Chapter 48 The temptation of sea bass with salt and black bean sauce

People often ask me to write something about Chinese literati and food. I think this topic is really difficult to write.First of all, the concept of Chinese literati itself is difficult to define. A literati or a cultural person has never been a kind of occupation, nor is it a division of education level and origin. circumstances.Especially for more than a thousand years after the Sui Dynasty, the imperial examinations provided scholars with opportunities to compete on an equal footing and advance to official careers, and the social group of literati became more complex and diverse.The second is that everyone has the desire for food and drink, and literati are also human beings, so there is no exception.I have always believed that there is nothing special about the appetites of literati, and they are almost the same as ordinary people. There is a preference for meat and vegetables, salty, sour, sweet, and spicy; Desires for extravagance and recklessness have always been despised by people.

The way of diet is also very simple to say, just as straightforward as "a man eats when he is hungry, and drinks when he is thirsty" in "Book of Rites".But how to eat and drink often reflects different thoughts and sentiments. "A gentleman stays away from the kitchen" and "never tire of fine food, never tire of fine meat" have always had many different interpretations, and have even become the object of criticism.Thirty years ago in the absurd era, it was said that "a gentleman stays away from the kitchen" is to look down on cooking work, and "never tire of fine food, never tire of fine meat" is the pursuit of a corrupt bourgeois way of life. Now it seems ridiculous, but it is true .It is also said that "a gentleman stays away from the kitchen" means that a gentleman should not indulge in the desire and pursuit of food.In fact, "a gentleman stays away from the kitchen" means that a gentleman should not see the bloody scene of dismembering livestock, which is a kind of avoidance similar to "seeing its life and not being able to bear to see its death, hearing its sound and not being able to bear to eat its flesh", probably If you don't see, you don't think, and if you don't think, you can eat with peace of mind. "Never tire of fine food, never tire of fine food" should refer to respect for food, seriousness to life, and pursuit of perfection, which does not conflict with self-cultivation, family harmony, state governance, and peace of the world.

When it comes to literati and food, we might as well think that literati take food as their ground and literature as their sky. Food and culture are in harmony, and heaven and earth are in harmony. Only then can they present a rich and colorful world, and thus have the yesterday, the day of Chinese excellent traditional culture. today and tomorrow. Chinese literati are serious about food. Not to mention Su Dongpo in the Northern Song Dynasty and Lu You in the Southern Song Dynasty are two great gourmets. He was able to practice and cook with his own body, so later folks invented dishes such as "Dongpo Meat".Lu You is a poet who is proficient in cooking. In his poems, there are hundreds of poems about delicacies.Whether he is in Wuxia or in the middle of Shu, he can find a lot of delicacies. He can not only operate in the kitchen, but also buy them, and he has to buy them himself. There are countless fish and turtles in beauty".Another example is "vegetables left after frost are light and sweet, and the seedlings are tender when spring is near; they can be boiled when they are picked, and there is no need to add half a baht of salt cheese." "彘骨" is pork ribs. From Lu You's two poems, we don't see any delicacies from mountains and seas, but ribs, chicken, and seasonal vegetables in spring and autumn. Tranquil life, but all permeated with love for life.

Zhu Yizun and Yuan Mei, great literati in the Qing Dynasty, are also worthy of being gourmets. The reason why they are called gourmets does not mean that they are delicious and know how to eat. It is not difficult to achieve these two points, and most people can achieve them.What is rare for Zhu and Yuan is that in addition to various writings, they also left us "Food Xian Hong Mi" and two books, which not only recorded many mouth-watering dishes, but also recorded in a considerable length The techniques of dishes, the application of condiments and the regulation of diet are discussed.Li Yu, a dramatist in the Qing Dynasty, was also a gourmet. He loved bamboo shoots the most, and considered them the first dish in his dishes. .The author, Pu Songling, is from Shandong. His favorites in his life are "cold mung bean sprouts" and "five-spice dried tofu". He once wrote "Fu on Pancakes" and "Chapter on Diet".

In the Qing Dynasty, there were also many homes of literati and bureaucrats who could create popular specialties, such as "Kung Pao Chicken" from the family of Shandong governor Ding Baozhen, "Yifu noodles" from the family of Yi Bingshou, the prefect of Yangzhou and Huizhou, and "Noodles" from Pan Bingnian's family in the late Qing Dynasty. "Pan Yu", the "Wu Yu Slices" of Wu Guisheng's family, and even the "Tan Family Cuisine" created by Tan Zongjun and Tan Qing's father and son, etc., etc., I think they are probably made by their chefs, and they may not have anything to do with them. very close relationship.In addition to the requirements of cooking techniques, ingredients, condiments, and taste, literati may also pursue artistic conception, such as seasonal phenology, dining environment, and cultural atmosphere.Spring, summer, autumn and winter, wind, frost, snow and rain have all become the conditions for blending with food. Enjoying flowers in spring, listening to rain in summer, climbing high on Chongyang Festival, and stepping on snow in midwinter, accompanied by seasonal banquets and gatherings, will be a different kind of taste. Enzyme, this kind of special taste will permeate in the memory and permeate the food for a long time, so that the food is imbued with a strong cultural color and produces a lingering nostalgia.Bai Juyi once looked forward to the enjoyment of the artistic conception of "green ants new fermented wine, red clay small stove; the sky is like snow in the evening, and you can drink a glass of nothing"; the contemporary writer Ke Ling also had "in the evening" when writing about the old wine in his hometown. Afterwards, we strolled to the restaurant, drank half of the small bottle of sweet wine, chatted with each other unsophisticated gossip, brought a little drunk, and walked back under the quiet and cold moon.”Although they are separated by thousands of years and things are different in the world, the lingering feeling has the same effect.

I remember reading some words about Shichahai by Mr. Qian Xuantong. The writing seems to be about the Huixian Hall on the north shore of Shichahai around 1919. Taking advantage of the shade after the rain, listening to the singing of frogs and cicadas, peeling the lotus roots in the lake, leisurely How leisurely it is to look down at the weeping willows on the bank and the lotus in the pond.I think it was about a nap after lunch at Huixian Hall.Appreciating chrysanthemums and eating crabs in late autumn is the best season for literati gatherings. How pleasant it is to have chrysanthemums, crabs, wine, and poems.Roasting meat in the oven in the cold winter and looking for plums in the snow is another kind of atmosphere. Anyone who has read it will have a very deep impression on these two banquets. Cao Xueqin's ability to describe the scenes so vividly comes naturally from From his own life experience, it should be said that Cao Xueqin is also a gourmet, otherwise, the food scene that can be found everywhere in the movie would not be so appropriate and vivid.

Literati's love for food does not vary in the slightest because of their literary views and positions.As Lin Yutang said, "What to eat and what not to eat depend entirely on people's prejudices."Lu Xun's understanding of certain matters is somewhat narrow, such as his attitude towards Chinese medicine and Peking opera, but he can still accept it more broadly in terms of diet.In his diary, there are as many as sixty-five restaurants in Beijing, including several Western restaurants and Japanese restaurants.Lu Xun probably didn't eat mutton, and I didn't find a halal restaurant among the sixty-five restaurants.Zhou Zuoren also has a lot of writings about diet. In recent years, Mr. Zhong Shuhe compiled it into "Zhi Tang Tan Eating".Although Zhou Zuoren and Lu Xun have different literary viewpoints and life experiences, their attitudes and tastes towards Chinese medicine and Peking opera are very similar, and they are exactly the same. He has a more indelible love for Shaoxing-style drinking and writing than Lu Xun.As for Liang Shiqiu, it is different. "Elegant House Talking about Eating" covers a wide range of diets. Until his later years, he still missed Beijing's bean juice and snacks. I think Zhou's kung fu would probably not appreciate these things.

The mystery of literati and food is endowed by speculators, especially catering businesses, which seem to double their value immediately after literati comments and chants.Mr. Yu Youren is a native of Sanyuan, Shaanxi. When he was young, he always tasted the taste of loess and high slopes. Afterwards, he traveled all over the country to be eclectic.Mr. Yu Youren is bold and enthusiastic, and never refuses people thousands of miles away, so many merchants ask for his inscriptions, from "Chen Ji Huanggui Choujiu" in Xi'an to "Shijia Restaurant" in Mudu, Suzhou, to many in Taiwan. Restaurants have calligraphy left by his old man when he was a guest.Mr. Zhang Daqian is also considered a gourmet. It is through his training and rehearsal that the chefs can be exquisite in their skills and create delicacies such as "Daqian Fish" and "Daqian Chicken".I have been to his "Maya Jingshe" on Zhishan Road in Taipei. There is a barbecue pavilion in the garden. There is a big barbecue grill in the pavilion. A red note with the name of the condiment written on it.Taipei is densely populated, and every inch of land is expensive. It is not comparable to his "Bade Garden" in Brazil. You can call friends and friends to have a barbecue, so you can only set up a thatched pavilion in the garden to avoid the smoke. trouble.During Zhang Daqian's stay in Taiwan, he often went out for banquets. It is said that in Taipei, the business of the restaurants he visited would be particularly good. I think this is probably the celebrity effect.In addition to being ordinary people, literati gourmets are first of all "greedy", and then they can have a deep understanding and incisive evaluation of food.Mr. Wang Zengqi is a multi-talented cultural person with a high appreciation for food, and his heir Wang Lang is also very good at eating.I have eaten with their father and son many times, and I have heard Mr. Wang Zengqi's views on eating at the dinner table, which are actually very plain truths.Wang's father and son have both written books on food, and they don't talk about delicacies from mountains and seas, but they are indeed well-known and very precise.

Mr. Wang Shixiang is a scholar who can cook with a knife. Regarding his cooking skills, many articles always mention his "dried sea rice with green onions". Brother Dunhuang (Mr. Wang Shixiang's heir), he laughed, saying that his old man was out of control for a while, and now he was doing it in a hurry, which was aroused by the outside world, and became his specialty.Mr. has long stopped cooking in his later years, and Dunhuang has the final say on what to eat, what to eat, I often meet Dunhuang in restaurants, and use a lunch box to fill a few dishes to buy back to eat, I think he must not know Very satisfied, can only make do with it.Every year in the old calendar year, he always cooks a few small dishes at home and sends them over. I'm afraid it may not suit his appetite.

Mr. Zhu Jia and I talked about food the most, and often recalled the Western food in old Beijing.There are a few western restaurants that I haven't caught up with.What impressed me the most was that he said that there was a kind of "chicken box" made in western restaurants at that time. I also heard my father mention this kind of thing many times. Filled with creamy chicken core, I also had it in a restaurant later, it was not done well.Mr. Zhu Jia also told me an interesting story. When he was in school in Furen, he went to eat western food with a few classmates. After the meal, he found that no one had brought any money, so he had to put his camera on the cabinet and go back to get the money. Redeem it back.Of course, Mr. Zhu at that time had not entered the ranks of "literati".

Mr. Qigong is also worthy of being called a "greedy person". I remember that in the late 1970s, the manuscript remuneration system had just been restored. At that time, Mr. Qigong still lived in Xiaocheng Lane. .I still remember that the restaurants they visited the most at that time were "Kangle" in Jiaodaokou and "Senlong" in Dongsishitiaokou. Later, when Maxim's in Chongwenmen opened, Mr. Qi also used the manuscript fee to treat everyone to a meal. pause.That era was not like today, and there were only dozens of restaurants in Beijing to choose from. There are a lot of delicious cultural people in Shanghai. They often hold small dinner parties. Everyone takes the opportunity to meet and chat. Of course, satisfying the appetite is also essential.For example, Huang Chang, Zhou Shao, Du Xuan, Tang Zhenchang, Deng Yunxiang, and He Manzi are all members.Shanghai has a tradition in this regard. Since the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai literati have mostly dated in the form of dinner parties, which is also an activity similar to gatherings.The food environment in Shanghai is better than that in Beijing, and the species and ingredients are quite fresh and diverse. Many foreigners who have lived in Shanghai for a long time have also been assimilated. Mr. Deng Yunxiang, Mr. Chen Congzhou, and Mr. Jin Yunzhen, who I am familiar with, are all foreigners who have long been Shanghaiified people.They are also particular about food, and the dishes at home are excellent.I still remember the Changzhou pancakes from Mr. Chen Congzhou's house and the chestnut chicken from Mr. Deng Yunxiang's house. The taste is really unforgettable. Not all literati are delicious, and many people are not demanding or particular about food.Mr. Zhang Zhongxing is from Hebei, and most of the diets mentioned in his books have northern characteristics.He was once a guest at the home of an old friend in Tianjin, and he ate some dishes such as braised pork, spicy chicken, mushrooms and rapeseed. He thought they were very fresh and elegant, much better than those cooked in Beijing restaurants. In May 1999, I was staying at the Yulan Courtyard of Dajue Temple in Xishan for a meeting. It happened that Mr. Ji Xianlin lived in Siyitang. The Yangzhou dim sum here is delicious." Actually, I know the culinary skills in the Dajue Temple tea garden very well, although the tea garden specially made some dim sum for him in those few days, but the craftsmanship is really not flattering.During the chat, the old man talked to me about his diet concept. He said that he would eat everything in his life, and he had no special preference. In his words, there is no taboo on food, and he didn’t need to listen to doctors and nutritionists so much. Living at home, the food we usually eat is almost the same after all, especially home-cooked food, which can whet people's appetite the most.What I remember most clearly is that one winter, when the weather was extremely cold, I went to visit Mr. Hu Qing in the former residence of Lao She in Fufu Hutong, Dengshikou (it had not yet become a memorial hall at that time). Bringing a large bowl of steaming hot poached fish, she slowly moved in front of her and said to me: "I'm partial to you!" (in Beijing dialect it means I ate it, and you won't be allowed to eat it) and ate it alone .The bowl of poached fish smelled of scallions wrapped in a pot and sprinkled with sesame oil. It was really tempting. I suddenly had an unprecedented appetite, but I had no choice but to say "you are welcome, you eat slowly", but I really want to have a bowl, but I'm sorry. The relationship between literati and food may be understood in this way: literati are intoxicated by food, and food becomes romantic under the pen of literati.The Chinese and the French have similarities in many aspects. There are many descriptions of food in the works of Zola and Maupassant, which are so vivid and mouth-watering.France 2 has a special column called "Food and Art", and its columnist and director is the well-known Lanfeng (Lafon). In 2004, I was interviewed by Lan Feng, and the content I talked about was the culture and art of food. The difference is that in France, there is only a group of artists, but there is no such concept as "literati". "Thousands of water shield soup, last salt and soy sauce" is an allusion that Lu Ji praised the food of Soochow to Wang Wuzi. Although there have always been different views on whether "thousands of miles" or "dry miles", "last under" or "not under", However, the beauty of water shield soup and the need for soy sauce are indeed recognized by everyone. Perhaps it is far less beautiful than described. It is only because of the input of taste that many ordinary diets and dishes are transformed into delicious art and never-fading art. Dream.