What was the taste of ancient Dongpo meat?

◎ Lee Kai-joo

Many friends do not like to eat fat meat, because fat meat is not only a little greasy in taste, but also means high calories, high cholesterol, which means high blood lipids, high blood sugar and excessive weight. A large plate of fatty meat is placed in front of you, steaming, glowing with oil, let alone eating, just looking at it, it seems to make people's calories soar.

Now take this plate of fat meat away, change it to an east slope meat, and a miracle has happened. Friends who hate and fear fat suddenly become defenseless.

Try to imagine it. The dongpo meat, square and square, the blocks are clear, each piece is cut just right, each piece is three layers, each piece is shining red, like cut jade, like carved agate. What's more, these agates are still soft, soft, elastic, and with a rich fragrance, people can't help but want to pick up a piece and put it in their mouths. not? It's not greasy at all, it's delicious. After eating a piece, pick up another piece. It would be even better if there was a big bowl of hot white rice next to it. Dongpo meat is the most able to eat, without Dongpo meat, you can eat at most one bowl. With Dongpo meat, you can't wait to eat three bowls!

This is the power of Dongpo meat.

But you may not know that the past Dongpo meat was not like this.

Let's turn the finger of history to the Qing Dynasty. Liang Zhangju, a minister of the Qing Dynasty, served as an official in many places, ate the cuisine of Tiannanhaibei, and also ate Dongpo meat. His evaluation was: "Dongpo meat is a dish that is very famous, the taste is ordinary, and the appearance is more ordinary. The size of the meat pieces is uneven, the fat and thin are uneven, the white boiling and salt, eating too greasy, cooks everywhere can do it, but they are not good. "Listen, although the Dongpo meat of the Qing Dynasty was also called Dongpo meat, it was far inferior to the current Dongpo meat.

Let's turn the finger of history to the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty scholar Shen Defu was a second-generation official, born in Beijing, lived in Jiangnan, went to Shaanxi, Lingnan and Sichuan, and was also the master of eating all over the world. What did the Dongpo meat he ate look like? A large piece of pork, which cannot be changed into a knife, sprinkled with sauce, steamed until thin, and then eaten with a spoon. Shen Defu said that this dish was an insult to Su Dongpo.

We continue to cross, through to the era of Su Dongpo. Su Dongpo exiled Huangzhou, Feng Lu was cut off, because of lack of money, could not afford to buy mutton, could only buy pork, personally cooked, and then he left the short song: "clean washing bell (chēng), less (zhuó) water, chai tou (yǎn) smoke flames can not afford." When he is self-cooked, it is beautiful when the fire is enough..." Wash the pot, add less water, put the pork in the pot, simmer slowly on low heat, don't rush to start the pot, the heat is waiting, the meat is naturally delicious.

This short song is the only record of Su Dongpo making pork in the extant literature, and the title is "Ode to Pork", which is also called "Ode to Boiling Pig's Head" in his other book "Notes on Qiuchi". This shows that Su Dongpo's cooking methods are simple and rough, there is no steaming, only boiling, and the cooking may not be half fat and half lean pork belly, but pig's head. Can you imagine that the original Dongpo meat was actually just a boiled pig's head? If you bring such Dongpo meat to you, are you willing to eat it? Maybe you want to, but certainly not like eating a modern version of Dongpo meat.

Dongpo meat of the Qing Dynasty, Dongpo meat of the Ming Dynasty, and Dongpo meat cooked by Su Dongpo himself are not modern versions of Dongpo meat. When did the modern version of Dongpo meat appear? It should be in the last year of the Qing Dynasty.

In Chengdu, Sichuan Province, at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, a cooking manual in the form of a manuscript circulated in the circle of chefs called "The New Record of The Feast of Abundant Buns", which clearly recorded the improved Dongpo meat practice: the pork belly was cut into mahjong pieces, tied tightly with a thin rope, cooked and fished out, fed through with soy sauce and rice wine, and finally put on the pot, steamed until crisp but not rotten.

This is the Dongpo meat that we modern people love to eat.

Of course, now Dongpo meat is also divided into factions, Sichuan cuisine has Dongpo meat, Hangzhou cuisine also has Dongpo meat, the practice is different. But no matter which faction of Dongpo meat, it is not the Dongpo meat of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, let alone the Dongpo meat invented by Su Dongpo in Huangzhou.

Since Dongpo meat was not invented by Su Dongpo, should we still thank Su Dongpo when we enjoy Dongpo meat?

My answer is that we still have to thank Su Dongpo.

First of all, if it were not for the influence and radiation of Su Dongpo over the past thousand years, it would be unlikely that future generations of chefs and gourmets would have continuously improved the dish of Dongpo meat and spent hundreds of years to make the originally fat meat into a real delicacy.

Secondly, if there is no aura of Su Dongpo to bless this dish, then it can only become a delicacy at most, not a famous dish in the world.

For a famous dish, the cultural meaning is very important. In the United States on the other side of the world, people originally knew nothing about Chinese food, until more than a hundred years ago, when Li Hongzhang, a major minister of the late Qing Dynasty, visited the United States, and the American menu appeared as "Li Hongzhang Miscellaneous", followed by the "Zuo Zongtang Chicken" named after Zuo Zongtang, another minister of the late Qing Dynasty.

You may not be familiar with or dislike Li Hongzhang, but in the matter of Chinese food going global, it is inseparable from Li Hongzhang's cultural label. In the same way, in the matter of Dongpo meat becoming popular in modern China, it is even more inseparable from the cultural label of Su Dongpo.

In fact, when we taste Dongpo meat, as long as we think of Su Dongpo, as long as we think of Su Dongpo's famous "Water Tune Song Head" or "Before and After Chibi Fu", the taste buds will be more active, and the appetite will be surprisingly good. This is the charm of Su Dongpo, and this is also the charm of culture.