Chapter 17 A cup of cold syrup to dispel heat and hot plum soup Chang Yi Xin Yuan Zhai

"A cup of cold syrup drives away the summer heat, and makes people remember Xinyuanzhai forever." This is Zhang Henshui's poem chanting sour plum soup back then.In the 17th and 18th years of the Republic of China, Sheqin Li Yu lived in Beiping Shewen, and the long summer was boring. Every weekend, he organized a poetry collection. Zhang Henshui and Huijian Kunji were frequent visitors.In the afternoon, I always prepare some cheese and sour plum soup to cool off the summer heat. I hate water and food, and I think these two are far better than soda and ice cream.I told him that Beiping sour plum soup Xicheng is the most famous for Longjinghe, and Qianwai is the most pure for Tongsanyi. Both of these two are dried fruit shops run by people from Shanxi.

Shanxi people pay attention to being rich in business, so the sour plum soup they make is definitely cooked plum soup, which is safe and reliable (there is a kind of sour plum soup in the alley knocking on copper bowls in Beiping, and they use small ice piercers to mix crushed ice into the sour plum soup at any time. It's all natural ice, which is really unhygienic).Another well-known home and abroad is Liulichang Dongmen, Xinyuanzhai near Yichi Street.At that time, celebrities and scholars in Peiping often went to the antique shop of Liulichang Bookstore to find the book they wanted to read, or to touch an antique. When the weather was hot and their mouth was dry, they would like to go to Xinyuanzhai to drink two bowls of sour plum soup to quench their thirst. .

Xinyuanzhai sits facing north from the south, and on the west side of the colored wall, there is a square of rubbed bricks facing each other, engraved with the four characters "Xinyuanzhai Ji", which was written by Feng Shu (Gongdu), a famous calligrapher in Peking.Although Xinyuanzhai has only one front, there is a small counter facing the door. On the semi-circular piano table against the west wall, there is a large copper tea tray filled with small white porcelain bowls, covered with a piece of clean white gauze, and beside it is a Green paint ice bucket, inside are two white ground blue and white grimacing jars, filled with ice cubes around the jars, covered with a wet dark blue muslin cloth on top, two bamboo hangers with beams placed in the water basin next to it, and green window vegetables in the room Few, clean up spotlessly.Xinyuanzhai's sour plum soup is more than twice as expensive as the sour plum soup sold along the street, so those who come to Xinyuanzhai to drink sour plum soup are all gentlemen and scholars; Song Ci, Han Yu and the like, so after drinking sour plum soup to rest their legs and chatting with them for a while, it would also gain knowledge and knowledge, and it is not unbearably vulgar.

His sour plum soup is so thick that it hangs in a glass, but not too sweet. For example, Shanghai Zheng Fuji always boasts of the secret recipe handed down from his ancestors, which is different. Xinyuanzhai is just the opposite. , Soak thoroughly, filter thoroughly, boil rottenly, sweeten with high-quality rock sugar, osmanthus with homemade sweet-scented osmanthus dew, the portion must be accurate, ice must be thorough, and water and ice must not be mixed, who can grasp these principles Go home and do it as usual, there is nothing wrong with it.When you go to the cabinet to drink sour plum soup, the young disciples will scoop it out of the jar.The apprentices all shaved their heads and were not allowed to grow long nails. They all looked neat and tidy in their bamboo cloth gowns with white sleeves.Back then, the modern poet Lin Geng had weak intestines and a weak stomach, and he developed gastroenteritis whenever he ate cold drinks outside. He could only drink sour plum soup, which he thought was a good product for the summer heat.After drinking Xinyuanzhai's sour plum soup, I realized that the flavor here is indeed superior, and it is not an exaggeration to call it a sublime product.

One summer, Henshui and I went to Liulichang to read books in Qingge.I bought a copy of "Zunsheng Eight Notes" written by Gao Lian in the Ming Dynasty. It is divided into eight items and nineteen volumes. , Bookshops are rare.He bought a copy of "The Lost History of Southern Xinjiang" written by Wen Ruilin in the Qing Dynasty, which records the trivia of Fujian and Guangdong in Jinling in the Ming Dynasty. Drink sour plum soup.He sat on the east side, facing the four characters "Xinyuanzhaiji" on the west screen wall outside the window.He asked me about the shops in Beiping. It is rare to have the word "remember" under the name of the shop. Feng Lao wrote it like this, so there must be his excuses.

Every summer, I go to Xinyuan Zhai at least ten times or eight times. Although I often see that piece of grinding brick bucket square, his question is enough to convince me. At first, they didn't pay attention to it. One day before the end of the Qing Dynasty, Zhu Ruzhen, the No. 1 subject, and Tanhua Shang Yanliu went to Liulichang to buy books. They wandered in and drank sour plum soup.Chen Shizeng, Wang Mengbai, and Li Kuchan also raised this question.Later, the shopkeeper personally asked Feng Gongdu, and Feng's answer was that Jiang Yucheng (Chaozong) had asked him the meaning of the word "remember". In fact, there is no profound meaning in it. There is no mystery, it is nothing more than doing some business for Xinyuan Zhaiduo.Think about it, from the east gate of Liulichang to the west gate, apart from selling the Four Treasures of the Study, the entire street sells thread-bound ancient books, or antique calligraphy and paintings. The people who come to stroll in this area are not literati, but dignitaries who specialize in studying editions and searching for water literature.These people like to talk about words, seeing this strange signboard that seems to make no sense, can they not come in and ask the bottom line?After finishing speaking, Mr. Feng laughed loudly, saying that he deceived anyone who was easy to take advantage of the bull's horns.Unexpectedly, this old man really understands advertising!

Every business in Beiping has to be offered to the patriarch. Xinyuanzhai is like a monopoly of sour plum soup. Who is the sacred one?Once I went to the backyard to go to the toilet. In their closet room, there was a vermilion lacquer and gold-painted hanging alcove the size of a tabletop. Behind the five offerings was a long live plaque. Xinyuanzhai was not a local government office in the former Qing Dynasty. What is the long live plaque for?Who knows that the long live card is engraved on both sides, and the back is engraved with "Zhu Tian Dadi", so who is the sacred one?Of course, it is inconvenient to ask people on the cabinet, and I asked Beiping Tongjin Shoushen by chance. He said: "Sour plum soup was called 'black plum soup' at the end of Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. Before Ming Taizu voted Guo Zixing as a general, he sold ebony plums. Jianghuai University Drought and plague were prevalent. He once used ebony plums to soak water to save many thirsty patients. Later, the sour plum soup sold Zhu Hongwu as his ancestor, which has its own origin. Because of the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods, there were still people with lofty ideals who opposed the Qing Dynasty and restored the Ming Dynasty. , the government searched very strictly, so the seller of sour plum soup fabricated that Emperor Zhutian was worshiped as the patriarch, which is the same as the case where the Beiping Sun Palace is named to worship the Sun Star Lord, but in fact it is Emperor Mingzhuang Liedi." Hearing this. After talking for a while, I realized that there is still such an ins and outs.

In Kaohsiung in 1976, I saw a Chinese medicine store and a Nanhuo store selling sour plum soup in the freezer at the door. You praised the cooked water for hygiene, and I said the iced water was reliable. I knew the two were right.I drank sour plum soup at Nanhuo store, and the boss told me angrily that the pharmacy next door made sour plum soup, which was beyond the reach.I told him the story of Xinyuanzhai, and he suddenly realized that since then, each of them sold their own sour plum soup, and they stopped staring at each other.