The beauty of aquatic products lies in fish. The Yangtze River shad must be the Yangtze River saury that has been fried to sky-high prices in recent years. In fact, the real top spot in the "three delicacies" is shad, which is called "the beauty of fish".
Shad is a migratory fish, born in rivers and growing in the sea. Widely distributed in the southeast coast of China and southeast Asia, but only the shad from Zhenjiang to Nanjing of the Yangtze River can be regarded as the top food.
China has a long tradition of cooking shad, but it is not very valuable because of its high yield. It was not until Zhu Yuanzhang sat firmly in the dragon chair that shad was listed as a "tribute" and its value soared from then on.
In fact, shad is a kind of aquatic product that is difficult to keep fresh. Under the traffic conditions of the Ming Dynasty, it was very difficult to transport shad from Jiangnan to Beijing through the Grand Canal. According to Wanli Wild Collection, the whole transportation process of shad tribute at that time was recorded. "/kloc-In May of 0/5, shad was harvested, first transported to Xiaoling for Zhu Yuanzhang, and then set sail immediately. States and counties along the way are responsible for providing fresh-keeping ice cubes and chilling them all the way to Beijing. " At that time, the time limit was "must be in Beijing before the end of June, and must be placed on the emperor's desk in July 1 day". The criminal had no choice but to be beheaded.
Even in such a hurry, the shad arrived in Beijing and began to rot, so the chef of the imperial chef had to cover up the fishy smell with heavy seasoning.
After the Qing Dynasty, Shade tribute was transported by land, and it was delivered within 22 hours by fast horse via post road.
The Ming and Qing emperors spent countless manpower and material resources to eat a bite of shad, not to mention ordinary people, even princes and nobles had to be happy for several days to get a fresh shad.
After the Republic of China, shad really returned to the folk table, but it was by no means delicious for ordinary people. Only the big families in the south of the Yangtze River will offer a plate of shad when entertaining guests.
As China on the Tip of the Tongue said, "The ultimate food often only needs the simplest cooking method". The only way to maximize the delicacy of shad is to steam it with sliced ham, mushrooms and scaly bamboo shoots. It is said that only by this unusual steaming method can the plump fat under the skin of shad be preserved to the greatest extent, and the tender and smooth taste of "melting in the mouth, fat is better than brisket" can be made.
There is a saying that "Jiayu's famous flowers are prickly, don't blame poetry for being sentimental." The only drawback of shad is its spininess. Zhang Ailing, the representative of Shanghai's rich woman, once listed "prickly shad" as the three major hates in life in A Dream of Red Mansions. However, there are also many people who say that scaling sucks bones and all the soup on each thorn, which is a sense of ritual when eating shad formally.
Unfortunately, Shade didn't wait for the breakthrough of artificial reproduction technology. In the mid-1990s, with the change of hydrological conditions and overfishing, this aquatic product, which is as few as bones, has been functionally extinct. Since the spring of 1994, a fisherman surnamed Zhang in Anhui Province has caught a shad weighing about 2 Jin in the Yangtze River, and there has been no news since then. Along with the Yangtze River shad, there are the same Zhejiang "Qiantang shad" and Guangdong "Xijiang shad".
Now thousands of shad in restaurants are actually their relatives in the United States and Southeast Asia. According to the memories of gourmets who have eaten Yangtze shad, the taste is far worse than before.
"Southeast Taste" Songjiang Bass 1972 In February, Nixon visited Shanghai, and Shanghai produced a "steamed fish", which made old ni full of praise. After returning to the United States, old ni often recommended this kind of "plain-looking, but delicious" fish to politicians from all over the world.
Under the strong Amway of old ni, Queen Elizabeth, who visited China on 1986, also asked for a bite of fish that was "delicious to the bone". But unfortunately, at that time, Shanghai summoned more than 300 fishing boats to search around Songjiang day and night, but found nothing.
This kind of aquatic product that makes the old queen's mouth water is the specialty "Four-cheeked Perch" in Songjiang, Shanghai, and it is also the perch in "People come and go on the river, but they love the beauty of perch".
Songjiang perch (Scolionidae) is a migratory fish, which was once widely distributed in the eastern coast of China, but only the perch produced under Xiuye Bridge in Songjiang Prefecture is "the best in the world". It has a big head, a narrow tail, a big mouth, fine scales, tender and tasteless, and is absolutely delicious. It was praised by Emperor Yang Di as "the first delicious food in Southeast China".
The four-gill perch has been eaten in China for more than 2,000 years, and it has been recorded in documents such as The Book of the Later Han Dynasty, The Book of Jin, The Royal View of Taiping, and The Fu of the Later Red Cliff. Hans Zhang, a native of A Jin, thought of the soup and perch in his hometown, even quit being an official, and ran back to his hometown Wuzhong directly from Luoyang, the capital.
Songjiang perch has a variety of practices, such as braising, braising, steaming and soaking in water. It used to be a must-have dish for Songjiang citizens.
However, with the change of environmental hydrology and overfishing, the wild four-cheeked bass basically became extinct in the late 1970s. At present, the wild four-gill bass has been listed as a national second-class protected wild animal, and fishing is absolutely forbidden.
Fortunately, the technology of artificial culture of four-sided bass has completely landed, and the artificial culture of four-sided bass has stepped onto people's dining tables.
"Dragon Species in Fish" The red scale fish in Taishan live in a stream halfway up the mountain in Taishan, Shandong Province. This is a brown fusiform fish, less than a foot long and weighing less than100g. This extremely flexible and agile fish is scientifically called "scaleless shovel jaw fish", commonly known as "red scale fish" or "fish in the forest"
Tarzan red scale fish is a distant relative of carp, with square head and huge mouth, dragon eyes and beard. The ancients compared it to a horned dragon, hence the name "Chilin", and the folks mistakenly turned it into a "red scale" because of its reddish-brown back.
There are four grades of red scale fish in Mount Tai. Those with red and yellow backs are called "golden scales", those with silvery white are called "silver scales", those with bean blue are called "bean scales" and those with gray and black are called "grass scales". Jin Lin is the king of fish and a tribute of past dynasties.
China has a long history of eating red scale fish. According to "Tai 'an County Records" and other documents, any king who comes to Mount Tai to meditate will have a bite of "red scale fish". Literati such as Li Bai and Du Fu who have been to Mount Tai should also have a taste. Li Bai once wrote a poem praising: Hu Broken Color, Li.
The fat content of red scale fish is extremely high. It is said that if exposed to the sun on rocks in midsummer, it will turn into a mass of fat and flow away.
The cooking of red-scale fish is mostly based on clear retting, dry frying and fragrant frying, and there are delicacies made of red scales at Manchu and Han banquets and Confucius banquets.
At present, wild red scale fish is a national second-class protected animal, and illegal fishing is strictly prohibited. Fortunately, the breeding of red scale fish has been on the table of the people.
"Crab King" Cream Crab In the Pearl River Estuary where salt and fresh water meet, there is a green cream crab weighing half a catty. After the Dragon Boat Festival, some particularly strong cream crabs will turn the crab paste into "butter", slowly penetrate into every cell of the body, and dye the crab meat in the shell golden yellow. This is the "butter crab", the "crab king" in the eyes of top gourmets in Hong Kong and Macao, and the top crab in a million.
Top butter crabs grow in the waters near Fuyong, Shajing, Baishizhou and Humen in Dongguan. It is said that if the crab's body breaks, yellow oil will flow out of the crack. Therefore, before cooking them, freeze them to death with ice cubes to prevent their legs from being broken during cooking.
Buttered crab is a top food that has only emerged in Guangdong and Hong Kong in recent years. Its cooking technique is very simple. Either it is made of yellow rice wine and eaten raw, or it is directly steamed after freezing to death. Only these two simplest cooking methods can keep the delicious crab and the fat and sweet crab oil to the greatest extent.
"More expensive than gold" is a kind of dry food made of various fish fats, and it is a Cantonese dish that looks like a piece of soybean oil skin.
In China, with the blessing of traditional medicine, as long as the ingredients are in the name of "tonifying kidney, nourishing yin, enriching blood, postpartum and nourishing skin", they are immediately worth a hundred times. Hua Jiao, an organ that can be found in most teleost fish, and an "inferior protein" that can't be digested and absorbed, has also become a upstart in the food industry, and has swaggered on various gluttonous feasts.
Golden flounder, also known as grouper, yellow-lipped fish and grouper, is a large carnivorous fish, the largest of which can weigh 100kg and the body length is1.8 m. Yellow-lipped fish, large and small yellow croaker and yellow croaker are distant relatives. They have been widely distributed in temperate and subtropical waters south of the Yangtze River Estuary to the Pearl River Estuary, and are unique and rare fish in China.
The value of wild yellow-lipped fish meat is about 3000 yuan/kg, but the glue made of its fat is definitely the "king of glue". With the pursuit of dignitaries from all walks of life, 1 kg of top-grade glue has been fired to 1 10,000 Hong Kong dollars. What's more, an old flower glue actually took 2.3 million yuan.
Hey, it's full of IQ taxes.
In the mouth of doctors, charlatans, traditional medicine lovers and health care enthusiasts, Jinhua chewing gum has changed from an unabsorbed protein to a "life-saving medicine". Whether it's stroke, heart disease or cancer, as long as you cut a piece from the glue, you will be able to return to the soul immediately and come back to life.
Driven by the violence of "catching one for life", the once widely distributed wild yellow-lipped fish was abruptly turned into a national second-class protected animal, and even their close relative, California grouper, was completely caught.
Really, no business, no killing. Before the breakthrough of artificial propagation technology, let's leave a way for yellow-lipped fish.