: the pork with pickled vegetables is rich in oil, and it is very good for stuffing buns.It's a pity that this bag was not made properly. After eating, the hero and heroine just turned the camera when they started kissing, and the two of them had breakfast together the next day.

My hobby of soup dumplings is only limited to Xiaolong soup dumplings.A large plate full of big steamed stuffed buns with straws on them, which appeared in Yu Hua's "Brothers", is always a bit unacceptable.After all, soup dumplings are dumplings, so it would be unnatural to only drink soup and not eat dumplings.My favorite hometown soup bag has a thin skin and thick soup. Like all Wuxi dishes, it has a sweet sauce aroma. Take a bite to suck the soup, eat the meat, and chew the dough, all together.If there is good vinegar to dip it in, it is even better.People in the north say that the meat of the steamed stuffed bun is not on the pleats. In fact, the pleats of soup dumplings are very delicious. Compared with other skins that are as thin as a cicada’s wings and can be easily broken by blowing, the skin of soup dumplings at the pleats is always the most chewy and toughest. It goes well with soup. , Meat stuffing and good vinegar to eat together, a piece of gorgeous swallowed jujube on the tongue.

Eating soup dumplings is a test of skill.People who are new to the soup are easy to burn their lips and tongues, but experienced old gentlemen eat soup dumplings like an opera, leisurely and unrestrained.Dip in vinegar, lift lightly and move slowly, open the window, inhale the soup, swallow the stuffing, and eat the stomach in the blink of an eye. It is completely technical work, just like a machine assembly line for processing soup dumplings.It's just that I have eaten soup dumplings for more than 20 years, and I still often can't grasp the taste-the juice is too hot, and I eat it whole, and I don't have time to savor it.An old anecdote says that Beijingers love to eat Yuhuatai’s Huaicheng soup dumplings, and a plate of them has two layers of skin, which shows how delicate the thick soup dumplings are with the thin skin.So eating soup dumplings is a bit like love at first sight: you only have time to catch a glimpse of Yi's peerless face, but before you take a closer look, you fall in love with each other.