Chapter 10 The plate of pickled pork with preserved vegetables on the desk

Lu Xun was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, where he was good at masters, swordsmen and pen officials, and he was very good at writing.Lu Xun's writing style is also sharp, his language is as sharp as a scalpel, and he is quite influenced by the cultural accumulation of his hometown. In fact, a person's life is always inseparable from the place where he was born, not only cultural genes, but also dietary genes.In my opinion, a person's childhood eating habits often determine the tone of his life's taste, and the so-called food when a person becomes an adult is often just "recovering childhood taste bud memories".

Lu Xun is a great writer, and he cannot escape this rule.In his novels, there is no lack of shadows of food, especially Shaoxing food, which appears frequently. It is mentioned in "Blessings" that there is a dish called stewed shark's fin in Fuxing Building in Shaoxing City.That Fuxing Building does not exist in reality, it is a fiction.But the prototype of the stewed shark fin dish actually exists. At that time, there was an old shop called Tongxinlou in Shaoxing, and the stewed shark's fin was a specialty here. Stewed shark's fin is made from shark's fins. After soaking, it is stewed in chicken soup and ham juice. The finished product is white, tender and soft like vermicelli.During the cooking process, chicken and duck meat should be placed on the bottom of the bowl under the shark's fin.Shark's fin itself is tasteless and needs to be filled with chicken and duck meat.This corresponds to a famous saying in Chinese cooking: taste makes it come out, and tastelessness makes it go in.

Lu Xun wrote this sentence in "The True Story of Ah Q": "When frying big head fish, Weizhuang always adds half-inch green onion leaves, but in the city they add finely chopped green onions." Shaoxing dishes cook fish It is true that some finely chopped green onions are put in. My hometown in Sichuan is also like this. Until now, I also like to put some chopped green onions in the fish. Together with pickled peppers, pickled ginger, sugar, vinegar and other seasonings, the fish becomes hot and sour. Shaoxing has a dense water network and vertical and horizontal canals. The unique awning boats there are often full of fish and shrimp, forming a beautiful scenery full of pastoral flavor.Therefore, Shaoxing cuisine mostly uses fish and shrimp as the main ingredient, and its taste is famous for its freshness and tenderness.But Lu Xun didn't like fish very much. He felt that there were too many fish bones and it was troublesome to eat.

It is said that Lu Xun was in Shaoxing when he was a teenager, and he liked to eat assorted eggs.The method of this egg is very special. After my research, the method is roughly like this: open a small hole at one end of the egg, pour out the egg white and egg yolk, and stir it with diced shrimp, diced bamboo shoots, minced meat, and salt.Then put the eggshells in and put them in a steamer.The recipe of this dish is similar to the "meat building egg" recorded in the Qing Dynasty cookbook "Shi Xian Hong Mi". The method recorded in "Shixian Hongmi" is: pick chickens (eggs), boil them half-cooked, take a look, pour out the yellow, and add minced meat to make up.Steamed very old, and the head (side dish) with the use.

This meaty egg was later borrowed by a literate chef to create a new dish called "reborn".Eggs are made by "embodied".In addition, cook the ribs until they are half-cooked, take out the bones, replace them with a spring onion, and fry them in batter.The fried ribs are used to surround the plate, and steamed eggs are placed in the middle, which is "reborn". Shaoxing's stinky tofu and stinky sheets are also the unforgettable taste of Lu Xun's hometown.Everyone is familiar with stinky tofu. Let me talk about the production method of stinky tofu: soak the tofu skin in water, put salt and sesame oil on it, seal it with lotus leaves, let it ferment for two days and nights, steam it in a drawer, and then cook it. There is an attractive fresh fragrance in the smell.

Among Shaoxing dishes, Lu Xun’s favorite is pickled meat with dried plums and vegetables, which is one of the representatives of Zhejiang cuisine.Zhejiang cuisine is one of the eight major cuisines. Shaoxing cuisine is a branch of Zhejiang cuisine. Shaoxing cuisine is most unique and famous for its series of dried plum dishes, which infuse Zhejiang cuisine with unique cultural and gourmet connotations. Shaoxing people like to eat pickled vegetables very much, and plum dried vegetables are pickled from mustard greens.The method is: use mustard greens or potherb mustard greens to dry in the sun, heap yellow, then ferment with salt, and then dry in the sun.Sichuan's salted vegetables are also made in this way, and mustard greens are also used.The key to pickling mustard greens is fermentation.This kind of dish is moderately salty, refreshing and palatable. Using it to simmer meat can achieve a light, oily but not greasy effect.Chengdu people like to make mustard greens into kimchi, store them in jars, and use them as auxiliary ingredients when cooking.

Beef and mustard greens are a great combination.I am used to stir-fried shredded beef with fresh mustard greens.It is to cut the mustard greens and beef into shreds and fry them in soy sauce.Be sure to mix lard and rapeseed oil, add a little Chinese prickly ash and chilli to the pot, pour in the shredded pork immediately after the oil is hot, then pour in the vegetables, and finally draw a little juice. Shaoxing is a well-known production area of ​​dried plums in the country. The dried plums produced here are tender and fragrant, and they are delicious when steamed with meat.Pork with dried plums and vegetables is a home-cooked dish in the local rural areas of Shaoxing. During the Republic of China, it was included in the menus of local restaurants in Shaoxing.When it developed into the eight major cuisines, Zhejiang cuisine accepted it as a representative dish.Its method is different from that of Sichuan cuisine: boil the dried plums with the meat first, and wait until the soup is absorbed into the meat, and the meat is not yet cooked; pick up the meat, arrange it in a steaming bowl, and then put the new Put the dried plums and the dried plums that have been cooked with the meat just now on top of the meat, put them in a steamer and steam for two hours.Sichuan's Shaobai is made by first removing the oil from the pig skin, and then steaming it in a basket with salted vegetables and seasonings.Shaoxing's dried plums and vegetables are bright red in color, fat but not greasy, salty and sweet.

Lu Xun often entertained his friends with pickled meat with dried plums and vegetables.This dish must be ordered when Zhiweiguan entertains guests, and when entertaining guests at home, he will also make a little innovation on this dish, that is, put a few peppers.This innovation is very similar to Sichuan's salted vegetable buckwheat.Pickled peppers are added to the salted vegetable braised pork.Not only pickled pork with plum dried vegetables, but also many Shaoxing folk dishes made with dried plum vegetables are Lu Xun's favorite taste.Such as fried meat with dried plums, dried shrimps, fried edamame with dried plums, etc.Lu Xun also likes to make buns with dried plum vegetables and minced pork as fillings.

He has a bad stomach, and traditional Chinese medicine believes that dried plums are sweet, which can appetize and relieve qi, nourish blood and promote body fluid, tonify deficiency and fatigue, and treat phlegm and cough (Lu Xun also has tuberculosis). Lu Xun's love of eating dried plums is actually a kind of food supplement.