Go eat with the boss lady
Zhou Shoujuan is an old-school Suzhou native. A few days before inviting people to a banquet, he always goes to a restaurant to book a chef and recipes in advance. People who can't eat eat at the restaurant, and those who know how to eat eat at the chef.
Literati in the Ming and Qing Dynasties elevated cooking skills to the level of interest in life and could be included in poems. "Sikuquanshu" even placed cooking skills under the "art" column. Yuan Mei's "Suiyuan Food List" is similar to Qinqi, calligraphy and painting. , the four treasures of the study are classified into one category.
This tradition has been forgotten for a long time now. Nowadays, when we go to restaurants, we always go to "eat restaurants". It is rare to hear that we go for a certain chef. Let alone a fly restaurant, most of us go for a certain dish, such as the early days of Linhai City Go to Niutoushan to eat fish heads, Baizhugangtou to eat oxtails, Laodong Road to eat pig intestines, Baita Community to eat egg fried rice, and Baita Bridge to eat fried pork slices. I am not a taster. My friends once teased me that my tongue is made of rubber and I don’t know the thickness. But I am a greedy person, so I would like to ask you to add more to the above menu. When the time comes, I will do what Bajie said to the little demon under King Nanshan: "Don't push me! Let me and my family take care of the future."
Nowadays, even most of these old town dishes are no longer what they were yesterday, they are gone. Some of the old restaurants in Linhai City are willing to stick to their status quo and live in some small streets and deep alleys. The taste and fireworks are still the same, and the diners who come and go are all familiar with each other. Some of them have opened new restaurants with luxurious decoration and full of customers, making them look like a fan building. , I don’t know how much lingering flavor can be left behind in the original taste.
The most delicious thing in recent years is the family banquet. Although it doesn't have the splendor of a restaurant, the vegetables are exquisite. Shen Congwen said that in the past, the best dishes were cooked by home cooks, because no matter how good a restaurant is, they are always driven by profit. In the past, home cooks from wealthy families did not consider costs very much and only wanted to please the host family.
I am full of joy and affinity for fireworks restaurants. In the past, these were called "foot shops", temporary resting places for peddlers and cart drivers. Naturally, the food will not be exquisitely crafted, and the ingredients will be ordinary, but those who put their mind to it will be rewarded by its freshness, sweetness and liveliness, the warmth of the stove, and the fireworks of the people around them talking. Among them, I feel very comfortable and calm.
That day, Lao Zhang called Zhiyin Snacks for a drink. This is a famous fly restaurant in the city. It opened in an alley. The warehouse is used as a private room. It is said to be a private room, but in fact it only has tables, chairs and benches. The environment is simple, but the diners don't care, but feel comfortable. After I got there, I asked about box number 10. The landlady was greeting the busy room and pointed her hand and said, "Wait a moment, I will take you there." The waitress next to me said, "I will take you there."
Shen Hongfei once made a joke, saying that if the waiter is called a waiter, the corresponding title of the diners should be "diners", and so on, the chef is called the cook, the boss is called the cashier... I can barely be regarded as a drinker. .
The northern flavor of Linhai cuisine lies not only in the style, but also in the large pots in the small restaurants, which is because it originated from the Song Dynasty who came south. This is especially obvious in Hangzhou. Not to mention West Lake Vinegar Fish, Zhiweiguan’s cat ears were also brought from the north, but most of them have been cooked with northern flavors and southern flavors, and have long since evolved into local traditional dishes. Among the snacks in Linhai City, the wheat cake that shows the most fusion between the north and the south is probably the wheat cake, especially the cold rice wheat cake. The skin is made of wheat, the lining is made of rice, and it is garnished with pickles, minced meat, and chopped green onions. The two complement each other and are very delicious.
Zhiyin's stir-fried pork ribs are very famous. There are almost no side dishes, but a bowl full of chopped pork ribs. What they served that night seemed to have a little too much mountain starch, or the marinade was skipped, and the texture was too tender. As I said earlier, the meat was too tender. The degree of tenderness is equivalent to being tipsy or drunk. Being too tender is not only suspicious, but also loses its chewiness. After all, the name of the dish has the word "raw and stir-fried", so it should be chosen for its fresh, sweet and strong heat. But I know that when faced with such a sincere dish, I am already being picky. After all, a few days later, I ordered raw stir-fried pork ribs in another restaurant, and I saw a few shy dishes hidden among the side dishes. ’s platoon.
There is a tradition among bosom friends, that is, the proprietress will go to every table to toast and greet her. The last time we invited Qingwen and the others to eat, she had seen it and was praised by others. Lao Zhang said: How come I haven’t encountered it before? I have eaten it several times, and Lao Bi said that if you wait, it will come.
No, after three rounds of drinking, the door opened and the landlady walked in with a smile, holding a glass of wine. It seemed that she had visited most of the princes in the store. She smiled loudly, bowed and took a sip. "I said to the boss lady, the duck blood pot is a bit salty today..." The boss lady raised her eyes and said, "Hey! Lao Bi, it's you, I didn't pay attention."
Lao Bi pointed to a pot with a smile and said: It's not as delicious as last time. Didn't you cook it?
The landlady came forward and took a look: Hi! Yours is duck blood large intestine stew, cooked by the chef; last time you had duck blood tofu stew, that was cooked by me!
We all gave up our seats one after another. I remembered that earlier the landlady had brought bayberry wine, but this time she had a glass of bright red color in her hand. Just when we were about to ask, she glanced at our bottle and said loudly: Oops! Why are you drinking this? This doesn’t taste good. Drink mine, drink mine! After saying that, he stood up and said that there is it here. I have soaked it in a lot of sangwu wine!
Sangwu is mulberry. Bayberry absorbs wine, which over time makes the wine weak and friendly to the mouth. However, Sangwu does not absorb wine, but adds some richness and sweetness, making it easy to drink too much. The landlady rummaged around in the corner and brought out a large jar weighing about twenty kilograms. Without any explanation, she poured out the wine in our glasses and filled it with Sangwu wine.
I smiled and said that people go to restaurants to eat food. I guess many people here come to you. They come to eat food, but they come to you to eat the boss lady, haha. Your bold energy can only be found in Shuibo Liangshan! I praised heartily.
Haha, yes, yes! Brother, my friends all say I am Sun Erniang. The landlady replied with a blush on her face.
Otherwise, I told her slowly: The three female generals of the Water Margin, Hu Sanniang, Sun Erniang and Gu Dasao, are naturally different from each other. Sun Erniang opened a black shop on the cross slope and sold human meat buns in the wilderness. How could you look like her! I think you are actually Sister-in-law Gu, who is a real hero among women. She runs a serious restaurant in Shilipai outside the east gate of Dengzhou, killing cattle and gambling, how happy she is! She is good at martial arts and can't be approached by twenty or thirty people. Even Sun Xin, the head of the family, is not as capable as her. But as soon as I heard that Xie Zhen and Xie Bao were unjustly imprisoned and suffered injustice, they yelled and went to jail to save others without saying a word. It was really unjust...
Before she finished speaking, the landlady slapped her thigh, picked up the wine glass and said: Oh my brother, I like how you tell stories slowly and leisurely. From now on, I will tell them, don’t call me Sun Erniang, call me Mrs. Gu, haha! After another round of drinking and drinking, the proprietress ordered the waiter to bring a plate of vegetables she had pickled to go with the wine, which was crisp and refreshing, eliminating the greasiness.
As we gradually drank more and more, the sangwu wine became sticky. Before we staggered away, the landlady pulled us and told us, if you come to my place to eat from now on, you don’t need to bring wine with you. This altar will be yours, remember! she emphasized.
When I walked outside, it was rainy in late spring, the road was wet, the crimson wine, the lights in the alley, the sound of cars passing by, the whispers of people coming and going, this intoxicating scene of fireworks in the world, the erratic twists and turns in my mind, They were all scattered on the puddles on the road, floating in the dim light.
