Text/Wenhui
When I opened the refrigerator on the weekend, I found that the two pout-billed silver carp (scientific name warped-billed red catfish) given by a friend during the Spring Festival were a little baked. In order to enrich the taste of the fish and shorten the fermentation time, my friend specially marinated the fish with shrimp paste and then made vacuum packaging in plastic bags. Seeing that I couldn't keep it any longer, I took out the fish, washed it and cut it into sections, added ginger slices, and cooked it in soybean oil. Even though I turned the range hood to the highest setting and closed the kitchen door, my wife and girl in the living room still shouted "it stinks"!
As the saying goes, "there is stinky fish, there is no stinky meat", since ancient times, fish and shrimp have been fermented and tasted, and they can be eaten when they are salted, which is nothing more than turning fresh fish into salted fish. But once the meat is spoiled, it cannot be eaten. Whether it is seawater fish or freshwater fish, it is salted in brine, although it cannot be said that it smells like an orchid, but the rich and continuous smelly fragrance is incomparable to that of fresh fish, with a unique flavor and endless aftertaste.
In 1970, I was born in the depths of the mountains at the eastern foot of Taishan Mountain, far away from the coastal areas rich in fish and salt, due to inconvenient transportation and limited food preservation technology, the seafood we ate was either dry or salty, salted fish, shrimp paste, salted crabs, all of which were salty, smelly, and heavy. But in that era of less oil and lack of salt, these are the perfect match for eating pancakes and nesting heads, and it is of course better to eat steamed buns, but unfortunately that is the treatment only available during the Spring Festival. The main varieties of salted fish are mackerel, hairtail fish (the old people call it "straw leaf fish"), small stewed fish (made by drying small miscellaneous fish such as small yellow croaker and herring), and the price of these fish is relatively moderate. There is also a kind of white phosphorus fish, which has more spines, more salty fragrance, and the price is more expensive. Then the new son-in-law went to his father-in-law's house during the Spring Festival, and he wanted to take two relatively large white phosphorus fish. Maybe in order to highlight the gold of the white phosphorus fish, or maybe it is to avoid the flavor of other foods in the basket, the two white phosphorus fish should be tied to the gills with a rope and hung on the head of the cane that picks the basket.
There are many kinds of salted mackerel, mackerel, swallow mackerel, etc., a big meat foot, purple and soft garlic clove meat, fried with oil and full of aroma, a family fried fish, several families smell the taste. When I was a child, there was a family of workers surnamed Han in the center of my village, and my father and children all worked in several coal mines of the Xinwen Mining Bureau, Luzhong Mining Company, Laiwu Department Store and other state-owned units, and the living conditions were many times better than ordinary people's.
Especially in the wheat harvest or autumn harvest season, the more it is lunch or dinner time, when we are sweating heavily pushing the wooden cart or carrying the burden, and passing by the gate of his house hungry, the smell of salted fish that we encounter unexpectedly comes to the face, bumps into the arms, enters the nose, refreshes people's hearts and spleens, and we can't help but take a few breaths, can't eat the fish, taste the fish fragrance, and it can be regarded as a tooth sacrifice! Speaking of this, I suddenly remembered a little story that my father used to tell us about eating salted fish when I was a child. It is said that there is a family life is more embarrassed, before the Spring Festival, the father rushed to the New Year's fair to buy a few salted fish, ready to entertain guests after the holiday, in order to prevent cats and mice from stealing food, the father hung the fish on the beam. In this way, the cat and the mouse waited for Liang Xing to sigh, and a few gluttonous children could only look at it. One day, several children were really hungry, so they begged their father if they could watch the salted fish on the beam to eat, but the father couldn't, and he took pity on the children, and promised the brothers that each of them could only look at the salted fish on the beam and eat a mouthful of food, and couldn't see more.
The eldest and second are more obedient, strictly in accordance with the rules set by the father, take a look at the salted fish and eat a mouthful of rice, the third is naughty, but also really greedy, while the father is not paying attention, secretly glanced at a few times, unfortunately was seen by the two brothers, and immediately complained to the father, "Daddy, daddy, my brother has seen several times!" The father said angrily, "Give him away, give him away!" Although this story is a little sad and bitter, this is a true portrayal of the hardships of life! In fact, even when we were children, ordinary people didn't often get salted fish. All year round, the children are really hungry, so the adults weigh small braised fish from the supply and marketing cooperatives to cheer the children up. Listening to my mother, when I was a child, I was weaned early, and there was nothing good to feed me, so my mother used pancakes to chew on the small braised fish to feed me, and I was hungry and always didn't wait for my mother to chew fine, so I opened my small mouth and "ahhh
Even now, when it comes to these scenes, the mother is still so sad that she cries and blames herself: "My son suffered, my son suffered!" "Later, when the three of us were a little older, and the living conditions of our family improved slightly, my grandfather and father would occasionally buy some salted mackerel for us to eat. My mother used to pour a little soybean oil into a black iron pot with a sharp and deep bottom, and simmered slowly on the stove with firewood. The fire of frying fish can not be too urgent, the fire is urgent, the fish is easy to simmer, the dried fish is burnt and bitter, the taste is poor, and the sky is ruined. In the face of a rare delicacy, the fish is finished, and we do not let go of the oil stains and residues at the bottom of the pot, and always use pancakes to wipe the pan on the ground.
When I was a child, salted fish was rare, and shrimp paste was rarely available. The millet shrimp produced in Bohai Bay are broken, fermented and dried by fishermen along the coast, and marinated into a large vat of pink and oily shrimp paste. In late autumn and early winter, fishermen use large fish baskets to hold shrimp paste (later changed to thick plastic bags) and pull them through the streets in horse-drawn carts to sell them. People with slightly better economic conditions buy more or less, use ceramic jars or open glass bottles, and dig a little bit with a spoon when boiling cabbage and stewing radishes, so as to remove the green head of cabbage and radish, which not only saves salt, but also improves the flavor and increases appetite. If you use shrimp paste to scramble eggs and stew tofu, it must be a very luxurious thing, and most people are reluctant to do it. At this time of year, my grandfather would buy some shrimp paste to satisfy his cravings, and our sisters and brothers would naturally be able to open foreign meat.
My grandmother's family lived next to the Yukino Reservoir, which was one of the migrant villages in the reservoir area when the Yukino Reservoir was built around 1960. From the fertile banks of the Tongtian River to the surrounding ridges, each family is left with a little bit of pitiful mountain land, and the days become more and more tight. Maybe it's out of a hobby, maybe it's to improve the life of the family, my grandfather, who likes to fish and hunt since he was young, has a place to use. At that time, the management of the Yukino Reservoir was loose, and in the summer, many villagers around the reservoir used explosives to fry fish in the morning and evening, and some of the fish that were blown up could not die at that time, and the temperature was high in summer, and the stomach would float to the surface of the water after a few days.
Every morning, my grandfather always used a long-handled fishing net to carry a basket around the water's edge, fished the fat fish home, used his peeling knife with silver flowers on the handle, scraped the scales and cleaned up, and then a layer of coarse salt and a layer of fish, sprinkled with peppercorn skin layer by layer, and sometimes put a few pieces of herb leaves, packed in a large ceramic basin, the mouth of the basin was covered with mosquito net cloth, tied tightly, to prevent flies. Marinate for more than a month, and a salty and fragrant delicacy is complete. Every time I go to my grandmother's house, my grandmother is after spreading out the pancakes, she uses a pan to fry a few pieces of my grandfather's pickled stinky salted fish, and the pancakes are salted fish. Because my grandfather knows that his in-laws are also good, they smell like each other, and they are blessed to share.
People take food as the sky, rely on the mountains to eat the mountains, rely on the water to draft, one side of the water and soil to support the other side of the people, different geographical locations and natural endowments, often create different eating habits and customs. From a scientific point of view, it is said that people's taste buds have memories, and once they are cultivated, they will accompany them for life, stubborn and stubborn. Some flavors are very regional, and they are delicious for the locals, but for people from other regions, it may be bad luck, not to mention tasting, and even smelling them are afraid to avoid them and run away. For example, Yusheng and fish sauce in Ningbo, stinky tofu in Hunan and so on. The same goes for our salted fish and shrimp paste, which are at most regional cuisines. The white phosphorus fish, which has been respected as the top grade by our ancestors for generations, has the habit of eating in the coastal areas of Shandong, and the inland is mostly concentrated in the mountainous areas of Laiwu, Xintai, Yimeng, etc., and the area is limited.
In recent decades, due to the high market demand and the lack of coastal fishery resources, it is said that most of the white phosphorus fish now come from Myanmar and are imported food. Scarcity is expensive, and the eternal eating habits and rising prices of white phosphorus fish have made many merchants sell salted fish. Over the years, the merchants who sell salted fish in the Laiwu lawsuit market have always been prosperous and prosperous, and some individual funds have accumulated to a certain extent, and they have become a well-known local real estate developer, realizing a gorgeous turn from fish salt to real estate.
With the improvement of living conditions and the change of people's health concept, less oil and less salt, light diet has gradually been favored, and the way of eating salted fish is also quietly changing. Over the years, there has been one more dish in the famous food of Gangcheng, called "Hooking the Soul Little Daughter-in-law", which sounds a little meat and a little ambiguous at first glance, which makes people who come into contact for the first time confused, and they don't know it, in fact, strictly speaking, it is an upgraded version of the white phosphorus fish eating method. This dish originated in the Qishan Scenic Area in Gangcheng District, and was born with Qishan fried chicken. Gangcheng is located in the hinterland of central Shandong, the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, since ancient times, thoughtful and meticulous, warm and generous, the banquet dishes taste the head chicken, two fish and three balls, chicken and fish occupy an important position. When guests come to Gangcheng District, they must taste Qishan fried chicken, which was rated as a local famous food many years ago. Chickens and fish are not separated, and what matches the fried chicken in Qishan is the famous local white phosphorus fish.
It's a pity that because the white phosphorus fish is too salty, most of the guests at each table of banquets have a shallow taste, and they all eat a little bit of a big fish. Over time, the leftover fish accumulates more and more, and it is a pity to throw it away, and you can't finish it. Once, the owner of a fried chicken shop called "Shuiyunjian" in the harem of Qishan had a whimsical idea to chop the leftover white phosphorus fish with fried crispy and let the hotel staff roll pancakes to eat, which was very popular. Later, in order to reduce the salinity, the boss deliberately added crushed cooked peanuts and cooked sesame seeds, and other accessories, so that the taste of salted fish was thicker and fuller.
One day, a guest saw that the staff of the restaurant were eating with relish, and couldn't help but ask the boss what kind of food this was, and if he could give them a little taste, the result was that it was unacceptable. With the passage of time, according to the different tastes and suggestions of different guests, the boss has continuously improved and optimized this dish, successively adding minced meat, sunflower seeds, cooked soybeans and other accessories, and adding some chili peppers to the guests who eat spicy, but the process is to bake all kinds of main ingredients with oil, mash and chop finely, make meat floss, and roll it in pancakes or pastries to eat. Some guests are in high spirits, and then roll some lettuce leaves or fresh shallots, the taste is better, and the fragrance is more abundant. Now that you're delicious, how do you give the upgraded white phosphorus fish a loud and interesting name? As with the creative process of food, the owner of the fried chicken restaurant draws on the strengths of others and brainstorms.
At first, considering the great allure of this dish, many customers couldn't stop eating, and after eating this time, they wanted to eat next time, and every time they came to the store, they were eating and holding it, and there was an endless stream of praise, so some people proposed to call it "Soul Hooking Little Daughter-in-law". Called and called, and soon became famous. Later, considering that the name of such a dish is too crop after all, and some meat is a little colored, someone suggested that it would be better to be subtle, just call it "Qiao Daughter-in-law". Since then, in the food of Gangcheng Qishan, in addition to the special fried chicken, there is also a "clever daughter-in-law", there are chickens and fish, good luck, love and kill each other.
Salt is the freshness of all flavors. In the era when the quantity of food and preservation techniques were limited, foods such as fish, meat, and even vegetables were mostly preserved by pickling. Nowadays, with abundant ingredients and advanced technology, fresh food has become a trend and fashion, the consumption and intake of salt in people's daily life are decreasing, and childhood delicacies such as salted fish are no longer in demand. Besides, with the growth of age and the exceedance of various physical indicators, eating less salt and less pickled products has become a healthy eating habit advocated by people, and it has also become a mantra that my daughter-in-law hangs in my ears. The salty aroma of salted fish accompanied my childhood, youth and middle age, integrated into the texture, into the blood, into the soul, lingering, unstoppable, unforgettable!
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