Maolin, an ancient town in Anhui: a unique food culture

Maolin, an ancient town in Anhui Province

Maolin was founded in the Northern Song Dynasty, with a long history and rich culture. Known as "a famous town in the south of the Yangtze River", it is also known as "a small Jingxian town and a big Maolin village". The area is surrounded by green hills and running water. Dongxi Town and Xi Gu are surrounded by water, and Kuishan is particularly prominent. In the past, there were seven piers, eight temples, nine wells, thirteen alleys, thirty-six pavilions, seventy-two gardens, one hundred and eight rich palaces, and more than twenty memorial archways, which were of great scale. There are still more than 300 mansions in Ming and Qing dynasties.

Maolin is located in the mountainous area of southern Anhui, the center of Huangshan Mountain and Taiping Lake, and belongs to Xuancheng City, Anhui Province. It is an important town in the southwest of Jingxian County, 36 kilometers away from the county seat, with a total area of 233 square kilometers and a township area of 2.6 square kilometers.

Maolin is located in Jingxian County in the south of Anhui Province. Because there are many bureaucrats in history, life is extremely exquisite. In the traditional rural banquet, a whole set of dishes is naturally formed, and it is said that there are "twelve bowls" and "eight bowls". Because everyone knows and loves them, these dishes have been handed down to this day. In Jingxian County, most of the people who attract guests in the name of local dishes pretend to be Maolin local dishes and Maolin family banquet dishes.

According to legend, Wu Fangpei, a native of Maolin, was a scholar in 49 years of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty. He used to be Zuodu Yushi and Guanglu Doctor. He is a first-class civil servant. When he retired from his hometown, he brought back two superb chefs from Beijing. Paine, Dr. Rong Lu, a native of Pancun, was a scholar in the 16th year of Jiaqing. When he returned home dressed in rags, the emperor gave the court a set of recipes and two chefs. In this way, Maolin diet has both natural mountains and rivers and a true story of imperial cuisine. The combination of folk characteristics, royal demeanor and the flavor of the ruling and opposition parties has become the unique culture of Maolin diet.

12 bowl

The order of serving at the banquet is: purple-braised hoof; Ugly cold salad; Yin-three fresh soup; Tang Maochang; Chen-steamed pork with flour; Fourth, pure yam soup; Noon paste powder; Weizi cake; Shen-braised fish pieces; You-braised pork; Hey-stir fry; Yuan haipiao Why do recipes have to be arranged by earthly branches? This symbolizes that Maolin's food culture is inclusive and absorbs the strengths of many families.

The upper part of a pig's leg

A lively banquet

Stewed hoof by son

"Twelve bowls of Maolin", serving is this "braised hoof". Yi language, pictophonetic characters. Beside the shape is "bone", which is connected with meat; Next to the voice is "Next". Read the third sound. This word is a dialect word, awkward and thigh-shaped. Especially the meat inside the thigh of a pig, which is also called "hoof".

"hoof" refers to the source of materials; "Braised in soy sauce" refers to the cooking method. The combination of the two is "hoofing". Braised hoof mustache is the best of local fine pig breeds, and it grows 150 kg and 60 kg of hair within one year. What is "dug" from four thighs is called "truth". Among them, the two front legs are called "zhengzhou"; The two hind legs are called "secondary weeks". Anything "dug" from other parts is called "fake". The hoof is "dug", usually about 3 kg.

Wash and scrape the hooves first, boil all the soup and fry until golden brown. Put red yeast on it, add rock sugar, cook soup in a hurry and stew for two hours. When it is half cooked, add spices such as star anise, and some cover it with tofu skin and stew it with charcoal. Depending on the thickness of pigskin, it varies from half an hour to an hour. Be sure to scoop out the soup from the pot with a spoon from time to time and pour it back on the noodles to keep them smooth and prevent wrinkles. This is called "Gai Tang".

Under normal circumstances, a table of banquets, a chef's kung fu, and the smell of braised hooves can be roughly seen. The guests gently clamped the ends of chopsticks and each took the meat and ate it. At the same time, they also saw it in their eyes and tasted it in their mouths, and they were immediately evaluated. It's really "good cooking".

Ugly cold salad

The first dish of "Twelve Bowls of Maolin" is "Braised Toilet", which is full of belt meat, but some oil. And the second course of "Twelve Bowls of Maolin": "Cold salad". Compared with "braised hooves", it is only a combination of meat and vegetables, and the shade is suitable. "Cold salad" is the homonym of "two companions". Cold dishes are mixed, and two people are accompanied. It is most appropriate to get married and live a long life, and young couples will always be partners.

"Cold" dishes, the main ingredients are water chestnut, spinach and old soybeans; The ingredient is tofu skin; Seasoning: salt, sugar, sesame oil. Wash, peel and slice a large fresh water chestnut first, then wash, roll and cut spinach, add stewed old soybeans and softened tofu skin, add more sugar and a little salt, and drop sesame oil and mix well. A salty and sweet, light and refreshing "cold salad" is completed.

Yin Sam sun decoction

The third course of "Twelve Bowls of Maolin" is "Three Fresh Soups". Ingredients: pork liver; Ingredients: "three fresh"-chestnuts or lotus seeds, yam, mushrooms (dried); Seasoning: rock sugar, salt, monosodium glutamate. Mainly blended, three materials together. It's time to wash, scrape, peel, soak, stew and cut. Then boil water as the base material, first put the mushroom and pork liver, then put the chestnut and yam, and then put the seasoning. Spoon evenly into the bowl. A bowl of steaming, delicious and sweet "three fresh soup" was presented to the guests.

Maochang decoction

Twelve Bowls in Maolin, Lane 4: Intestinal Soup. Cut the pig intestines, wash them, cut them into pieces, and simmer them with canned pottery meat and charcoal until they are slightly thick, but they are just right and effortless. Add a little salt and chopped green onion when cooking. The main points of this dish are: first, to remove the odor of the intestines, do not wash the intestines bitter; Second, you can't stew soup, you must ensure that it is crystal clear; Third, you can't stew the intestines tightly, nor can you stew them rotten. Pay attention to the heat.

Steamed pork with old powder

Lane 5 of Twelve Bowls in Maolin: "Steamed Meat with Powder". Ingredients: pork belly ribs; Ingredients: spiced cooked rice noodles. Seasoning: salt, sugar, soy sauce, chopped green onion. First cut the meat into small pieces, add salt, sugar and soy sauce, mix well, mix well for one hour, mix well with rice flour and ginseng, put it on a steamer (backed by soft bean curd skin to prevent leakage and increase flavor) and steam for one or two hours. When the pork belly oil oozes out slowly, it moistens the cooked rice noodles, and the bones have the smell of rice noodles. The meat pieces are stuck with oil powder and served with chopped green onion.

Pure silicon yam

"Braised hoof" has been served, and "steamed pork with powder" has also been used. Guests are inevitably a little greasy in the stomach. Then, a bowl of "scraping oil" but not hurting the stomach was served. This is the sixth bowl of Twelve Bowls in Maolin: "Pure Yam". In other words, with yam as the main material, it can be cooked and slightly blended. Yam, whose real name is Huai Yam, is a perennial herb with creeping stems and cylindrical tuberous roots. Rich in starch and protein, it is the top grade of summer sleeping mat. It can not only strengthen the spleen and benefit the stomach yin, but also relieve boredom. Why does yam still have its real name? According to the Compendium of Materia Medica, in order to avoid Tang Daizong's taboo, it was changed to "potato medicine" and the word "yam" was removed. In order to avoid Zhao's taboo, the word "potato" was removed and finally called "yam".

Lunch powder

The seventh course is "paste powder", which is also called "Maolin three wonders" with "braised hoof flowers and steamed meat". Ingredients: colored lean meat; Ingredients: chicken, sweet potato powder (preferably fern root powder or kudzu root powder); Seasoning: peanut powder, Jiang Mo, chopped green onion, shrimp, rice vinegar, salt, sugar and monosodium glutamate. Stew the lean meat and chicken into silk juice first, and remove the bones. Add all seasonings and thicken with sweet potato powder into a paste. Thick but not wrapped, slippery but not flowing, thick and even, visible five-color seasoning. Sweet and sour, nutritious, smooth and refreshing, suitable for all ages. Not dry or light, half-meat and half-vegetarian, eat it warm, protect and nourish the stomach. Paste powder, also known as "Maolin paste", together with "braised pig's trotters" and "steamed pork with rice flour", is only authentic by Maolin chefs, and is known as the "three wonders of Maolin" in the world. Along with the other nine dishes, only Maolin's chef can make them original, so it's hard to find such delicious food when you leave Xikou. No wonder some people say that "a bowl of muddled Maolin paste makes a clean Maolin person!"

Weizi cake

Also known as Gao Descendants. Son, pun intended, refers to both eggs (Maolin people call eggs "chickens", meaning the son of chickens, referred to as "sons") and the "sons" of human descendants. Cake, pun intended, not only refers to the egg pancake cut into a diamond shape, as a delicious snack in Maolin Street, but also is homophonic with "Gao". Ingredients: earth eggs; Ingredients: minced lean meat. Seasoning: chopped green onion, Jiang Mo, vegetable oil and salt. Break a few eggs, drain them, put them in a pot, add lean meat, chopped green onion, Jiang Mo and salt, and beat them into a thick paste; Then heat the pan, pour oil, drain the egg paste, bake it into pancakes with uniform thickness and egg yolk on both sides, and cut it into diamond-shaped pieces; Then put it into a large pot, add water and simmer for half an hour to solidify the cake, make holes, peel it and taste it. There is soup and water. Eat a cake, egg, onion and ginger, delicious and firm, with a layered feeling of old skin and tender meat; Have some soup, it's slightly spicy and salty.

Stewed fish pieces

Ingredients: carp; Seasoning: salt, vegetable oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, Jiang Mo, chopped green onion, monosodium glutamate and Chili powder. Clean carp, cut into pieces, heat in a pan, pour oil, stir fry, spray rice vinegar and soy sauce to remove fishy smell and color, add water and white sugar,

Jiang Mo, Chili powder, boil for a while, put a little monosodium glutamate in front of the pot, and decorate the pot with chopped green onion.

Ni-braised pork

Ingredients: lean meat; Ingredients: sauerkraut. Seasoning: marinade, Chili powder. Firstly, clean the lean meat, cut it into pieces, put it into a pot, drain the water, boil the soup, take it out of the pot, pour out the cooked soup, put it into the marinade, add water and dot it with slow fire, then put it into the pot, let it cool and slice it when the marinade is cooked; After the sauerkraut is fried with Chili powder, put half a bowl of substrate, cover the braised pork slices evenly on it, and serve.

Xu snacks

Ingredients: pork belly, dried bamboo shoots; Ingredients: soy sauce qianzi; Seasoning: salt, lard, sugar. Soak dried bamboo shoots, stew, wash and filter, cut into sections, and shred them in qianzi for later use. Heat lard to make a base, stir-fry pork belly to get oil, add water bamboo and qianzi, add proper amount of salt and a little sugar, stew, salted sesame oil and My Sweetie, and put in a bowl.

Ocean drift circle

First, glutinous rice, Jiang Mo and onion rice are added into the meat sauce, kneaded into meatballs the size of marbles, cooked in a boiling pot, added with salt, sugar and broth, and taken out of the pot.

At this point, all the "Twelve Bowls of Maolin" have been served. The whole table is half meat and half vegetarian, and the ingredients and soup are well balanced. "Half is thin, half is dry, half is water and half is mountain." Chopsticks and spoons are used together to enrich and moisten. The above twelve bowls are all traditional "main courses" and also have "plates". Generally, it is peanuts, preserved eggs or salted duck eggs, fruits or canned food, fried square cakes and the like. There are no rules, it depends entirely on the chef's clever tricks.

There is a very important premise to do a good job of "Twelve Bowls in Maolin": all vegetarian dishes and raw materials must be local to Maolin. Shan Ye pheasant, fresh fruit, bracken, bamboo shoots and Toona sinensis are all sent from the sky, in front of the door and behind the house; Stewed meat cook the meat, eggs, mushrooms, peppers, soybeans, green vegetables and tofu are all specialties of China. The rice, oil and salt are delicious and can be cooked neatly. Even ordinary people cook and eat dinner at home in this way during the Spring Festival.

In these twelve bowls, except for four essential dishes, such as barbecued pork, steamed rice noodles, batter and cakes, other dishes can also be changed. For example, cook the meat can be changed to "lion's head", that is, pork balls, stewed meat with sea cucumber or stewed chicken, and mixed vegetables can be changed to cold jellyfish skin. In addition to twelve bowls, you can also add dishes, and the number of dishes is not limited. Usually, you can add "eight-treasure rice, crystal sugar lotus seed soup, home-cooked small fried meat, boiled meat or stir-fried dishes to the restaurant menu, and sober up and serve in home-cooked dishes.

This dish has no commercial name, and it is about tradition. The dishes should be rich, the big bowl should be filled, and the dishes that guests like to eat should be backed up and added to make them eat enough. Cooking should master the heat, so that it is suitable for all ages and everyone is satisfied. The taste of food is different from that of home cooking, mainly salty, spicy and sour, while most of the twelve bowls of food are sweet, which makes people feel strange to eat. The number of twelve also means that every month is good, every year is rich, and guests of different genera will be happy and healthy. Satisfied the guests' good wishes of sharing happiness and praying.