Chapter 58 Soft aquatic products, appropriate shade

When I was a child, I watched the ink-and-wash cartoon "Snipe and Clam Fighting", and I was very puzzled. I ran to ask my father: Why did the snipe peck those two shells?It doesn't look like it has any taste.Later, at dinner, I ate a bowl of delicious steamed eggs with mussel meat. My dad told me: "Hey, this is the meat in the clam shell." I tried to taste it repeatedly, and finally concluded: "It's a bit like a snail becoming soft." My perception of soft aquatic products is roughly like this: shrimp, crab and fish meat are considered as one category, although there are various styles, shrimp meat, crab claws and fish meat are all delicious and sweet; soft aquatic products are another category, such as shellfish and shellfish with shells. Quasi-shellfish are all flexible and elastic, so they should only be swallowed in one mouthful, and it is not suitable to divide and fine-tune things.

The soft aquatic product that people in Jiangnan have the most contact with, snails are counted as the first. Su Xi often flips them and pronounces them as snails. Some friends in Ningbo seem to be used to this.The snails are small, not as grand as the big snails, and have a light taste, so they are often cooked in clear soup and braised in brown sauce.Summer night food stalls in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. If you think the seafood is too strong and the cooking is too oily, take snails and ginger rice wine with rock sugar.In the past, in the countryside, sucking snails was a skill.When I was a child, my mouth leaked air, and I often sucked it in. I watched the old man take a mouthful, and he would call it immediately, thinking it was a magic skill.I was lazy for a while, and I often used toothpicks to hook them, but my grandmother repeatedly stopped me.My grandma has all sorts of trivial theories about the way of eating, for example: to eat snails, you have to suck them, a soup with meat is delicious, and eating with a toothpick will lose the taste.Occasionally there are chefs who are willing to do kung fu in the countryside. Many snails are split open, the meat is taken out, and they are fried together in a pan.The feeling is indeed similar to eating melon seeds, but it is a pleasure to be happy, and it is not as sweet as eating melon seeds.There are not many shellfish headed by mussels. Steamed eggs are used to make soup, and the delicious essence is squeezed out, which is worthy of it.Sandpipers eat clam meat, and humans eat clam flavor. After all, human diet has more meanings of spiritual civilization.

The molluscs produced in the sea are much more vigorous. They are not like the girls in Jiangnan who are like river mussels and snails, but they look like hot girls with flaming red lips from overseas.There is a kind of thing, which is called sea clam in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and is called Guifei clam by friends in Guangdong. It tastes richer, sweeter and crisper than river mussel.It is said that MSG and salt should not be added when making it. It is enough to take the umami itself.Li Hong Qigong and Huang Rong lived on Mingxia Island. Huang Rong made Qigong who had lost all his martial arts a sea clam to eat, which made Qigong smile and be energetic.

The eating methods of marine molluscs seem to be polarized: either without seasoning, take the original flavor, and eat it naturally;Yuan Mei said that the advantage of crabs is that they are full of flavors without seasoning. In fact, this principle can be extended to all seafood: the taste of the sea itself is superb, better than artificial carving. Natural ways to eat, such as oysters, whichever is thick and fresh, can taste the "flavor of the sea"; such as arctic shellfish, which are often found in sashimi, whichever is fresh, sweet and clear.Eating it without any modification is because the seafood mollusk itself has a strong taste, and the texture is flexible and fresh. If it is modified, it will not be beautiful.My friend also said that eating raw shellfish can be used as an aphrodisiac, but I don't know what scientific basis it is.Shellfish are rich in protein, plus zinc, phosphorus, and calcium, can make people powerful, but ancient medicine is not as good as this. I personally guess that it should be related to Aphrodite—— Various European languages, the root of aphrodisiac Most of them are similar to Aphrodite, and the elder sister was produced on the shell back then - see Botticelli's strangely proportioned but still beautiful "Birth of Venus".There are rumors in the rivers and lakes that the famous Italian lover San Casanova eats fifty oysters a day.Probably the gentlemen in Europe think that eating raw seafood is raw and fishy, ​​has a natural taste, and can stimulate male hormones.

The heavy-flavored way of eating can be seen in small food stalls in the streets and alleys today.Mussels, also known as mussels and mussels, are popular in the streets and alleys of the South, and cockles are popular in Shanghai recently.In short, all kinds of shellfish become good night snack companions at night.But when the fire was hidden, all the people gathered to watch. The master in charge of the fire was like an old man making alchemy in a gossip furnace. On various shellfish, garlic and other seasonings piled up like a mountain, and the fragrance was overflowing.At this point, the soft body is no longer naturally pampered and fresh, and the whole body is forced out by the fire, and it is mixed with various heavy seasonings, and it is important to swallow it in one bite, and it must not be chewed in small bites.Before the cold beer came out to suppress them, these evildoers were smooth and delicious, with a strong smell of fire, it was like a group of demons dancing wildly.Generally speaking, raw food such as oysters has a natural and sharp taste, which is stinging fresh; heavy flavor such as grilled mussels has a complex and magnificent taste, which is an explosive fragrance.This method is also used to make large snails in central Sichuan: large pieces of red and green jade condiments are often piled up in the mouth of snails, so that people can imagine the stimulation of the tongue in advance before eating.

In addition to eating fresh now, soft aquatic products can also be famous for future generations.Refined fetishes such as oyster sauce and abalone sauce are similar to crab roe. They are all embellishments that turn stones into gold when cooking, and make the world colorful and fragrant.Oysters that are too small to be baked can be used to make oyster porridge. Once rolled, the bowl is full of fragrance.So when I went to Qingdao and Dalian, people advised me to buy more dried shrimps and dried oysters to go back, with a look of pity on my face that "you won't be able to eat such fresh things when you go back".Every time I listen to it, I feel a bit like a second-class citizen in the catering industry, but I have to accept it-it is indeed a big temptation to take "the taste of the sea" with you and relive it at home.