Chapter 73 Chapter 73 The Beginning of My Food Culture

About 10 years ago, I wrote some articles about eating one after another. I think the strongest desire of Chinese people is to eat, and now the word for eating is composed of "mouth begging", so I wrote a novella, Named "Mouth Begging".Next, I went to Beijing with a 286 computer on my back.When I first arrived in Beijing, I was most worried about not being able to eat enough. It was true. I remember that when I lived in Xiaozhuang, I went downstairs to eat sliced ​​noodles every day. A bowl of rice, that feels really good, but it's a pity that a meal costs more than ten yuan, and I feel guilty and worry about running out of food.Later, more manuscripts were distributed, and the problem of eating was solved, and I turned to start my own business, focusing on delicious food.

When I cook more, I will inevitably want to brag, and bragging with a few acquaintances is not enough, so I write.At that time, I edited the supplement of "China Nonferrous Metals News", published it on my own page, and also contributed it to others. The most published one was "People's Political Consultative Conference". I can’t cook so many dishes myself. I started to write about the dishes I ate outside, and I strongly felt the cultural differences in eating. The differences are very large. The same is cold cucumbers, sliced ​​​​in Hubei, and the best way to cut cucumbers is to see the knives. As thin as paper, put it on a plate, sprinkle a thin layer of salt, as if giving a little salty taste to the sweet day, the so-called cut of the wings of a cucumber, is such a thin slice of cucumber, with aesthetic elements in it.What about Beijing?Take a picture of the whole cucumber, which is called "shooting cucumber". I think it is rude to take pictures of cucumbers. In this year's National Cooking Competition, there was a group of competitions called "hands-on-hand" and "knife competition". The host Wang Xiaoya asked me, what impressed me the most when I went to Beijing what is itI said shoot cucumber, very rude.Wang Xiaoya said that she felt good about taking pictures of cucumbers when she came to Beijing.The regional conflicts and identities of food culture are very clear. Taste is one of the most subjective feelings of people, and it is also empirical. People think that the food in their hometown tastes the best. I don’t know if Wang Xiaoya’s hometown in Sichuan makes cucumbers. , she accepted Beijing food culture faster than me.

It can be said that the earliest food culture writing was not a kind of conscious writing, because there were many places to go, and the "barbaric food" in the era of the geological team wrote a lot of interesting words, some stories and ideas that happened during the eating process After writing a lot, I realized that food is the richest cultural carrier in Chinese history and present. It has a narrow regionality and a universality. It is related to geography, climate, farming, customs, immigration and other natural environments and cultural accumulations Relatedly, the food culture accumulated in China's long history of 5,000 years cannot be written in a lifetime.The sage Lao Tzu actually said that "governing a big country is like cooking small fish" when discussing governing the country. This is food culture into philosophy.Like "popular", it is said that finely sliced ​​barbecue tastes particularly delicious, and later developed into a special idiom for evaluating articles.Another important thing about Chinese food culture is that other countries cannot compare it (although each nation has its own unique taste), China has the theoretical concept and tradition of the same origin of medicine and food, from Shennong's taste of herbs to Li Shizhen's, all Starting from food and medicinal properties, it has made a classic statement on the functions of various foods and minerals. China has a tradition of nourishing food.Later, I couldn't help being in awe of Chinese food culture, and began to study it carefully. In China, every classic food or classic dish can find its cultural roots.

From the writings of Su Shi, Li Yu, Yuan Mei and other writers, it can be found that the study of food culture started very early, which may be related to the concept of "a gentleman stays away from the kitchen". Food culture has a long history, but there are few contemporary researchers. There are only some idle pens of writers, such as Liang Shiqiu, Wang Zengqi, Lu Wenfu and others have written some articles on food culture, but they are not systematic, and they write whatever they want, with some embellishments related to literature.I think the important thing is related to the long-term hunger memory of the Chinese nation. When delicious food becomes a luxury, food culture has no place to take root.It was not until the end of the 20th century that the whole nation entered the stage of food and clothing, and the level of eating well was raised from full food, and China's colorful and rich food culture was revived and flourished in an all-round way.In recent years, Jiang Liyang from Shanghai and Shen Hong from Guangzhou have been very active in writing on non-food culture. Che Fu, Zhu Wei, Lao Mao, Hong Zhu, A Jian, Plantago Seed, etc. have also written many food articles. Over there, because the mainland entered the era of food and clothing earlier, food culture talents came out in large numbers, creating feasts on paper, which contributed to the promotion of Chinese food culture.

Television has contributed to the dissemination of food culture. CCTV, Qingdao TV and China Cuisine Association jointly organized two "National Cooking Competitions". In the second national cooking competition, the seat of "food critic" was created for the first time, and food critics were invited to participate in the evaluation, creating a new platform for the dissemination of food culture and adding a new stroke to the history of food culture.The first national cooking competition, the ratings reached 17%. Today, newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, the Internet and other media play an important role in the dissemination of food culture. Many young cultural people, including some ordinary citizens, have joined the writing team of food culture. The event is unprecedented. It expresses the arrival of a prosperous era, and at the same time, it can be seen as the beginning of the revival of Chinese culture.

Just like other cultures in the initial stage, with the rise of food culture, there are also many styles of vulgarity, especially in newspapers and magazines, many food articles are just tasting experiences, and some fashion magazines print a lot of pictures of dishes and shoot them for beauty Semi-ripe vegetables, some vegetables are painted with oil on the lettuce, the color is bright and eye-catching, because it is not the original color of the vegetable, it leads to a fundamental separation between the picture and the vegetable, which is not the right way of food culture. In my opinion, Chinese cuisine can be divided into four major sources. One is home-cooked cuisine, which has been accumulated by generations of ancestors in ordinary life. It is from the hometown and maternal nature. It is the dish in the hands of the mother. It generally does not have a unified name. , many of them are the addition of content, such as eggplant fried peppers, quinoa fried bacon; the second is professional hotel dishes, which are developed and cooked by professional chefs in hotel restaurants. The cuisines are still the eight major cuisines later, and each recipe has its unique taste, cooking style and regionality. Sichuan cuisine is the pinnacle of Chinese cuisine in terms of taste, while Cantonese cuisine is flat to the starting point of taste.In terms of products, two food circles can be divided, the rice culture circle and the wheat culture circle. In the two food culture circles, each region has a very fine division, such as Shandong cuisine, which can actually be separated into Qi cuisine. Compared with Shandong cuisine, there is a big difference in taste between Jiaodong Peninsula and Luxi.The research and development of professional hotel dishes is the most active part. In Beijing, the successful development of a new dish can revitalize the entire cuisine.Many traditional dishes are being improved. For example, the same is E cuisine, red tomato introduces the taste of tomato sauce in Beijing, trying to connect with international tastes in terms of taste.Sichuan cuisine in Beijing has greatly reduced its spiciness.On the contrary, many southern cuisines that feature lightness, such as Cantonese cuisine, Shanghai cuisine, Ou cuisine, Hangzhou cuisine, etc., have increased their taste and added chili in Beijing.Both McDonald's and KFC in the United States have added spicy food, which is the process of food culture migration, improvement and integration.In the writing of culinary history, professional dishes can be traced back to court dishes; the third is literati dishes, which have a very long history. It has been lost, and contemporary people have excavated it and remade it. Some of them are exaggerated or fictional by the author, but this does not prevent the excavators from being inspired and innovating.There are also some literati dishes created directly by literati, such as Dongpo Pork. This dish is a classic dish that has been around for nearly a thousand years and has been passed down to this day.I went to the local area to investigate and heard folklore that Su Dongpo went to Luozhou (later Qizhou, which was destroyed by the Jin people in the Southern Song Dynasty), and saw that Luozhou people ate meat and liked to stew it. After three days of stewing, the meat was as soft as paste and tasted delicious. pure.When Su Dongpo returned to Huangzhou, he made it according to the order and stewed it for seven days to make the taste more pure.The famous poet Su Dongpo made a dish, and this dish became famous all over the world with the name of Su Dongpo's poem.Many literati in history would try to cook some dishes by themselves during their writing and reading period, including contemporary literati. Because of abundant time conditions or material limitations, literati cuisine is different from the former two. It was born out of home cooking and hotel professional cuisine. It is more Heavy flavor but not heavy shape, there are also some good in shape and taste, and elegant in name, but because most of them cannot be solidified or the cooking cost is too high, they are not adopted by professional chefs in folk and hotels, but it does not prevent everyone from making use of its taste or shape. Literati cuisine, because it is associated with a famous literati, has a strong cultural heritage. In many places, it still has a place as a brand of local food culture; the fourth is Buddhist cuisine, or monastery cuisine, which is now commonly called vegetarian food. To avoid meat and spicy food, you should quit meat, as well as spicy and stinky vegetables, such as green onion and garlic. Tofu and mushrooms are important ingredients in high-end vegetarian dishes. For example, the "Gu Yun Si Yu" in Nanpu Tuo Temple in Xiamen is cooked with mushrooms.Su Zhai has developed to this day and has also entered the lay recipes.In addition, there are countless local snacks, which are unique regional food symbols.

In short, the rise of food culture is related to the prosperity of a nation, and it is the expression of food culture for the overall development of a nation.I personally study regional cuisine carefully, and put food and regional culture in my research scope. Now I am going to launch a personal series. This series is open.I think this can get rid of the pattern of eating from hotel to hotel and copying from book to book. Starting from taste, it can be summarized as "taste China". I believe this is a meaningful cultural exploration. Its root is China's five thousand Years of farming civilization, its breadth is the radiation circle of Chinese culture, and it also includes the factors of promoting Chinese agricultural products to the world. I will work hard.