I have been eating delicacies since I was a child. In my hometown, there are no mountains or seas, and I can’t see the southwestern Shandong plains.
There are two so-called delicacies, one is mushroom, which does not require "monkey head", and there is no pineapple mushroom. It is just the most common mushroom, chopped and made into soup. A little soy sauce, vinegar, a handful of scallion, and a few drops of sesame oil. The hot mushroom soup will be brought out. If you want to add some fungus , it will seem to have a more mountain flavor.
The second mountain delicacy is to use dried bamboo shoots, commonly known as " magnolia chips ". At that time, I had never seen bamboo shoots, nor did I know that magnolia slices were dried bamboo shoots. I just felt that they were very different from ordinary vegetables, similar to carrots and cabbage. They were refreshing, smooth and crispy, with a kind of astringent fragrance, chewy, and not mediocre. I heard the adults smack their lips and say, "This is a delicacy!" I believed it. In fantasy, there is a high mountain in the distant place, with bright flowers and magnolia pieces laughing in the bushes. There are two dishes for
seafood: one is sea rice soup, throw frangipani , and when the conditions are good, then tear a few slices of seaweed. Compared with ordinary egg soup, it is really fresh. The second is squid soup. Cut the dried squid into thin slices and boil it. It also has a particularly salty and fresh type, especially the squid with the soup base. It is crispy and delicious when chewed in your mouth. At that time, I didn’t know what the squid looked like, and I thought it should be about the same size as sea rice. Perhaps, the things in the sea were all slices of shrimp rice squid, otherwise how could I say “a drop in the ocean”?
Whether it is mountain delicacies or seafood, plates and basins can always come to the bottom soon. Children's spoons, they can not only drink them in their mouths, but also on their clothes. Such delicacies are what children eat and are far away.
Delicacies of mountains and seas are the face of my hometown. No matter how poor living conditions are, you always have to invite people to dinner; no matter how short the ingredients are, you cannot be ashamed of face. A face-saving banquet, in addition to delicacies, at least there must be fish and chickens to get the lip service of "surplus every year" and "good luck", so there are fake fish and face-saving chickens.
fake fish is often called turtle . In fact, when I was a child, turtle was not valuable and was all wild. Suddenly one day, my value soared and I got on the official table. No matter where you place the mat, you must use red fish, that is, carp . There is no fish, and marriage is even called "eating fish". For example, when a young man gets married, he says, "When will you eat your fish?" It can be seen that fish cannot be eaten casually. When it comes time to have to be fish, there is no fish to go, and fake fish can be treated as fish to save face.
The so-called fake fish is to mix the noodles with shrimp skin, fry them into pieces, look similar to the fish pieces, and then make it into sour soup, which is called "fake fish soup". The taste of fake fish is naturally difficult to be real, but the love for fish is real, and the guests will not blame it. Later I heard that some places were not affordable to fish back then, so I sprinkled with fish carved from wood with scallions and coriander, which was purely viewable and could not be eaten.
Nowadays, fake fish is rare. The old hotels in the county still retain this dish. I must order every time I go there. Although I have eaten a lot of fish, there are not many more delicious than fake fish.
I thought "fake" was just a dodgy, but later I found out that it was actually a traditional craft. There are many kinds of "fake" dishes in the royal imperial meals of the Song Dynasty. Luyou mentioned fake round fish and fake sand fish in his " Lao Xue'an Notes "; " Tokyo Menghualu " records fake river horn , fake round fish, fake wild fox, fake roasted deer, fake clam , etc. Moreover, at the beginning, only top chefs could have such skills.
For example, in "Silin Guangji ", which records the customs of the Song Dynasty, it records a variety of fake clams, fake white waists, fake bear paws, and fake sand eels. Most of them are chopped with mutton, pork or fish, and evenly compacted with mung bean powder , making it into a shape, and making it into a similar taste, which is quite similar to the fake fish in my hometown.
Many fake dishes are much harder to cook than real dishes.In " Dingding Ji " compiled by Tong Yuejian of the Qing Dynasty, there is "fake Wenshi Tofu" made with pig brains as raw materials and "fake pigeon eggs" made with tofu. Relatively speaking, it is easier to make the meat flavor with vegetarian dishes, and it is really rare to make the taste of vegetarian dishes with meat.
Unexpectedly, it was precisely because of its barrenness that this almost lost technique was passed down in my hometown. For example, vegetarian chicken is clearly called chicken, but there is no chicken. It just mixes pork and steamed buns together, fried cakes, and steamed them. This is my favorite steamed bowl when I was a child. Now it has become a provincial intangible cultural heritage. Every Chinese New Year, I still can't forget this bite.
is more capable of replacing chickens than vegetarian chickens, and is the face-saving chicken. As the name suggests, it is a chicken that needs to be paid for the sake of face. Unlike fake fish and vegetarian chickens, face chicken has a little chicken content. I asked Brother Kuan, who inherited the skill of steaming bowls in Cao County, and he told me that the face chicken was divided into two layers, the top layer was made of chicken breast puree, starch and egg white, slightly thinner; the bottom layer was slightly thicker, and the pig front leg puree was added with eggs, starch, and steamed buns. After the whole was made, add pork bone soup and put it in the bowl. After steaming it in a steamer, it is buckled on a plate and tastes like some chicken legs.
Although, compared with various special fried chickens, face-saving chicken can only be considered a specialty, if someone treats me to face-saving chicken today, I will feel particularly face-saving.
A few days ago, I attended a dinner party. A friend brought several steamed bowls from my hometown, including vegetarian chicken and face-saving chicken. He told the chef to process it on the spot and brought it up. I ate it and swallowed it voraciously. The sea cucumber on the table did not move a bite. The real delicacies of mountains and seas are of course delicious, but they can only be eaten into the stomach and intestines, and the taste of hometown can always be eaten into the heart.
Before leaving my hometown, I had never seen mountains and seas. I remember the first time I went to the beach. I was twenty years old. I was not excited by the surging tide, nor did I feel how charming the sun and the beach were. I just felt like the air of squid soup, my face melted, and fake fish leaped. What I secreted from my mouth was the sea water of my childhood.
