Chapter 13 Wuhan: City of Bright Mornings

The mountains in Wuhan, the mountains are not obvious but the name is obvious.Below the Yellow Crane Tower is Snake Mountain, and under the TV Tower is Guishan Mountain, facing each other across the river. The Yangtze River Bridge with steel structure flies from north to south, and its momentum is like a rainbow, connecting the three towns of Wuhan; Luojia Mountain is the campus of Wuhan University. The school building and library are shaded by the shadows, and there are many stories about cherry blossoms and maple leaves; Moshan is located on the other side of the East Lake, the hometown of plums and osmanthus;There are more than 30 hills in Wuhan, which can be said to be all small at a glance.However, the water in Wuhan is wide, the Yangtze River is vast, the Han River is long, the East Lake is as clear as a mirror, or there are shallow waves and slight waves, cranes gather and boats sail under the clear sky, willows are green and lotuses are white.The water area of ​​East Lake, the first place in Wuhan, is 33 square kilometers. Besides East Lake, there are Nanhu Lake, Shahu Lake, Mohu Lake, Yangchun Lake, Moon Lake, Daijia Lake, Yujia Lake, Beihu Lake, Xiaotan Lake, etc., and other small lakes. Countless.Famous mountains and rivers, forming a natural garden city, she will naturally have delicious food.

Wuhan cuisine should be recommended for breakfast, small and elegant, unique shape, all rice and noodles are compatible, steamed and fried, skillful and delicious, all civilians, dignitaries, scholars, businessmen, and travelers from the north and south are all eaters, so the food is not in the complex Juicy, snacks and drinks, taste is the name.In Wuhan, the beauty of a day lies in the morning, a classic beauty. Wuhan's breakfasts include hot dry noodles, bean curds, soup dumplings, noodle nests, deep-fried dough sticks, Huanxi mounds, glutinous rice cakes, clear soup, dumplings, rice noodles, noodles with fried sauce, fried dumplings, fried buns, small steamed buns, noodles, spring rolls, and roasted plums. , eggnog, tofu nao, soy milk, glutinous rice balls, fried noodles, fried noodles, etc., there are countless, and occasionally there are exotic Lanzhou ramen, Xi'an stuffed skin and American McDonald's.Wuhan is a city in a complex area of ​​wheat and rice. Her early days were also a great fusion of the two food culture circles of China's wheat culture circle and rice culture circle. Wheat and rice represent dry land and water, a middle ground for flavor creation.

People in Wuhan call eating breakfast "too early", and they are not shy about eating and drinking in the streets and alleys. When they are proud of it, they show off that they do not repeat the same "premature" one month in Wuhan.The long-term prosperity of Wuhan early is due to its openness. It is the good character of Wuhan people to take things for granted. They can accept good things, and if someone eats them, others will cook them. They also have a tolerant spirit of eating both rough and rough.In the name of "premature", the people of Wuhan have shown that Jingyang meets, the thoroughfare of nine provinces, and most of Jianghan swallows mountains and rivers with food.People in Wuhan believe that when they are "too early", Shanghainese will eat rice at home.The custom of "premature" in Wuhan has indeed accumulated for a long time. The word "premature" was first seen in "Hankou Zhuzhi Ci" during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. The actual "premature" is naturally earlier than the formation of words.

Breakfast stalls in Wuhan are all over the streets and alleys. There are breakfast stalls in places where people live and gather, and they are very cheap. It is hard to imagine what it would be like for Wuhan people to have no place to "premature".Due to the influence of Wuhan's "premature", "premature" is popular in all cities in Jingchu. This is an example of the most extensive and lasting cultural influence of Wuhan.In addition, Wuhan’s breakfast has its famous stores and origins, Cai Linji’s hot dry noodles, Laotongcheng’s bean curd, and Sijimei’s soup dumplings. You will think that you have never really been to Wuhan.

Wuhan people never get tired of eating a bowl of hot dry noodles, which has far surpassed "premature".For Wuhan people, hot and dry noodles are not food, but spiritual sustenance, or taste dependence, and the hometown of taste.Wuhan people are far away from home, and whenever they think about hot and dry noodles, they will burst into tears.Reganmian is a kind of round machine-made noodles with a diameter of 2 mm, heavy alkali, it must be pressed and cooked overnight, drained and spread out, gathered before eating, put it in a long-handled sieve, put it in a boiling pot, scald it in water, pack it Add seasoning to a bowl, mix well, and eat.The main seasoning of hot and dry noodles is sesame paste. The sesame paste is mixed with oil and water. The authentic one is to dilute the sesame paste with sesame oil. There are also minced garlic, spicy diced radish, chopped green onion, salt, vinegar, pepper and monosodium glutamate. Mix well The hot dry noodles are dark brown, intricately intertwined, and have no clue. When eating, use chopsticks to pick up several noodles and stir them into a ball. When picking them up, hold the chopsticks and hold the bowl with the rest of the hand. The dough is picked up, and the noodles are colorful. Flying like tassels, blowing a wisp of hot fragrance into the air.Blow the breath on the noodles and put them in the mouth. First, you will have a strong aroma. After you bite down, the noodles will be hot and dry between the teeth. They will be tough, round and elastic after the beginning.After chewing again, it is a little sticky again. After the various flavors of the seasoning, there is the smell of wheat and the smell of spicy diced radish.Swallowing hot and dry noodles is a general experience, with a slight astringent feeling, and the lingering fragrance of sesame seeds curls up between the teeth.At this time, take a sip of clear soup or tofu to clear your mouth, and then eat hot and dry noodles for another mouthful of aroma.Most Wuhan people finish the hot dry noodles in one go. After eating, some stall owners will give a small bowl of soup.Hot dry noodles can be understood literally, hot, dry and noodle.

There are multiple versions of the patent right for hot dry noodles. According to legend, in the early 1930s, a man named Li Bao sold jelly and noodle soup in Changdi Street, Hankou.One hot day, when the noodles were not sold out, Li Bao was afraid that the noodles would turn rancid, so he cooked all the remaining noodles and put them on the chopping board. Unexpectedly, he knocked over the sesame oil pot, and the oil spilled on the noodles. Li Bao simply put the noodles away. Mix with sesame oil and fan cool.The next morning, Li Bao packed the cooked noodles mixed with sesame oil into a long-handle strainer, scalded them in boiling water, poured them into bowls, and added chopped green onions and other condiments.When asked what kind of noodles Li Bao sold, Li Bao blurted out "hot dry noodles".Another version was created by Chua, the founder of Chua Lin Kee. Because Chua's face is uneven and the word "ma" for sesame is taboo, he named it Regan Noodles instead of Sesame Noodles.At that time, there were two neem trees in front of Cai's house, and the two trees were the forest, so it was named Cai Linji.

Tofu skin is a thing of rice culture. If it is manufactured according to the standard of the time-honored brand Laotongcheng, it is required that the beans of the tofu skin should be shelled mung beans, the skin of the tofu skin should be refined rice milk, the filling of the tofu skin should be glutinous rice produced in Hunan, the third of the tofu skin Fresh meat, fresh mushrooms and fresh bamboo shoots, the shape of the bean skin is square and thin, the color of the bean skin is golden and bright, and the taste of the bean skin is a compound fragrance of rice and ingredients, which is full of the style of a famous store.Eating bean curd, the taste is crispy and filling, with tension, it feels like Yangzhou fried rice covered with a layer of crispy vermicelli, with a layer of formal packaging, bean curd will elevate a fried rice to a beautiful The snacks are simple and easy to eat, complete in color, fragrance and type, crispy and soft, oily or slightly greasy. When eating, you can get the satisfaction of the three senses of tooth, chewing and pharynx during the tasting process.

Rice noodles in Wuhan are also very popular. There are wide noodles and fine noodles. If the wide noodles have thin noodles and shreds, they can be divided into soup and dry stir-fry.The soup is bone broth, and the vegetarian noodles are only served with a little chopped green onion. Generally, meat eaters eat beef noodles.Beef is beef slices that have been stewed with large ingredients. It has a strong taste, and when combined with smooth and soft rice noodles, the aroma of rice and beef blend together. An early breakfast for those who like to "eat".For Wuhan people, eating and eating noodles are definitely separated. Rice is rice, and noodles are wheat noodles or buckwheat noodles, and they should not be confused.For stir-frying noodles, choose wide noodles, which are fried with cabbage heart, green onions, green peppers and garlic. The fried noodles are a bit burnt and heavy oil. It is a combination of noodles and vegetables.

The process of eating soup dumplings is a scalding process. Because the soup inside the soup is not easy to dissipate heat, the eater sees that the outside has been cold and eats it, and the result is scalded by the soup. It is like a philosophical proposition, ignoring the difference between the appearance and the essence. will be punished.Soup dumplings also have a Zen mechanism. Ordinary ginseng can't understand how the soup is wrapped in the steamed stuffed bun.Referring to Sijimei’s manufacturing process, there are four steps to making soup dumplings: the first step is to boil pig skin soup and make pig skin jelly; the second step is to make meat stuffing; the third step is to wrap; Steam.The world understands that the soup of soup dumplings is pork skin soup, which is made into jelly and then wrapped in soup dumplings, so that the meat or crab roe filling that is packaged with the soup will not be soaked.Soup dumplings are imported from Xiajiang, and people from Jiangsu and Zhejiang are collectively referred to as Xiajiang people in Wuhan, which means people from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

Eggnog in Wuhan is a "premature" drink, and it is mostly drunk when eating fried dough sticks or noodles.Fried dough sticks are a kind of food with a wide geographical area, but noodle nests are the only food in Wuhan.The noodle nest is also made of rice flour paste (with soy milk, green onion, etc.), and a round iron spoon with a convex bottom is filled with the paste and fried in a pan. When it is mature, there will be a naturally formed hole in the middle, which is like an astronomical solar eclipse. .The sides of the noodles are thick and the inside is thin. At first glance, I thought it was caused by insufficient raw materials. When I eat it, the sides are soft and the inside is crispy. The two flavors blend together. Chew and drink eggnog.The noodle nest is the kind of food that is good to eat first. I remember that when I was young, I liked to eat the thick part around the noodle nest first, and then eat the thin, crispy layer of the hole ring. It is burnt, crispy and fragrant. Yes, click, click, can make a sound.Eggnog is boiled with rice wine, and an egg is poached to make egg flower, which is a mixture of egg and rice wine.

The breakfasts in Wuhan can be summed up as two types of wheat and rice, and the variety of production methods leads to different tastes.Almost every kind of dim sum has a corresponding drink, such as eating fried dough sticks and drinking soy milk, eating noodle nests and drinking eggnog, eating hot dry noodles and drinking tofu nao, eating bean curd and drinking clear soup.Clear soup is called wonton in the north, and wonton in Guangzhou.Wuhan’s early origins originated from Changdi Street in Hankou, which is equivalent to Beijing Tianqiao. Today, Baofeng Road, Qiaokou District, at the top of Zhongshan Avenue in Hankou, is a large-scale gourmet city. You can also go to the gourmet city for a taste of Qunfang.Because of "premature", Wuhan can be named a "city of beautiful mornings". After "too early", Wuhan still has a pot of boiling soup like a pottery spring. This pot of soup is stewed with pork ribs and lotus root at noon, and stewed with lotus root and pork ribs at night. Wuhan is a city with distinct functions, the so-called three towns, Wuchang Cultural and Educational District, Hanyang Industrial District, Hankou Commercial District; the intersection of the Yangtze and Han Rivers, the Dabie Mountains in the east, and the Jianghan Plain in the west. It has a subtropical humid monsoon climate with four distinct seasons. Cold wave, annual average temperature of 16.7°C, one of the three hot stove cities, its unique food culture is related to geographical climate, products and urban population structure, Wuhan is the main road where water, land and north meet, and the thoroughfare of nine provinces, people are from the south and from the north, the mouth said "Chinese", so its food can satisfy everyone's taste, regardless of whether people from the south or the north.