Chapter 44 Yu Dafu's appetizers

Yu Dafu is a literary talent, and his novels, prose, and poems are all wonderful articles.He is also good at multiple languages, has traveled a lot in his life, and has constant confidante.What he loves the most are good wine and those few delicious appetizers. "Dafu is good wine" is the unanimous evaluation of Yu Dafu by friends.He himself is quite proud of being drunk, and once wrote a poem: "Three thousand days of being drunk, ten years of being slightly drunk." According to the records of his friends, after being drunk, Yu Dafu often became more eloquent and eloquent.

People who drink well will naturally taste delicious, but without good appetizers, drinking will become depressing. Yu Dafu was born with a good appetite. His wife Wang Yingxia once recalled that he "can eat a pound of soft-shelled turtle or a chicken in one meal". Yu Dafu was born in Fuyang, Zhejiang Province. The fish in the Fuchun River and the seasonal vegetables in the rice fields gave Yu Dafu a sensitive sense of taste and food genes.He loves to eat authentic local delicacies such as eel shreds, eel paste, soft-shelled turtle stewed ham. The landscape of Fuyang established Yu Dafu's habit of drinking and eating, while Fujian's snacks and feasts really brought Yu Dafu to a gourmet paradise.

In just three years in Fuzhou, Yu Dafu turned his food experience into a beautiful article handed down from generation to generation, "Eating Men and Women in Fuzhou". Finished. As a Zhejiang native, why do you have such a soft spot for Fujian cuisine?In fact, as a foodie, it is natural for Yu Dafu to fall in love with Fujian cuisine.The tastes of Zhejiang and Fujian are already similar, and many ingredients are also similar; Fujian cuisine ranks among the eight major cuisines, extensive and profound, with many unique cooking and top-level dishes. Fujian is the birthplace of Fujian cuisine, and Yu Dafu is full of praise for it: "The reason why Fujian cuisine is so famous... First, of course, is because of the abundance of natural products. The whole province of Fujian is bordered by the sea in the southeast and mountainous in the northwest, so delicacies from mountains and seas are all available. They are all as cheap as sand. I heard that the residents along the coast don’t have to worry about hunger. The sea tide returns. They only need to go to the beach and pick up a basket of seafood to serve as food. In addition, the atmosphere is warm and the soil is rich and thick. Forest vegetables can be cultivated anywhere, and can be picked at any time. There are always bamboo shoots throughout the year. The taste of wild vegetables is sweeter than that of other places."

Fujian cuisine itself is known for its delicacies from mountains and seas, the most famous of which is of course Buddha Jumping Over the Wall.In my opinion, if one evaluates national dishes across the country, Buddha Tiaoqiang must be one of the first choices.Hokkien cuisine is characterized by freshness, mellowness, fragrance, and not greasy, which is brought to the extreme in Buddha Jumping the Wall. Fotiaoqiang selects seafood materials such as conger eel, squid, razor clam, sea cucumber, sea mussel, etc., plus pork, shiitake mushrooms, fungus and other land delicacies. Fujian cuisine originated in Minhou (the center of Fuzhou cuisine), and it is a fusion of Western Fujian cuisine, Quanzhou cuisine, and Xiamen cuisine, forming its own system.Yu Dafu's favorite is Fuzhou cuisine.

In "Eating Men and Women in Fuzhou", he described snacks such as meat swallow, clam meat, duck noodles, dumplings, and sand fish paste.His favorite, of course, is seafood. He wrote: "Fuzhou seafood, in spring, March and February, the most popular and fattest is the mussel meat from Changle, and there are many oyster houses in the seaside area..."