In “Flavor of Man 2”, it is described like this: “With a wide open flavor, the taste of the sword to go against the grain, from humble and low-key, all the way to the tumbling and counterattack, and finally the world upside down, from the dust blooms a fragrant flower. As I watched this episode in front of my computer, I secretly applauded the precision of the writing. It’s true that those who love it will come for the flavor, but those who hate it will see it as a dark dish. To me, hash is a true delicacy.
Chopped is a generic concept. Generally speaking, it refers to the offal of an animal, but we more commonly hear it called “offal. In other words, anything that is not part of our diet is considered offal.
The earliest human beings consumed minced meat was not for the pleasure of taste, but rather as a way to earn a living in order to obtain calories and protein. Since people in ancient times had very limited access to meat, each prey item was distributed according to status and rank. The more complete portion of the meat ended up in the hands of the power elite, while the trimmings would go to the lower classes. In order to make the meat as good as possible, the lower classes racked their brains to make it more palatable. Over time, they forge a variety of miscellaneous dishes with different flavors.
01
In the sheep-eating northwest, haggis is one of the most popular dishes among ordinary people. From morning to evening, there is no shortage of haggis on the table at every meal. Haggis is served in soup for breakfast, stir-fried in a pot for lunch, and at the end of the day, the haggis becomes the highlight of the barbecue for the day’s visitors.
Personally, I have a strong preference for haggis soup. I don’t know when I started to enjoy it, even though I didn’t used to love soup. Maybe it’s because when the cold wind blows in autumn, my body shivers, and I always want to drink something hot to warm up. During the eleventh holiday, I went to the Northwest after holding it in for almost a whole year, and in addition to enjoying the beautiful scenery, I also enjoyed a bowl of genuine haggis soup.
The place where I had the soup was in Yinchuan, a small restaurant hidden in a residential area. Judging from the posters on the wall, the store had been in business for more than twenty years. According to the store owner, the two types of goat soup that the people of Ningxia eat the most are the two most popular types of goat soup in this store. One is pure meat sheep soup, the other, is the face and lung sheep soup.
As the name implies, the pure meat is made from fresh haggis bought early in the morning and cooked with boneless lamb. Lamb soup with noodles and lungs, on the other hand, is a craft not commonly seen outside of the Northwest Territories. What is noodle lung? In fact, it is a lamb lung washed with water until colorless, then the gluten is added to the lamb lung, then shredded and put into the pot. In the end, it tastes like meat but not flesh, and is both sinewy and meaty. This technique is very complicated, and it is easy to overfill the gluten if you don’t control it properly. If you fail to do so, the taste will be greatly reduced, and the final presentation will not be satisfactory.
Some may say that haggis soup is just a bunch of raw materials thrown into the pot to cook it? Although haggis soup looks simple, it is actually quite delicate. In a bowl of authentic soup, there are three main ingredients and three secondary ingredients, as well as different flavors depending on the soup base. The three main ingredients are conventionally referred to as the heart, liver, and lungs, which are sliced in the pot. The secondary ingredients are intestines, tripe, and head and feet, which should be cut into thin strips and long strips in the pot. Only when all of these are present, can the soup be called haggis.
There are also three types of haggis soup. The first type, called “plain soup”, is made by boiling the raw ingredients in water with a few spices and water without much processing. Finally, the soup is served directly to the table with the water, with the original flavor, but with a slightly stronger munchy taste. The second type is “clear soup”, which is less peculiar because the raw materials have been boiled and steamed before boiling. Although the soup is light, it has a distinctive aroma and taste. The cooked haggis tastes multifaceted, with the crispness of the belly, the density of the liver, and the toughness of the intestines all coming together. With baked cakes or oil and incense, a hot bowl of this dish will give you a sense of satisfaction. And the last one, which is often found in old deli restaurants, is “old soup mash”. The soup has been simmering for many years, and the aroma of the sauce precipitated by time makes the minced pork more flavorful and soft, and the soup base is thick and mellow.
02
Haggis belongs exclusively to the dry and cold northwest, while the corresponding haggis has blossomed in the warm Guangzhou. In the streets of “Yangcheng”, there is absolutely no shortage of such food, and as a snack, it has become an inseparable taste of the hometown of the old Canton. There is a legend about the eating of oxen. It is said that one year during the Qing Dynasty, when the weather was very cold, the demand for beef surged, and the supply exceeded the demand for a while. A Hui chef in the Xiguan area of Guangzhou, in response to this, tried to cook beef offal and radish together, and after adding anise, incense leaves, Chen Pi and other spices, the aroma was so wonderful that gradually, the beef was taken out of Xiguan and spread all over the city. In both summer and winter, people are deeply in love with haggis.
Don’t underestimate the importance of the itinerant haggis stalls, which, to some extent, are a record of the changes that have taken place in Guangzhou. The reason for this is that the people who sell haggis have been there for eight years. Almost all of them lived through the 1980s and 1990s, and they had a deep understanding of the reform and opening up and the wave of layoffs. Forced to make a living, many of them chose to push their carts and work as runaways, selling beef and sundries at that time. This was the driving force behind the “thousand flavors” of beef and sundry.
The most amazing one I had was “Grandma’s Beef and Haggis”. On the main street, you can smell the big pot of thick, boiling soup. As I approached, I saw the rickety grandmother skillfully cutting off the bits and pieces with scissors, and the sound of clicking, clicking, clicking, sounded deeply healing. The soup was sweet because peanut butter and jjigae sauce were added to the soup, so it tasted good. The beef sausage soaked in the juice was soft and tough, and it was the first to take over the taste system, while the crispy bones of the beef afterwards provided the mouth-feel, which made it delicious to eat. If you get bored with the meat, the soft and flavorful radish is also in charge. In my opinion, the oden in convenience stores can’t compare to this local “Kansai beef boil”. Because when you enjoy it, you also get a taste of the warmth and humanity.
In the cold and wet city of Chongqing, another kind of mushroom works its magic on the tip of the tongue, and it flourishes in the Qianjiang region on the edge of the mountain city. It is the famous Qianjiang chicken. The process of cooking chicken is more complicated than that of beef and haggis. The gizzards, hearts and tripe are put in a jar of kimchi to remove the fishy smell before they are fried.
When it’s time to stir-fry them, it’s time for the peppers and kimchi radishes to work their magic. During the rapid fire time, these two ingredients work together to bring out the compound flavor of the chicken, as well as the sourness and spiciness of the chicken. As the chicken darkens in color, add some fresh vegetables and a drizzle of chicken oil, and a burst of flavor rises from the pan. The chicken heart and gizzards are very crisp, the chicken liver is smooth and tender, and the chicken intestines are crisp and sour.
Some years ago, I ate a chicken mushroom in Magikou. After all the miscellaneous items were eaten, the waiter would add soup, beef, lamb, and leafy vegetables to the table and wait for the guests to dip their food. The chicken, beef, and lamb are all eaten in one pot, giving a sense of “all rivers are included and all things are merged”.
03
In fact, in foreign countries, there is also a preference for eating groceries, which was shown in “Flavor of the Earth”, so I won’t repeat it here. But there is one small anecdote that I would like to mention: in the “fake Chinese food” that is popular in the United States of America, besides Zuo Zongtang Chicken”, and one called “H.E. Lee’s Bastard”. ” (chop suey). It was called chop suey, but it was actually an assortment of meats put together and fried haphazardly, but it was still popular with the local people. The famous painter Edward Hopper also drew people chatting in a chop suey store. I wonder how they will feel when they can actually eat groceries one day.
The Chinese have always been very good at turning waste into treasure, and the original scraps that were not on the table have now been transformed into a gourmet delicacy. Chickens, fish, cows, sheep and goats ……, no matter what the ingredients are, if they are in the kitchen, they can be used in any room. They have supported our table in times of hardship and plenty, and have comforted generations of diners. It is the best way to engrave memories, show wisdom, and adjust tastes.
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