Chapter 7 Sweet cinnamon · sweet chestnut

Recently, a friend came back from a business trip in Seoul. Knowing that the author likes to eat candied chestnuts, he specially brought a pack of candied chestnuts as a gift.Although the paper box used for decoration is very elegant, the size of the chestnuts is too irregular.The big ones are the size of pigeon eggs, and the small ones are similar to red dates with tight skin. It is unbelievable that they are chestnuts. Regardless of how well they are fried, the most important thing is the soft leather with hair on the inner shell of chestnuts. It hurts to peel your fingernails , It is also difficult to peel off all of them, it is really troublesome to eat, and it feels a bit bitter.

A friend from Japan also brought sugar-fried chestnuts. The frying was quite thorough, and the skin inside the shell was not difficult to peel off, but the particles were too small, and the peeling was not much worse than lotus seeds. I have eaten sugar-fried chestnuts from Japan and South Korea, which is amazing. Can't help but miss the sugar-fried chestnuts from the mainland. According to the general eating habits in Beiping, one has to eat at the right time and at the right time.It’s not the third day of March, you can’t buy sun cakes; it’s not easy to eat flower cakes until Chongjiu; before the Anti-Japanese War, if you want to eat barbecue, you can’t sell them; One family dares to enter the market early!

Chestnuts are produced in all counties west of Beijing, Tokyo, and Beijing near Beiping, but the chestnuts produced in Liangxiang Zhuo County are uniform in size, round but not flat, easy to stir-fry and attractive, so most of the sugar-fried chestnuts like to use Liangxiang Zhuo County Produced chestnuts to fry.Although everyone uses Liangxiang chestnuts, they have traveled all over the six or nine cities of Beiping, and no one uses Liangxiang chestnuts to promote their appeal.It’s very different in Shanghai. Although Zheng Fuzhai of Aiduoya Road is famous for selling sour plum soup in summer, when it comes to the golden wind, it’s refreshing, tender and cool at the beginning. His family first put up a red paper poster of "Liangxiang Chestnuts" to call for it. Customers, Liufengsuo, Nanjing Hankou and other places, who sell sugar-fried chestnuts, put up red posters of "Liangxiang chestnuts" at the door to attract them.People in Peiping do business, each has its own business, and they don't invade each other. Stir-fried chestnuts in sugar are the exclusive business of dried fruit shops, and no one dares to do something wrong.

Every year, the dried fruit shop puts a large frying pan at the door and installs a chimney to start frying until it is Bailu.In fact, there is a reason why they fry chestnuts after passing Bailu: The fuel for frying chestnuts is neither chopping wood, charcoal, nor cinder briquettes, but using broken reed mats, which are torn into pieces and filled into the furnace mouth as fuel. of.The slightly affluent residents of Peiping pay attention to ceilings, fish tanks, and pomegranate trees. In summer, the patio in the main courtyard is covered with a new reed mat awning. One day to dismantle the shed.The reed mats used to build the canopy were too loose and brittle after a long summer of exposure to the sun and rain. After dismantling the arbor, they took it to the dried fruit shop with a row cart and filled it with candied chestnuts for fire. Fuel.

The season of fried chestnuts sold in Hangzhou is earlier than that in Beiping.They pay attention to the fragrance of osmanthus and the chestnuts harvested when Osmanthus osmanthus is in full bloom, called osmanthus chestnuts. Stir-fried chestnuts with sugar and sweet-scented osmanthus are of course delicious.The spatulas used to sell sugar-fried chestnuts in Peking are all specially made, so they are particularly huge.During the Beiyang period, Zhang Zongchang's Zhilu Army and Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army fought at Xifengkou, and the Zhilu Allied Army won.As soon as the long-legged general got fat, he wanted to reward the three armies on the Nankou battlefield and hold a feast to celebrate his success. This big deal of 1,500 tables attracted the stares of all major restaurants in Beiping. No one knew that the deal was a good deal, but it was hot. No one dared to follow.At that time, Cui Liu, the head manager of Zhongxintang Restaurant on West Chang'an Street, agreed without hesitation, but the cauldron for cooking at Nankou was borrowed from Yu Guozipu's EQ.There were eighty-six sets of big iron pots with big flat shovels in all of Beiping, and he borrowed them all, so there were only about eighty or so restaurants in and outside of Beiping that cooked and sold chestnuts with sugar.

The gravel and gilt sand used for stir-frying chestnuts is a special product of Zhaitang (the place where casserole is produced in the west of Beijing, Beijing). It does not absorb sugar, and the molasses will not stick after a long time.After using it this year, wash it with clean water, store it, and use it next year.After the chestnuts are fried, they are sifted through mesh baskets. After sifting the newly hot chestnuts out of the pan, they are placed in the basket and covered with a small quilt to keep them warm. When customers come to visit, they are wrapped in rough straw paper and sold at a price of two pounds.

Peking newspaper reporter Wu Zonghu (pen name Lu Ye) and drama critic Jing Guxue are both addicted to sugar-fried chestnuts, and each has a record of eating two catties of sugar-fried chestnuts in one sitting.They were usually very proud. Once they met Fu Liancheng's freshly graduated clown Zhan Shifu. Zhan said that as long as someone treats him, it is not a problem for him to eat more than two catties of sugar-fried chestnuts.Wu and Jing didn't believe it, so they competed next to the counter of Sanyi Dried Fruit Shop on Qianmen Street.They piled freshly released hot chestnuts in fours and twos, and each ate his own portion, and continued after eating. Wu and Jing each ate eight piles, and Zhan Shifu actually ate eleven piles.Fu Liancheng performed in Guanghe Loucuan all year round, and Tong Sanyi was in Qianmen Street, very close to each other. Tong Sanyi knew Zhan Shifu from the old shopkeeper to the junior apprentice, so his pile was five More than two.If calculated according to the actual weight, I am afraid that it would be over three catties. Wu Luye once again exaggerated him in the Liyuan flower column in the newspaper, and the name of "King of Chestnuts" spread like wildfire.

In a Western restaurant in Beiping, the last dessert of a full meal is the most exquisite "Xieying" in Langfang Toutiao. It was first famous for its cherries jelly and carambola jelly. Cherries are canned cherries, which is not uncommon, but carambola, in It is not a big deal to eat in Taiwan, but it was not easy to eat fresh carambola juice to make carambola jelly in Beiping.Later, some pastry chef in the kitchen invented creamy chestnut noodles. He ground the fried chestnuts into fine noodles, added fresh cream, and embedded a canned fresh cherry on top of the cream. It was sweet and soft in the mouth. Fragrant, not greasy.The method seems very simple, but what other restaurants make is not as smooth and palatable as Xieying.Later, the chef transferred to work in the small cafeteria of Dong'an Market. Customers who like to eat butter chestnut noodles also rushed to the small cafeteria after they stopped eating Xieying.