Chapter 11 Crab, Fennel Beans and San'in Food

In fact, not only in Shanghai, but during those years in Beijing, Lu Xun also liked Shaoxing cuisine very much.At that time, there were two Shanyin restaurants in Beijing specializing in Shaoxing-style dishes. One was called Xinghuacun, and the other was called Yixiangzhai, which was located on Wanmin Road.These two restaurants are far away from Lu Xun's residence, but Lu Xun still frequents them, of course because he can't give up his hometown dishes. The original stores of Xinghua Village and Yixiangzhai were opened in Shanyin. Chen Lianhen from the Song Dynasty recorded in "Jinghua Chunmenglu": "Xinghua Village set up in Shanyin, and Shaoxing Huadiao in Yixiangzhai... have a particularly good reputation." The names of the two Shaoxing restaurants have a history of hundreds of years.

Yixiangzhai's famous dishes are braised fish lips and braised sea cucumbers, and Xinghua Village's famous dishes are fried eel slices. It is said that this fried eel slices is a favorite dish of Lu Xun. The technique of "simmering" is different from "grilling". The technique of simmering is to boil the fish fillets first, then pick them up, put seasonings in the pot, thicken the sauce, and then put the fish fillets in for cooking. Malantou, Shaoshi Shrimp Balls, Yue Chicken in Clear Soup, Fennel Beans, Xiaoxianggan, and Dahongpao (stir-fried peanuts with salt) are also Lu Xun's favorite hometown dishes.Most of these are appetizers, which are exactly what Lu Xun likes.

Everywhere he went, Lu Xun almost always judged whether the place was livable by the standard of food and drink. On September 7, 1926, this was the day when Lu Xun was forced to teach at Xiamen University. He said in a letter to Xu Shoushang: "The scenery here is excellent, but the food is not blissful." On October 3 of the same year, he wrote to Zhang Tingqian The letter also said: "But the food is really unpalatable. Xiamen people seem to be not very good at cooking. There is sand in the food, and it is white in color. It is hard to distinguish it. You must eat it and then you will know it... Boiled water is also suspicious. You must use it. The fire wine lamp (alcohol lamp) is boiling, and then you can feel at ease." In the following letters, he also mentioned: "The most inconvenient thing here is eating, and the food is still not good. If you two come here, If you don’t cook your own food, you might not be able to swallow it.”

During the "Cultural Revolution", someone published an article commenting on this period of Lu Xun's history, saying that Lu Xun's love of food reflects his bourgeois style.However, there are also articles defending Lu Xun, saying that Lu Xun described the food as unpalatable, not because of his appetite.This defense is a bit far-fetched. Lu Xun complained like this, of course, because his appetite was not satisfied. It is very common for Lu Xun to mention food in his letters.Even the family letter to his wife is no exception. In 1929, Lu Xun returned to Beijing from Shanghai to visit relatives. On May 22, he mentioned in a letter to Xu Guangping: "The Yunnan leg is almost finished. It is very good. The meat is rich and oily. Unfortunately, the recipe here has been the same for thousands of years. It is always steamed. I heard that tomorrow I will eat ginger. The legs are gone, but they are probably still steamed."

Ham is called fire meat, also called blue smoked or smoked hoof.It was originally produced in Jinhua, Zhejiang, and then spread to various places.Generally, pork legs with thin skin, thin bones, more tendons and less fat, and tender meat are used as raw materials. After more than ten processes such as trimming, pickling, washing, shaping, fermenting, stacking, and grading, it lasts ten years after wintering. month made.Many people know that Zhejiang has Jinhua ham, also known as golden leg, and Yunnan Xuanwei ham, also known as cloud leg, but few know the Jiang leg mentioned by Lu Xun.Jiang’s leg is also called Xuefang Jiang’s leg, also known as Gong’s leg. It is produced in Shangjiang Village, Dongyang County, Zhejiang Province. Xuefang is the name of the owner of the workshop.This kind of ham is moderate in size, slender and beautiful, with thin skin and thick meat. The lean meat is bright red, the fat meat is translucent, neither salty nor bland.

Lu Xun was very dissatisfied with the same steaming. Once he even used scallops to stew ham for his Japanese friend Kawashima himself, and he had to eat it with pepper.While eating, he introduced to Kawashima that small scallops should be used, and the slick oil should be skimmed from the stewed ham soup. The function is similar to that of cod liver oil.Lu Xun was able to clean up the troublesome ham, and he knew how to make it and its functions. It is conceivable that he is already a master in eating. When it comes to Lu Xun's food, one cannot fail to mention crabs.People often quote Lu Xun's famous saying "The first person to eat a crab is a warrior".This comes from Lu Xun's "Two Feelings of This Spring", which reads: "Many lessons of history have been exchanged for great sacrifices. For example, let's eat something. It is poisonous and cannot be eaten. We seem to be used to it. Yes, it’s very common. However, this must be known by the number of people who ate crabs to death before. So I think, people who eat crabs for the first time are very admirable. Who would dare to eat crabs if they are not brave?”

In Lu Xun's time, crab was a very common food. In the golden autumn season, a large number of crabs were on the market in the south of the Yangtze River.Lu Xun likes to buy crabs to eat at home. He usually has two simple methods: steam the hairy crabs over water and eat them with ginger, vinegar and sugar; Now there is still this way of eating in Jiangnan. Sometimes Lu Xun would invite his younger brother Zhou Jianren's family to taste hairy crabs at home. In October 1932, Lu Xun's diary recorded for the third time: "The third brother and Yunru eat crabs."At that time, Lu Xun specially asked Xu Guangping to buy some hairy crabs from Yangcheng Lake, and gave them to Japanese friends in Shanghai, such as Kamada Seiichi and Uchiyama Wanzo (owner of Uchiyama Bookstore).Lu Xun also knew how to use food for friendship and diplomacy. When he was staying in Japan, he knew that the Japanese loved crabs, so he often gave crabs to the Japanese.Now, we have also started to take crabs as gifts.

There are many topics about crabs in Lu Xun's works. In the famous article "On the Fall of Leifeng Pagoda", Lu Xun also described in detail the custom of eating crabs in the south of the Yangtze River, which is worth pondering: