Chapter 8 Lu Xun in the restaurant

During Lu Xun's stay in Beijing, he tasted almost all the famous restaurants in the capital, and the famous "Big Building" and "Badaju", more or less left his footprints.This indissoluble bond with northern cuisine has made him never forget northern cuisine even after leaving Beijing. At that time, Lu Xun lived in Xicheng, Beijing, and he often went to Tongheju in the west of Xisi Pailou Road.Its famous dishes include deep-fried fat sausage, nine-turn fat sausage, three non-stick, etc., and there is even a signature dish of Guangheju-Pan Yu. In fact, the head chef and the second chef of Tongheju were recruited from Guangheju when Guangheju was closed, in order not to lose the famous dishes.Lu Xun likes the fried shrimp balls here the most, because this dish is similar to the taste of Shaoxing, and it is a new dish introduced by northern restaurants when the north and the south merged.In addition, Lu Xun likes the big steamed buns baked here that are half a catty mixed with sugar, which is to brush a layer of oil on the steamed buns and bake them.

Now Beijing pays attention to "eating in the east". At that time, Lu Xun had a lot of delicious food in the east city, but because he worked in the west city, he went there less.Recorded in the diary, the more famous restaurant is Dongxing Building. Lu Xun and Hu Shi had two dinner parties in the east, both at Dongxing Building.One time Hu Shi invited Lu Xun, and the other time Yu Dafu invited Lu Xun and Hu Shi.Lu Xun's diary on February 27, 1932: "Hu Shizhi came to the Ministry in the afternoon, and went to Dong'an Market in the evening, and then went to Dongxing Building to invite Yu Dafu to drink, and he returned after half the wine." One of the beginnings of the dispute between Hulu and Lu.

Lu Xun didn't have a good meal, but Yu Dafu's Dongxinglou dishes were still very authentic. Dongxing Building opened in 1903. Its original site was Dong’anmen Street in Beijing. It closed in 1944 and resumed business in Guijie, Dongzhimen Inner Street in 1982. It was the “Eight Buildings” in Beijing (Dongxing Building, Taifeng Building, Zhimei Building, Hongxing Building) , Zhengyang Building, Xinfeng Building, Anfu Building and Chunhua Building). Lu Xun has been to most of these buildings. Although each building has repeated dishes, each has its own characteristics.For example, fried chicken in sauce is a dish that both Lu Xun and Hu Shi like to eat very much, and Dongxinglou makes the best dish.

It is said that Dongxinglou was opened by a hair-combing eunuch named He in the Qing Palace. Many chefs came out of the palace, such as fried chicken in sauce, bear's paw in casserole, and shark's fin in bird's nest were all transferred from Dongxinglou from palace dishes. Sauce fried chicken is a home-cooked dish, and every family can make it, but the court's method requires the chicken to be as tender as tofu, with a good color and fragrance.For this dish to be delicious, there are many things to pay attention to, such as the use of lard to stir-fry, and the use of yellow sauce instead of sweet bean sauce, but these two points are difficult for many restaurants today.

I have always emphasized that the food culture needs to be innovated, but the foundation must be to preserve and inherit the tradition first, otherwise it will be messed up. A restaurant in Xicheng called Heji Restaurant is a place Lu Xun often goes to. It is basically equivalent to his work canteen. It is across the road from the Ministry of Education where Lu Xun works.The food here is delicious and cheap. Lu Xun mentioned in his diary on the 23rd day of the first lunar month in 1918: "Weixue. The second brother Wu came to the Ministry and invited Chen Shizeng and Qi Shoushan to Heji rice." In fact, Heji is famous for selling beef and mutton, and Lu Xun likes to eat here. It is a pity that this kind of noodles is rarely eaten in Beijing now. We are not as lucky as Lu Xun.

At noon, Lu Xun often took Chen Shizeng and Qi Shoushan to a small restaurant called Long Haixuan on West Chang'an Avenue for dinner.Lu Xun likes to drink a little wine at noon. The specialty dish of this restaurant is soft fried liver tips, which is his favorite appetizer.In this dish, the upper part of the pork liver is cut into slices, marinated with salt, cooking wine, and monosodium glutamate for a while, then hung with egg batter, and then fried with 70% to 80% hot peanut oil. Heat the oil in the pan until it boils, then put the liver tip down to fry.In this way, the liver tip fried twice is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

Lu Xun's frequent restaurants include Huaiyang-style Nanweizhai and Yuchunlou, Fujian restaurant Xiaoyoutian, Henan restaurant Houdefu, and Guangdong restaurant Zuiqionglin. On September 11, 1912, Lu Xun's diary recorded: "In the evening, Hu Mengle invited drinks at Nanweizhai to celebrate the celebration of juzi, and there were nine people at the same table..." This Nanweizhai was the same as Chunhualou and Xingchunju at that time. The famous Jiangsu restaurant.The specialty dishes are sweet and sour yellow croaker and shrimp tendons. Lu Xun's diary on September 27, 1912 also mentioned: "Xiao Youtian, who drank at Quanyechang in the evening, sat Dong Xunshi, Qian Daosun, and Xu Jifu. It's not beautiful either."

A major feature of Fujian cuisine is the good use of red grains as ingredients. There are a variety of cooking methods such as fried grains, pulled grains, and drunk grains. It seems that Lu Xun is still not very used to Fujian cuisine, and rarely mentions "food" that he doesn't like in his diary. A person's appetite is actually related to a person's personality. For example, a person who is too stubborn always likes to eat what he is looking for, and says it is not delicious when he eats others; wider. Judging from the bad comments on food in the diary, Lu Xun is not actually a broad-minded person. He often began to write articles to swear when he got angry.

Zhimei Building is also one of the "Eight Buildings" that Lu Xun liked.Zhimeilou used to operate Suzhou cuisine. It opened during the Qianlong period, closed in 1948, and reopened in 1980.Its specialty dishes are fried chicken slices, fried fish fillets, fried tripe shreds, etc.This shows that the chefs of Zhimeilou are highly skilled, because the production techniques such as simmering, frying, and pulling are a test of cooking skills, and those who are incompetent cannot do it at all. I once kept a copy of the banquet menu at Zhimeilou on April 23, 1984.Signature dishes are already printed on one side of the menu, while the other side is blank.When ordering food, according to different needs, there will be a special person to fill in the official script on the spot with a brush.The words "Zhimeilou Flavored Dishes" are printed on the upper part of the menu, which were inscribed by Pu Jie after it reopened in 1980.

There are two court dishes on the menu, one is called "You Long Xi Feng", which is cooked with chicken and squid.The other is called "five-willow fish", which is fried with shredded fish, shredded pork, shredded mushrooms and shredded bamboo shoots, all of which are very difficult dishes to make.It can be seen from this that the skill of Zhimeilou chefs is indeed well-deserved.