Where is the best beef noodles?

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The peoples in East Asia and South Asia have many historical characteristics.

For example, everyone has a history of not eating beef.

Although there are different reasons for not eating beef, whether it is the Japanese banning meat from imperial power or the Indians thinking that cattle are gods, in essence, it is a truth that China people do not eat plowed cattle as a means of production.

Yes, China people don't believe in God and imperial power in their bones. Therefore, from the very beginning, the laws prohibiting beef in ancient China explained the reasons clearly.

On the other hand, beef is so delicious that it has never really been cut off in China, a country that loves it so much. Although slaughtering old, sick and disabled cattle has always been a legal business, in that era when there was no traceability system for ingredients, it was impossible to verify the source of beef after it was cooked in the pot. The chivalrous man's "two catties of beef and a pot of good wine" in The Water Margin can quite represent the real life of the people at the bottom who were wandering on the edge of imperial law in ancient China.

Similarly, in ancient China, for a long time, wheat products were not regarded as good things in the hall.

Shu Xi, a scholar in the Western Jin Dynasty, wrote a "Cake Fu", listing many pasta dishes. He said: spring is neither too hot nor too cold, suitable for eating "steamed bread" (steamed bread); When it is hot in summer, it is suitable to eat "thin and strong" (maybe cold noodles); When the temperature drops in autumn, it is best to eat "liter" (bread); It's freezing in the middle of winter, and that's the best soup cake (noodles). "Prison Pill" (jiaozi) is the best pasta, because it is delicious all year round.

Some of these pasta come from distant places, while others are spontaneously formed by the lower classes. In short, they have nothing to do with great traditions.

Therefore, when beef meets noodles, it naturally carries a grassy smell that originated in rivers and lakes, which condenses the noise in the streets and the fireworks in the world. In the pedigree of Chinese cuisine, if swordfish, shad, lake crab and other freshwater fish are fresh, then they represent the tip of the tongue aesthetics of the elite and are the elegance respected by literati; Then beef noodles are the most vigorous spring grass of the civilian class, which can best reflect the regional scenery.

No: 1? one

From a macro point of view, beef noodles are not native to China. The beef noodles we eat today have two origins, one is the introduction of the West to the East, and the other is the import from the sea.

Different from China people who are used to sharing meals at formal banquets. Most diets in Central Asia are staple food and side dishes: all kinds of barbecues, sauces and vegetables are put on plates with naan, or saffron, onions, chicken and long-grain rice are fried in bowls ... These are not popular in China's eyes, only the proletariat can eat them, but they are high-end delicacies in Islamic society.

Since the Han Dynasty, these western ways of eating, as well as wheat originated in Central Asia, have been introduced into the Central Plains one after another, affecting the diet of people in the central and western regions from bottom to top. Pasta culture has gradually formed in the Yellow River Basin and the Central Plains, where the main meat is cattle and sheep.

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was already a "soup official" who specialized in making soup cakes. Wei Wendi xelloss once suspected that the face of peace was as white as jade, so he painted his face with powder. So Wendi sent the peace to the palace and gave him a bowl of soup cakes. Watching Yanhe eat full head big sweat, his face turned from white to red and then to white. He didn't believe Yanhe was really white.

This kind of western food spread to the East and reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty. Li Shimin's reputation as "Tiankhan" and the inclusive and open national policy of the Tang Dynasty enabled a large number of Central Asians, including poet Li Bai, to transit through the Hexi Corridor in Tianshui and Lanzhou to Chang 'an, the central core of the Tang Dynasty empire.

These Central Asians brought the eating habits of boiled beef and mutton with white water, and also brought various ways to eat pasta. Soon, China people, who were very creative in food, improved the way Central Asians cooked noodles and made cakes with beef mutton soup, and formed a more delicious strip pasta, which was later noodles.

Gao Cheng's book Wu Ji Yuan in the Northern Song Dynasty mentioned: "In the Wei and Jin Dynasties, soup cakes were still eaten in the world, and now they want cakes." Suo, which means long strip in Chinese, is probably the earliest recorded noodle.

Coincidentally, almost at the same time, on the way of wheat spreading to the west, Italians invented Anclle Hair, which is the spaghetti we later ate.

The same strip-shaped wheat products and the same taste characteristics show that people who love to eat often have amazing aesthetic similarities.

No: 2? two

After the Ming Dynasty, the crop distribution of southern rice and northern wheat has been completely formed, and the structure of "southern rice and northern rice" has become increasingly solidified. At the same time, with the spread of noodles in China, the word "noodles" has become more and more synonymous with noodles, rather than its original meaning, wheat flour.

For the south, which is rich in literati, noodles have become an emotional appeal to embellish life, rather than props to fill the stomach. Therefore, the side dishes of noodles also rely on aquatic products and fresh vegetables that are not full. Li Yu described his "eight-treasure noodles" made of dried fish, dried shrimps, fresh bamboo shoots, sesame seeds and pepper with great interest. Yuan Mei also talked about his noodles with chicken soup, eel shrimp sauce and mushroom sauce with great interest.

In the Central Plains and Hexi Corridor, the custom of filling the stomach with beef mutton soup and noodles is still preserved. The difference is that when mutton noodles, represented by Hui noodles in Henan Province, became popular, beef noodles only existed in the unknown dark side and Muslim diet, represented by Hui people, because the country explicitly prohibited the slaughter of cattle.

1840, the British opened the door to the Qing Dynasty with the Opium War. Ten years later, Americans opened the door to Japan with the black ship incident. People in East Asia discovered for the first time that beef, which has been regarded as taboo for thousands of years, is actually a nutrient for Europeans to keep fit.

However, the national character once again led the two countries to go their separate ways in the history of beef noodles: the Japanese were completely westernized, and Emperor Meiji took the lead in eating beef and drinking milk to strengthen their physique. In the next 100 years, cattle with high intramuscular fat content were also cultivated. In addition, influenced by Chinese noodles, Japanese Lamian Noodles with bone soup was invented.

However, China people hold the concept of "taking the essence and discarding the dross" and are ashamed to eat cows, and still hide half of their faces behind her guitar from us. More than half a century after the Opium War, signs of clear soup and beef noodles appeared on the streets of Lanzhou.

This is probably the first time that China people secretly ate beef for thousands of years, and publicly hanged the name of beef noodles in the downtown area.

No: 3? three

The Han nationality has always been a nation that came from behind, and beef noodles are a very typical example.

Since the first bowl of beef noodles in Lanzhou became a famous snack and was praised by the elite literati represented by Tang, beef noodles with local characteristics were made according to local cooking techniques and dietary tastes.

What's more interesting is that these unique beef noodles are "exported from the domestic market" for various reasons, which has affected our neighbors and the whole world.

In the 1940s, the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam fell, and people began to eat beef in Hue, the capital of Vietnam, out of resistance to the feudal dynasty. Immigrants from China, Guangxi and Guizhou brought skills in making beef noodles and beef powder. Under the combination of hatchbacks, Bun Bohue, the quintessence of Vietnamese, was invented.

In the 1970s, Li Beiqi, an overseas Chinese from Chongqing, opened a beef noodle chain in California, USA. The signboard was "King of Beef Noodles", which was the most successful Chinese food chain brand in the United States except panda express. Compared with left chicken and fried chop suey, beef noodles are one of the most popular and authentic Chinese foods that can be eaten in the United States. So that later, "Miss Li Beef Noodle in California" had the confidence to return to China and open a branch in the north, which was called the banner of chain Chinese food.

At the end of 1970s, Japanese enterprises and enterprises in Taiwan Province Province made a joint venture, imitated the instant noodle products of Nissin Company at that time, took beef noodles from Taiwan Province Province as the basic flavor, and added the side dishes from Lamian Noodles, Japan, to create the brand of Master Kong and its first generation of instant noodles-braised beef noodles. In one fell swoop, it defeated Nissin Dolphin Bones in East Asia, and also created a precedent for countless beef-flavored instant noodles.

There are countless examples of this. In a word, China beef noodles have become the most culturally inclusive and influential China cuisine in the world because of its local materials, convenient production technology and rich and long taste.

So, what is the complete map of China beef noodles?

Gansu: Lanzhou beef noodles

| The originator of beef noodles |

Legend has it that the production standard of Lanzhou beef noodles "one clear, two white, three green and four red Huang Wu" (noodle soup should be clear, radish should be white, coriander should be green, pepper should be red and noodles should be yellow) was invented by a scholar named Chen Weijing in Hebei.

Chen Weijing's Hui disciple Ma Liuqi brought the production standard to Lanzhou, and his successor Ma Baozi carried it forward in Lanzhou.

In essence, the story of Lamian Noodles's prosperity in Lanzhou is exactly the same as that of KFC: Indian Colonel Harland Sanders came all the way to Salt Lake City to sell KFC. There is no reason: Kentucky, as a slave-holding state in the south, does have a cultural tradition of eating fried chicken.

Lanzhou has similar characteristics: since the Tang Dynasty, as an important town on the Silk Road, Lanzhou has been a transit point for the spread of western food to the east; After the Yuan Dynasty, a large number of Hui people lived together, which made beef noodles have a national foundation. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Han literati summed up the production standards of "1, 2, 3, 4, 5", just like the fried chicken production standards summarized by KFC, such as a tube of catalyst, which raised the food from scenery to brand.

Until today, Lanzhou beef noodles are still one of the most distinctive and rich regional symbols of China beef noodles. The geographical location of Hexi Corridor determines that both high-quality wheat flour and high-quality beef from the border areas of Tibet and Xinjiang can be found here.

Peng Hui instant noodles are the soul of Lanzhou beef noodles. Pennisetum is alkaline after being burned to ashes, which can solidify protein in flour and make noodles more gluten-free. Essentially, Peng Hui noodles have the same function as soda noodles and baking soda eaten in the south.

Authentic Lanzhou beef noodles don't need to be sliced, but beef granules, which are different from most Qinghai Hualong beef noodles on the market. The meat is crisp but not soft, which tests the skill of the cooking master very much; If you want an extra bowl of meat, sliced beef will appear.

Because it is close to Guanzhong, oily and spicy beef noodles similar to Shaanxi are also indispensable in Lanzhou beef noodles. However, unlike the spicy taste in Guanzhong Plain, the highest realm of Lanzhou oily and spicy beef noodles is "only fragrant but not spicy", which may also retain the eating customs of Central Asia from one side.

Sichuan: Neijiang beef noodles

| Inheriting Authentic Sichuan Style |

Historians generally believe that Taiwan Province beef noodles are related to Sichuan beef noodles, but many people from Taiwan Province province went to Chengdu to look for "authentic beef noodles", but all failed.

Lai Yaodong, a Taiwan Province writer, once wrote: "Looking for authentic Sichuan beef noodles (in Chengdu). Crossing the street and alley for two hours, nothing. Finally, I ate two plates of husband and wife lungs and a bowl of Bell jiaozi, and brought back a catty of Pixian bean paste. "

In fact, if you come to Neijiang, which is less than 200 kilometers away from Chengdu, you will find the real Sichuan beef noodles here.

Fine flour with heavy alkali, wide soup with red oil and ready-to-eat beef in the mouth are several characteristics of Neijiang beef noodles. Similar to Peng Hui noodles in Lanzhou, noodles are more alkaline. Generally, stores use cauldrons to boil water. After boiling, they throw the slender noodles in, pull them apart with long bamboo chopsticks, and cook for more than 1 minute to ensure the taste of the noodles.

Beef minced meat is also cooked with fresh beef in the market and various secret spices. After the beef is cut into pieces, fry it in hot oil first, and then stew it with spices. After a long period of stewing, the beef pieces taste soft and rotten, and the smell is biting.

When cooking, add chives, ginger and garlic water, soy sauce, pepper powder, monosodium glutamate, vinegar and other seasonings. The noodles are strong, the beef is tender and smooth, the oil pepper is slightly burnt, supplemented by green leaves or coriander-and the last secret: add a little lard to the bottom of each bowl of noodles to make the noodles softer and the noodles more fragrant.

Zhang Daqian, a native of Neijiang, moved to Taiwan Province in his later years and often cooked beef noodles at his home in Jingshe, Mo Ye to entertain guests. Jiekai Xiu Changkou, an actor who tasted the old painter's craft, recalled: "Zhang Daqian's beef noodles were very good. He cooks two kinds of beef, one is braised beef noodles and the other is braised beef noodles. " In order to keep fit, Jiekai Xiu Changkou usually eats very little, but in the face of beef noodles, he couldn't resist the temptation and ate three bowls at a time.

Zhang Daqian once lived in Gansu and copied Dunhuang murals for four years. I'm afraid he stole Master Gan's broth and beef noodles. And his braised beef noodles should be authentic hometown flavor.

Hubei: Xiangyang beef noodles

| Reflect cultural blending |

Beef noodles are the product of cultural blending and hedging. Generally speaking, the more diverse and inclusive the culture, the more delicious beef noodles can be bred. Lanzhou is, so is Xiangyang.

Jianghan is a small town in the middle of Nantong, with Hankou and Xinyang in the east, Zhongyuan and Luoyang in the north, Chang 'an and Hanzhong in the west. It has been a battleground for military strategists since ancient times, and it is precisely because of this geographical location that Xiangyang culture has great inclusiveness and diversity.

For example, diet has jumped out of the framework of "southern rice and northern rice"-Xiangyang people can not only hold a bowl of noodles as a staple food every day, but also enjoy eating white rice with vegetables.

Xiangyang beef noodles are hot red soup, which tastes hemp, spicy, fresh and fragrant, and tastes worse than Neijiang beef noodles. A bowl of old brine stewed with various seasonings is the essence. In addition to beef, there are beef intestines, tripe and liver. All side dishes should be boiled in salt water for more than 45 minutes until the butter overflows and the soup is mellow. It's delicious with bean sprouts and coriander.

The standard way to eat Xiangyang beef noodles is to add a raw garlic and a bowl of yellow wine. Chew garlic, drink wine and a bowl of spicy beef noodles will refresh you.

When foreigners come to Xiangyang, they are always determined to spit out a bowl of beef noodles, but in the end they often burst into tears, staring at the girl who eats fast at the next table, while looking at the hot beef noodles and rice wine in front of them, while candidly admit defeat.

Anhui: Huainan beef soup

| Sweet in the south and salty in the north |

The most famous in Huainan area is not beef noodles, but beef soup.

The history of eating beef locally is quite similar to that of Xiangyang, Hubei. From the Three Kingdoms period to the Northern Expedition period of the Republic of China, as a place where wars continued, counties were abandoned, and the integration of ethnic groups and diet was particularly intense and frequent. Eating beef in defiance of the law is also a long-standing custom in this area.

Huainan is a place where the north meets the south, and beef soup expresses the taste of "sweet in the south and salty in the north".

General stores will provide sweet soup and salty soup to choose from. The seasoning of salty soup is quite similar to the soup head of Lanzhou beef noodles. Clear soup stewed with spices and beef is refreshing and delicious. Beef should be fatter, which forms a taste level with its thick and refreshing soup.

Sweet soup without salt. It is a very southern practice to boil thick soup with beef bones and add a little sugar to highlight the sweetness of bone soup itself.

The beef in the soup is torn by hand, and there is fiber. The bite tastes solid, which is not comparable to ordinary beef slices, and is full of rough tension in the Central Plains.

In fact, there are similar beef soup in many places in Huanghuai area, such as Luoyang, Shangqiu and Suzhou. But only Huainan, the southernmost city, uses vermicelli and shredded bean skin as the staple food in beef soup.

There is no doubt that it has the shape of southern beef noodles.

Hunan: Changde beef noodles

| Hunan flavor of oily fragrance |

Changde, Hunan Province is a famous rice noodle producing area. The rice flour made of local Changde fragrant rice is round, slender and slightly fermented, which has the quality of Taiwan Province Hsinchu rice flour.

Hunan heavy oil may be too boring for people with light taste. But as a seasoning for rice noodles, it tastes just right Hunan people call the seasoning of rice noodles "oil code" to describe it as oily and juicy.

The common snack in Changde street is to scald rice noodles with boiling water, and add shredded pork, three delicacies, fried sauce, mushroom oil, hoofed flowers, ribs, diced chicken, eel and other oil codes. Among them, the highest and most famous is beef.

Changde Tianjin is one of the most famous Hui settlements in the south. It is said that during the Yongzheng period, Hui tribes in the north came here to settle down. Hui people eat beef noodles, and when they arrive in the south where there are more rice than noodles, they put rice noodles into beef soup according to local conditions, which is the embryonic form of Changde beef powder.

Later, according to local conditions, the Hui people chose the southern spices such as hawthorn, gardenia and vanilla, and boiled the old brine with steak, beef tendon and beef offal.

Boil oil and water to separate. When eating, add a spoonful of butter and a spoonful of stock, and then add all parts of the cow according to the requirements of the diners. The last marinated egg soaked in marinade and a little coriander peanuts is the authentic Changde breakfast.

Guangdong: Chaozhou beef noodles

Unique attention of Hakka people |

South of Nanling Mountain has been a place far away from the Central Plains civilization since ancient times. Therefore, in the dining table of Hakka people in the south, beef has an important position far beyond that in the north.

The south is mostly mountainous, so it is common to raise cattle and buffaloes. Hakka people take beef as their daily meat according to local conditions, and they have also developed the "four advantages" of authentic meat source, unique taste, excellent technology and excellent working procedures. As long as there are places where Hakkas live, you can always find beef balls, beef offal soup, beef cooking stoves and so on.

Of course, it also includes beef noodles.

The beef noodles and beef kway teow in Chaozhou are neither clear soup nor red soup, but turbid soup made of beef bone soup, sand tea sauce and white pepper, which is salty and slightly spicy, with the umami flavor of oily sesame seeds, peanuts, fish sauce and shrimp sauce and the sweetness of soy sauce.

There are generally three kinds of main side dishes: fresh-cut hanging dragon meat, boiled to half-cooked, fresh and tender; Braised crispy beef brisket, soft and glutinous; The independent beef balls in the store are refreshing. If you are a regular customer and have special requirements, the store can also provide beef with special parts such as breast oil and neck kernel.

In short, pay attention.

There are more rice than noodles in southern China, so kway teow will be used with beef by default. But in fact, Chaoshan crispy noodles are the best partner for beef noodles. The so-called crispy noodles are similar to the bamboo tube noodles in Guangzhou. The dough is pressed extremely tightly by hand, and then cut into slender hair. "Crisp" has a strong meaning in Chaoshan dialect, which shows its taste.

Guizhou: Huaxi beef noodles

| A spoonful of sour soup that hits the soul directly |

If we use a taste to summarize the food in Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, it is sour.

The biggest feature of Huaxi beef powder is of course the appetizing acidity.

Rice flour is made of coarse steamed flour, which is very smooth and can slide down the esophagus without chewing. The soup is made of beef with bones, and its color is milky white, with a thick layer of butter and pepper, and its color is red.

Beef is not crisp or rotten, but chewy, which is strongly opposed to the smoothness of rice noodles.

Sour lotus white soup is the soul of the whole bowl of beef powder. Lotus white is a common name for Guizhou cabbage-it looks like a lotus flower and its color is white. The so-called acid is similar to the fermentation of kimchi. The unique constant temperature and humid climate in Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau makes the local fermented vegetables have a strong sour taste. In order to prevent moth-eaten and spoilage, a large number of peppers were added to lotus white.

This hot and sour soup gives beef soup a unique taste. The smoothness of rice flour, the toughness of beef and the crispness of lotus white are mutually causal. Rice noodle soup is sour and spicy, and the slight odor makes people want to stop, which can be comparable to snail powder in Guangxi.

Huaxi beef powder eaten in other places is often full of red oil, and sour lotus white is not found. Have a taste, only spicy, not sour. Although it was a miss, it was a thousand miles away.

Taiwan Province Province: Juancun Beef Noodles

| Overall texture |

In Taiwan Province Province, there are all kinds of beef noodles, ranging from street snacks of more than 20 yuan to a bowl of "Fuehrer Beef Noodles" with a price of 1000 yuan. Almost every family has its own unique method. If you eat beef noodles three times a day, it's hard to eat them again for half a month.

But in essence, before liberation, Taiwan Province Province seldom ate beef and noodles, because rice was native to Taiwan Province Province and flour was not their staple food.

As soon as possible, the village beef noodles were born, with a "comprehensive" texture-this bowl of noodles, with local flavor, is the most well-deserved period of beef noodle geography in China.

Scholars in Taiwan Province Province generally believe that this braised beef noodle based on Sichuan bean paste was invented by the first generation of mainland immigrants who settled in Taiwan, according to the practice of Sichuan-style snack red soup beef and referring to the way Shandong people eat noodles with meat. So, at that time, chefs in many hotels in Taiwan Province Province boasted that they had worked under the Shandong warlord Sun and learned the skills of beef stew.

After 1970' s, Taiwan Province Province opened beef imports, and beef from the United States, Australia and New Zealand quickly replaced local beef and buffalo, which was hard to taste and expensive. Especially, canned beef in the United States can be poured on beef noodles when the lid is opened, and the taste and appearance are quite good, which makes beef noodles in Taiwan Province Province have a considerable industrial development foundation.

Later, California beef noodles and Vancouver beef noodles were both inspired by the practice of beef noodles in Taiwan Province Province and brought to the Western Hemisphere by overseas Chinese.

If Lanzhou beef noodles focus on noodles and soup base, if it weren't for the name, that cold beef wouldn't appear. Taiwan Province beef noodles, then, just the opposite: the taste of noodles may be average, but the mellow noodle soup cooked with beef bones and flavor sauce, with crispy beef tendon, almost makes you forget the plain noodles in the bowl.

Ma Ying nine recalled eating beef noodles with classmates at the beginning of middle school. This bowl of noodles is big and heavy. "Eating noodles is like washing your face in a washbasin."

Yes, no matter how small, fresh and developed Taiwan Province's own culture is, the heroic ancestors from the mainland picked up the beef noodles and returned them to everyone. As Jiao Tong, a scholar in Taiwan Province Province, said, "Beef noodles were originally a historical accident, but now they have become a kind of food homesickness in Taipei."

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Bai said that when he came back from a long business trip abroad, he didn't go home first after getting off the plane, but went straight to his favorite beef noodle shop.

"A big bowl of soup with water to eat, broke out in a sweat, this just feel home. The so-called patriotism turned out to be the bowl of beef noodles at home. "