What are the specialties of Zhuxi? Where can I buy authentic and affordable Zhuxi specialties?

There are some Zhuxi dishes, such as tofu, tempeh, soybean paste, bean paste, etc. In the great music of Zhuxi food, they are not separate chapters or ingredients for cooking. , or a small plate placed on the table, used to accompany meals, but it is indispensable, especially for promoting and showing the unique flavor of Zhuxi cuisine.

Compared with large dishes like the steaming basin, these side dishes can quite demonstrate the "transformation" and "integration" of Zhuxi's food culture. In terms of cooking technology, they are classified by professionals into the category of "brewing", and the basic link is actually fermentation, and some need to be dried for a long time. Its most famous one is Zhuxi fermented bean curd. The small square tofu cubes that have been fermented to long hair are processed by the skilled hands of Zhuxi people - they are dipped in red pepper powder, then placed in a jar, and soaked in the "wine tail" from the countryside Baogu winery workshop, and the texture becomes soft and smooth. , yellow and transparent in color, spicy and fragrant. Zhuxi people cook many dishes without bean curd, such as braised pork, dog meat, braised pork, etc., using bean curd as an ingredient, the fragrance is overflowing. Use it to cool preserved eggs, spring sprouts, jelly, etc., and it will be an endless aftertaste. Now, the unique flavor of Zhuxi bean curd has become famous all over the country. Even supermarkets in Hong Kong and Macao sell Zhuxi bean curd.

The second is Zhuxi Black Bean Sauce. In midsummer, in June, the cooked soybeans are mixed with salt, ginger and garlic are added, sealed in a jar, and then brought to the side of the farm or on the roof to dry in the hot sun for fermentation, and the soybeans become tempeh. Nowadays, tempeh as an accompaniment to rice has also entered the mainstream, such as fish cooked with tempeh, fried shrimps with tempeh, pork mixed with tempeh, etc. Although they are just ingredients, they are delicious.

In addition to these side dishes, there is also a kind of Zhuxi food that attracts greedy people, that is, local snacks. Zhuxi connects the north and the south. Our ancestors immigrated from the north and the south, so there are many kinds of snacks. The new edition of "Zhuxi County Chronicle" in 1985 recorded: "Traditional snacks in Zhuxi include Tan Sanye's sesame cakes, Zhu Deafizi's mung bean balls, and Dongmen Zeng's hot noodle dumplings. They are high quality and cheap, and are very popular among the masses. ”

Among the snacks in Zhuxi, the most impressive ones include pea oil layer and bowl cake. It is said that in 1978, the famous writer Bi Ye came to Zhuxi to collect food. After tasting the pea oil layer, he was full of praise. Before leaving, he bought dozens of them and took them back to Wuhan, saying that he would invite friends in the provincial capital to try them. This is a story that makes the villagers proud for a while.

Speaking of Wan'er cake, the one from Jiangjiayan Town, Zhuxi County is the most authentic, and the Wan'er cake made by Mei Shuying in his early years is the most famous. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, when people from Zhuxi went to Sichuan to pick up salt, went to Wuchang to sell cloth, or went out to study, they would eat bowls of cakes before leaving to pray for good luck and success. I remember many years ago, during the Spring Festival, my grandma would always buy a large basket of bowl cakes in advance to eat when her grandchildren came to pay New Year greetings on the first day of the new year. She would also ask her to take a big bag back home. Nowadays, my grandma is no longer here, and I haven’t eaten Waner cake for many years. Every Chinese New Year, I miss my grandma very much and the Waner cake in my hometown of Jiangjiayan Town.

In addition to bowl cakes, when it comes to sesame pancakes, the Hui restaurant under the Bell and Drum Tower in the east gate of the county in the past made the most delicious pancakes. The sesame cake has sesame seeds embedded in the skin and the yellow pastry used by the Hui people is filled in the flesh. It is crispy and fragrant. The famous mutton barbecue is also sold there - choose fat and lean mutton, mince it and mix it with onions, ginger, etc. to make stuffing, stuff it into the risen and kneaded dough, make it into a bowl-sized cake, and fry it in sesame oil in a flat-bottomed iron pot. After taking it out of the pan, both sides will be browned and the meat filling will be delicious.

In addition, there is also a series of snacks that use soybeans as the main ingredient. They are simple to make, but delicious and nutritious, and are quite unforgettable among Zhuxi people. Use a stone mill to "push" the soy milk, including the dregs and juice, and boil it with water. Add shredded vegetables to make a pot of milky white and green "residue". If the soy milk is filtered, rice is added and the porridge is cooked over a slow fire, it will be sweet rice; if the new tofu is broken into pieces, cooked with the rice porridge, and eaten with oily spicy seeds, it is called "lazy tofu".

The snacks in Zhuxi are profoundly simple, clever and unique, but the benefits are still difficult to tell to outsiders. In the author's humble opinion, let alone those Zhuxi dishes, just combining these special snacks and opening "Zhuxi Snack" chain stores in various places can compete with famous snack brands such as "Lanzhou Ramen" and "Shaxian Snacks" in the market. Carrying forward. At the same time, Zhuxi people who are away from home will not feel homesick because they cannot eat the food of their hometown.