Chapter 37 A table of standard Jiangsu dishes

Mr. Liang Junmo said before his death that there are two gourmet experts among the veterans of the Kuomintang, "One is Mr. Tan Zuan and the other is Mr. Chen Guofu. Tan knows the taste but does not know how to raise it, while Chen knows both the taste and the way of raising it, so I can recommend one of the experts."These two sentences of Mr. Liang can be said to be words of knowledge. A few days ago, I chatted with Professor Liang Shiqiu. He hoped that I would classify the famous dishes of various provinces and counties, extract the essence, and formulate a representative Chinese recipe. .Dishes that have always been popular are divided into Shandong cuisine, Guangdong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, etc. Although there is no certain standard for the cuisine, it cannot represent the essence of a certain province's cuisine, especially Jiangnan and Subei in Jiangsu Province. In addition, not only the tastes are different, but also the cooking methods of thick, light, sweet and salty are also very different.Therefore, Mr. Guofu proposed to start with Jiangsu Province first. He planned to bring together the famous specialty dishes of the counties under the jurisdiction of Jiangsu Province and designate them as "county dishes". The elites of each province are selected to formulate the "national cuisine", four styles of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Once established, it represents the highest culinary art in China.

When Chen Guofu was in charge of Jiangsu, he once held a provincial product exhibition in Jiangsu, and appointed the Jiangsu Provincial Construction Department to host the event. Lu Xiaobo, chairman of Zhenjiang Chamber of Commerce, and Hu Bijiang, president of Central South Bank, were all preparatory members.The property fair was huge in scale and complicated. Both Lu and Hu are busy people in the shopping mall. They know that the author is a greedy person, so the selection of Jiangsu dishes is the part that they should be responsible for. , I must be invited to share the labor with them, so I not only bow to the prosperity, but also taste the delicious food all over the place.At that time, three principles were formulated for the selection of Jiangsu cuisine: first, "it is a well-known dish in all counties in Jiangsu Province"; Jiangsu's unique flavor style".Finally, after more than a month of allocation and selection, finally on the opening day of the product exhibition conference, a table of standard Jiangsu dishes selected by everyone was served in the provincial restaurant.

At that time, the furnishings, flowers and trees, bonsai, and tea bowls and cups of the venue were all arranged by consulting the elders and celebrities of Jiangsu, such as Han Zishi in Jiangyan and Zhang Yibi in Suzhou, so the banquet scenery can be smelled. The local flavor of Jiangsu is coming.Four kinds of teas are used for hospitality: Biluochun tea, Que tongue tea, Narcissus tea, and tribute tea, all of which are famous teas in the Taihu Lake area.In particular, Yangxian (Yixing) tribute tea was listed as a tribute as early as the Tang and Song Dynasties. If you hadn’t participated in this grand event, you would have never known that Yixing Tea Mountain still produces such good tea with fragrant and sweet taste!In addition, Maoli tea from Maoshan Mountain, Yunwu tea from Niushou Mountain, and Huiquan tea from Wuxi are all regarded as treasures by monks and Taoists on weekdays, and it is rare to taste them in leisure time.

Making tea pays attention to heat and utensils, but the most important thing is water.Tang Dynasty Zhang Youxin ranked the water suitable for making tea in China, the stone spring water of Huishan Temple in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province (second), the Shizhong Spring of Huqiu Temple in Suzhou (fifth), and the Jiangxin Spring at the foot of Jiaoshan Mountain in the Yangtze River (seventh). The famous springs on the list, unfortunately, at that time, they only cared about the fragrance of tea, and forgot to ask the person in charge of tea affairs, which spring was used to make tea for that table. Jiangsu fine wines include Suqian Daqu, commonly known as "Yanghe Sorghum", red wine from Haimen, gold wine from Jintan, tulips from Nanxiang, mung bean burnt from Chuansha, Jingliu paozi wine from Lixiahe, and a wine from Xiaolingwei. This kind of sweet wine is called Weitian, with five elements and seven fragrances, it can be called full of richness and lightness.

As for the dishes, such as Liuhe crucian carp with meat, Nantong clear soup shark's fin, Shanghai circle bald lung, Rugao ham and winter melon cup, Yangzhou lion head, boiled dried shredded, assorted pickles, Zhenjiang steamed shad, fried meat, Nanjing winter bamboo shoots fried chrysanthemum brain, small tripe Salted duck, Fengjing red stewed tendon, Wuxi rich chicken, meat bones, Suzhou sauce meat smoked fish, soy live shrimp, Changshu sauce chicken sauce ribs, Kunshan Yangcheng Lake crab, Taicang fried pork floss, Jiangyin Phoenix chicken, Huaicheng braised pork ribs Black ginseng, crispy eel from Taixian County, roasted pomfret, Gaoyou double-yellow salted egg, there are no less than 30 kinds of delicacies, and even if you try each of them briefly, you can't taste them one by one.The last table dish is the "No. 1 dish in the world" researched by Chen Guolao.

Guo Lao always advocates delicious food. In addition to nourishing the body, it must also have the four conditions of color, fragrance and sound. His first dish in the world is to boil the chicken soup into a thick sauce, stir-fry the shrimps and tomatoes, add Lightly thickened chicken sauce, a plate of deep-fried crispy rice, topped with thickened chicken sauce, tomatoes and shrimps while it is hot, the oil is moist and spit out, the sound is loud and thunderous, and it is eaten in a row. Prepared, both fancy and tasty.According to Guolao’s explanation: “Chicken is a vigorous poultry, shrimp is an aquarium that can bend and stretch. The raw materials are four kinds of chicken, shrimp, tomato, and crispy rice. There are two kinds of animals and two kinds of plants. Among plants, one is red and one is yellow, and among animals, one is water and one is land. They are all symmetrical. At the same time, this dish is both nutritious and inexpensive, and it is indeed the best dish in the world." Later, the anti-Japanese army flourished and the government moved in. Some people called this dish "A Thunder", which evolved from the sound of thunder to Bombing Tokyo, I didn't expect this dish to be the best dish in the world, and later it became a dish of the time!

The cuisines of Jiangsu Province are rare and diverse, and sweet and salty noodles are even more sweet, crispy, and rare, such as Huaicheng soup dumplings, Changzhou vegetable cakes, Yangzhou bee sugar cakes, and Suzhou jujube paste. Biscuits, green jade milk, it is impossible to list them all.At that time, someone suggested that ten or twenty kinds of Jiangsu's famous dim sum should also be selected as the top taste treasures.But at that time, there were insufficient manpower and the time limit was extremely urgent, so we had to give up temporarily and leave it for future selection.At the beginning of this grand feast, each dish has been evaluated by several gourmets, so it is difficult for everyone to agree, and the speakers are different.It is inevitable that there will be missing pearls on that table, and it may not be enough to represent Jiangsu provincial cuisine, but now that I think about it, I feel that the five elements and seven fragrances are mellow and mellow, which makes people yearn for it!