In recent years, Okinawa, Japan has gradually become a hot tourist destination for Chinese people. Because of its subtropical scenery, it is very different from Tokyo and Osaka on Honshu Island. "Okinawan cuisine" is far from the traditional cognitive "Japanese cuisine", but it can easily make the Chinese people feel "daily familiar"...
Ryukyu's "pig"
The current Japan " Okinawa Prefecture " is geographically located in " Ryukyu Islands ". This is a collective name for a series of island groups located between Taiwan Island and Jiuzhou Island . According to the Chinese character, the one with light in the stone is "Liu", and the rounded jade is "ball". The two words "Liuqiu" are combined together, which means a string of luminous jade in the sea. From the artistic conception, it is naturally higher than "Okinawa" (meaning "fishing ground on the sea" or "place on the sea") and I don't know where it goes.
Ryukyu Islands
However, "Okinawa" and "Ryukyu" cannot be completely equated. Before the 1870s, Ryukyu was an independent kingdom and became a transit station for East Asia's maritime trade in , Ming Dynasty. As the inscription "The Bell of the Peak of the Ten Thousand Kingdoms" made in 1458 AD says: "Use the Ming Dynasty as the auxiliary vehicle, and the sun as the lips and teeth", and "use boats and oars as the Peak of the Ten Thousand Kingdoms".
The Ryukyu Kingdom in its heyday geographically covered almost the entire Ryukyu Islands. This situation continued until 1609. At that time, the Satsuma japan in the southern part of Kyushu Island invaded Ryukyu and severed the Amami Islands in the northern part of Satsuma. As for today, this land still belongs to Kagoshima Prefecture (rather than Okinawa Prefecture). In the 1990s, Chinese writer Chen Shunchen wrote this past story into a historical novel called "The Wind of Ryukyu (Ryukyu's Style).
Ancient Ryukyu Army
If this book title can be applied, "Ryukyu Pig" can probably be called a typical example of "Okinawa cuisine" having its own characteristics. As we all know, pork occupies an extremely important position on the Chinese dining table, and the pork consumption still exceeds 60% of the total meat consumption. In sharp contrast, in traditional Japanese cuisine, pork has a relatively marginalized status. The reason is that in the 8th century AD, influenced by Buddhist doctrines, Emperor Tianwu issued a "meat ban order", claiming that whatever you eat will change, and that eating meat will fall into the "animal realm", so no four-legged animal meat is allowed. As a result, for a long time before the Meiji Restoration, meat became a privilege for nourishing "patients" in the lives of ordinary Japanese people. "The Diary of a Single Samurai Warrior" records that Sakai Masashiro went to eat pork on the grounds of catching a cold. Even pork cannot be called directly, but should be called "mountain whales" - because whales are not fasted like fish.
But the situation in Okinawa is very different. Of course, the emperor's edict did not govern Ryukyu, which was independent of Japan. Like China, without religious taboos, pigs, as the most efficient livestock to convert carbohydrates into proteins and fats, have been favored by the Ryukyu people, and it is reasonable to be favored by the Ryukyu people. In this way, the Japanese are known as "a nation that completely eats fish", and Ryukyu is an archipelago surrounded by the sea, but Okinawa's fish consumption ranks last in the incredible place in Japan. In sharp contrast, Okinawa is the first in Japan to consume bacon and other pork processed products.
In fact, many dishes of "Okinawan cuisine" cannot be separated from pork. The cooking method is also very similar to that of Chinese food, and they are cooked with spices such as cooking wine, fennel, and five-spice powder. One of the favorite dishes is called "Tongkok Cook". It is very similar to China's "Dongpo Pork". You should cook the fat and thin pork belly with soy sauce, sugar, etc. for two and a half hours until it is crispy and soft. It goes without saying that "Tongkok Cook" has a very different taste from light Japanese dishes such as sushi and sashimi. Even if it is the "Kanto Cook" originated from Japan, Okinawans are accustomed to adding pig's trotters as one of the ingredients, and even the soup is pork bone soup.
Okinawa's "Turn Horn Cook"
Of course, similar to other pre-modern East Asian farming areas, in the past, pork was not a very easy-to-get meat.Until before World War II, ordinary Okinawan people only killed pigs once a year. As the first lunar month approaches, several families slaughter domestic pigs and then distribute pork. Most of the pork is marinated with salt and placed in a wide-mouthed crock pot. It is only taken out and eaten with the villagers during major festivals (New Year, the first month, the Spring Equinox, and the Qingming Festival). Pig blood and internal organs are not conducive to preservation, and there is no habit of eating pig internal organs in Japan. But Okinawan people will make pig blood, internal organs, white radish, kelp, carrots, and garlic into a delicacy similar to "pig blood" - no difference from China: "Every part of the pig can be eaten except its hooves and screams."
imported staple food
If it is said, "Okinawan cuisine" favors pork, it can be regarded as the rational choice of ordinary farming people after weighing protein returns; Okinawans have irrefutable Chinese "genes".
In the survey of local residents by local TV stations in Okinawa, purple potatoes are considered to be the most Okinawan-style food. Purple potato is a type of sweet potato. In different places in China, sweet potatoes are also called "sweet potatoes", "sweet potatoes" and "sweet potatoes". This is a crop native to the Americas, which was introduced to Fujian, China through the "Great Geographic Discovery" era. Because of its strong adaptability to soil, it can be widely planted. Soon, ordinary Chinese could no longer realize its foreign origin - so that another American crop potato that was introduced to China later was called "foreign" potato in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, as if the "sweet potato" was native to it.
The famous Okinawa purple potato egg tart
In the late Ming Dynasty, sweet potatoes that had been integrated into Chinese diet were transmitted to Ryukyu through sea routes. Around the 30th year of Wanli (1602), the general official Yeguo used the "bowl planting" method to bring potato seedlings from Fuzhou back to Ryukyu for cultivation. Since then, sweet potatoes have been widely planted in Ryukyu. This is indeed a great blessing for the people of Ryukyu. The Ryukyu Islands belong to the East Asian rice cultivation cultural circle. However, as an island country, Ryukyu land is barren, and the rice planting area and harvest are limited. Once natural disasters such as Taifeng and tsunami will occur, famine will break out. In order to survive, the islanders even grind cycad seeds into powder to make porridge to satisfy hunger often leads to food poisoning. After the introduction of sweet potatoes, "sowed in all four seasons, three ripening will lead to abundance, and four ripening will lead to abundance", which soon became the main food for ordinary people in Ryukyu, which is of great significance. To this day, Okinawans still call sweet potatoes "Tang taro", which still shows their origins in China.
is similar to that in China and Japan, and pasta with wheat flour as the raw material also plays an important role in "Okinawa cuisine". Noodles were invented in China, but they were introduced to Japan very early. So when it comes to "eating noodles", at first glance, Okinawa seems to be no different from Japan. But if you look it carefully, you can find some subtle and important differences.
buckwheat (そば) noodles are called the "most Japanese-style noodles". In Ryukyu, there is also a common "Okinawa soba noodles ". In fact, this noodles do not use buckwheat, but are processed with wheat flour. The reason why it is called "そば" by the Japanese is actually similar to the authentic Chinese "ramen". At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Chinese noodles landed in Japan from Yokohama Chinatown. Although it has no buckwheat ingredients, it is closer to Japan's slender soba noodles in form than the thick and round udon noodles, so it is called "Nanjing soba noodles" by the Japanese (later evolved into "ramen" or "ramen").
Okinawa soba noodles
Not only does its name similar to "ramen", but the method of "Okinawa soba noodles" is also the same as that of Chinese noodles. alkaline water is a natural soda water containing potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate. Chinese noodles are added with alkaline water when making. The dough kneaded in this way can change the protein in the flour and enhance stickiness and elasticity, making the taste more comfortable. In the production of "Okinawa soba noodles", some kind of leaves are burned and made into alkaline water to knead the noodles, making them smooth. Even its yellowish color is a bit like Lanzhou ramen. On the other hand, Japanese noodles are made without alkaline water, and the taste is entirely salty, and the color looks very white.
Genome of Chinese food
According to the research of Okinawa scholar Kaorai Kuraki Yoshi: noodles appeared in the official documents of Ryukyu as early as 1534 in the mid-Ming Dynasty. The legend of Japan's authentic "buckwheat noodles" was not later than 100 years later. The Ming survivor Zhu Shunshui (1600-1682) who was housed in Japan taught the Japanese to mix wheat flour into buckwheat flour to make it sticky and elastic before it was born.
Okinawa, a remote corner of the island, was able to obtain advanced technology for noodles making before Japan, which had frequent interactions with the mainland. It is also surprising that to some extent, even the cooking techniques of "Okinawan cuisine" are better than those of the native Japanese.
In Japanese cuisine, steaming, cold sauce or boiling is the most common, so Japanese cuisine is also called "water cuisine". All the exquisite dishes on the dining table are fresh and light. On the other hand, Chinese food naturally lacks these cooking techniques, but the most distinctive one is "frying". Fried dishes can be either meat or vegetable, or they can be fried with meat or vegetable. Regardless of the North and South cuisine, "fried" is a top-notch and diverse cooking method.
And in "Okinawan cuisine", it has a place for "frying". The most famous "Okinawan cuisine" in Japan is Okinawa mixed stir-fry (ゴーヤーチャンプルー), which is made of stir-frying vegetables and tofu, such as bitter melon mixed stir-frying (ゴーヤーチャンプルー). This dish is easily reminiscent of the home-cooked dish in Chinese food - fried bitter melon. And similar to the Chinese method, "Bitty Melon Fried Miscellaneous Fried" also requires eggs when stir-frying. Okinawans also add tofu and pork to stir-fry eggs according to their own dietary habits.
Bitty melon fried
Why is the "Chinese flavor" in "Okinawan cuisine" so strong compared to local Japanese? This naturally has historical reasons. Ryukyu is not produced in abundance, and many crops come directly from China. In addition to sweet potatoes, in 1606, many local vegetables were found in Xiaziyang , which was ordered to be sent to Ryukyu in 1606. They were found in many local vegetables, such as "melon, eggplant, ginger, garlic, onion, leek, crocus (radish), taro; there are also borrici, yam, winter melon, potato, and gourd, all transplanted from Fujian ("all seeds in Fujian"). Their consumption method is similar to that in Fujian, so it is naturally natural.
However, today's flight from Shanghai to Okinawa Naha only takes more than two hours, while in ancient times, it often took one month to cross the sea from Fuzhou to Ryukyu. In this sense, the convenience of Ryukyu and China's communication is not as convenient as imagined. In fact, the influence of Chinese food on "Okinawan cuisine" has a more direct means - immigration.
Of course, ancient China's immigration to Japan - "sending people" - has existed since ancient times. But Chinese immigrants to Ryukyu can be said to be the unique organized immigration of the government. In 1392, the Ming court immigrated to Ryukyu with thirty-six surnames from Fujian (in 1607, the Ming court gave Ryukyu with ruan and Mao). Help local shipbuilding to facilitate travel. These Fujian immigrants settled in Kumi Village (now Naha Kumi Town), and their descendants are called "Kumi people". They not only built ships, but also brought Chinese culture and even acted as Chinese teachers. Even the Chinese Mandarin learned by Ryukyu people all had obvious Fuzhou dialect elements. In turn, the Ryukyu government also gave them tax-free land, paid salaries to men over 15 years old, and even gave them the privilege of becoming officials.
Ji Mi Village Confucius Temple
These "thirty-six surnames" Fujian people entered Ryukyu to live in, which was like transplanting the overall Fujian society in the Ming Dynasty to a foreign country. From a time perspective, they may be the biggest contributors to bringing the "fire" method to Ryukyu. In Chinese cooking, "frying" is a late technique. Dishes named after "fried" did not appear in large quantities until the Song Dynasty. For example, in "Tokyo Menghualu", there are "fried rabbits", "fried crabs", and "fried clams". Perhaps in the golden age of Japan's interactions with China, the "speculation" method during the Sui and Tang Dynasties was not mainstream. Therefore, although Japan learned to use chopsticks to eat, it may not have seen the value of "speculation". After the "Heian Era", Japan's "national culture" emerged.After the Tang Dynasty culture took root, it developed independently from the Chinese mother body, so naturally it did not introduce the "speculation" method from China, just like the pronunciation (ni) of the Chinese character "2" in Japanese did not become "er" with the changes in the pronunciation of the Central Plains.
In the Ming Dynasty when "the thirty-six surnames of Fujian people" entered Liuzhou, "frying" had become a common method in Chinese cooking. In addition, during his stay in the Ryukyu Hall in Fuzhou, Ryukyu envoys also deliberately learned cooking and making methods. It is naturally not surprising that the "fry" method in "Okinawan cuisine" is a big hit. There is a special dish in "Okinawan Cuisine" that is actually fried goat blood, meat and vegetables together. First put red meat with skin, leg meat and other red meat into the large pot, then add the coagulated goat blood that removes the internal organs, and finally add carrots, onions, leeks and other vegetables to stir-fry. It is worth mentioning that due to the habit of not loving peculiar smells, Japan is not used to eating goat meat; while goat cuisine is regarded as a "medicine food" in Okinawa, which can undoubtedly be traced back to China's idea of "medicine food and food". Although more than a hundred years have passed since Japan abolished the Ryukyu vassal and changed it to Okinawa Prefecture in 1879, "Okinawa cuisine" can still make the Chinese feel friendly.
Okinawa's mutton sashimi
References:
Zhou Chaohui: "Okinawa Food Fujian Cuisine Gene", "Lans Search", 2016 Issue 2
Wang Yujie: "An Investigation on Pork Sacrifice in Okinawa Pork Culture", Journal of Huaihua College, October 2017
