Chapter 436: Wash your hands and make soup, fresh fish meat
The bean juice in the copper cauldron on the stove kept making a "gurgling" sound under the blessing of firewood, and white bubbles popped up above the copper cauldron...
It is still rare and rare for someone like Cao Shuang to enjoy the opportunity of his wife washing his hands and making soup for him. It is not as common as in later generations.
Sun Luban looked at the fish dumplings he had cut on the lacquer plate and said with some regret: "It's a pity that there are no fresh Kodong bass. The fish dumplings made from Kodong mullet and bass are the most delicious."
At this time, the most valuable ingredient for fish dumplings was seabass, but seabass was not the top ingredient for fish dumplings.
Sun Luban thought for a while and then said with great nostalgia: "I remember once that my father discussed with the warlock Jie Xiang what kind of fish is best for sashimi, and Jie Xiang recommended mullet to his father.
My father sighed and said: "The mullet is found in the East China Sea, but it is out of reach."
Jie Xiang then sent someone to dig a small hole in the center of the hall, fill it with water, and fish out the mullet from the hole."
Mullet, commonly known as mullet, is famous for its delicious meat and roe. It was once a delicacy of the Southern Song Dynasty. However, mullet was rarely harvested in ancient times and it was difficult for ordinary people to taste it.
Cao Shuang looked at Sun Luban and said: "It doesn't matter, as long as the fish meat is made from fresh fish, it will be delicious."
In ancient times, there were no refrigerators, so it was difficult to ensure the freshness of ingredients.
According to the "Wu Yue Chun Qiu·He Lu Nei Biography", when Wu Zixu returned from the war, King Helu of Wu "heard that the three divisions were coming and treated the fish as turtles." As a result, Wu Zixu had something to do and was delayed for a while, and the fish meat became smelly.
After King Wu noticed it, he ordered his people to make sashimi again, and then the guests and hosts enjoyed themselves. The "鲙" mentioned here means "made by Helu" and refers specifically to sashimi or fish.
Wu has many rivers, lakes, and rich aquatic resources, so the king of Wu can arrogantly replace the fish meat at any time; but if it were in the north, even the overlord Cao Cao would inevitably lament that "the only thing missing is the fish meat in Wusongjiang River."
The aquatic resources in the north are not as good as those in the south, so in order to prevent the food from rotting, they are often pickled.
Cao Shuang continued: "The north is no better than the south. Most people eat fish paste. Even the abalone that Emperor Wu liked to eat was pickled. Now that we can eat fresh fish, it is already very good."
The more common one is "Yin", which is fish sauce. Pixian County, Sichuan has always been famous for its bean paste, but during the Three Kingdoms period, it was also rich in a kind of fish sauce.
According to the "Food System of the Four Seasons" quoted in Volume 926 of "Taiping Yulan": "Pixian fish, with yellow scales and red tail, comes out of the rice fields and can be made into sauce."
Take the newly hatched fish and raise them in the rice fields, and you can also make fish sauce. It was specially listed in the recipe by Cao Cao, so you can imagine the taste of Pixian fish sauce.
The sole fish (abalone) that Cao Cao loved to eat may have also undergone special treatment.
According to Cao Zhi's self-portrait in "Praying for Sacrifice to the Ancestor King", he once asked Zang Ba, the governor of Xuzhou, for 200 abalones to sacrifice to his late father.
According to Volume 938 of "Taiping Yulan", it is quoted from Cao Pi's "Book with Sun Quan": "Today, because of Zhao Zi, thousands of fish were sent to me."
After Cao Pi became emperor, he gave Sun Quan a thousand abalones, a good horse, a coat (white mullet fur) and five dendrobiums of stone honey. One said the stone honey was rock sugar made from sugar cane, and another said it was cherries.
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However, as a gift for the diplomatic relations between the two countries, the stone honey seen here should be rock sugar, so as to ensure that it does not deteriorate during the long-distance transportation from Wei to Wu.
In the same way, abalone should also be dried abalone. And judging from the place of origin, most of these abalones come from Xuzhou, which is close to the East China Sea. Therefore, Zang Ba, who has been here for many years, is "Lao Mo" who often sends fish to Cao Cao.
The ancient pickling method also included "bao". The "Yan Family Instructions" once warned the children of the family not to live with evil people, saying that such behavior is "like entering an abalone house, which will make you smell bad for a long time."
It should be noted that "abalone" in historical records is not the same as "flounder". It generally refers to wet salted fish that becomes rancid due to high temperatures after being salted and pickled, rather than what is now called abalone.
After Qin Shihuang died of illness, Prime Minister Li Si and CRRC Governor Zhao Gao used "abalone" to cover up the smell of the corpse in order to hide the mourning secret.
Sun Luban continued: "Husband, don't think that pickled fish is only available in the north. When I was young, my grandmother also had people make fish bream, and sometimes she would take her mother and concubine to make it herself."
In comparison, fish bream tastes better. This is a pickled product that is boiled in salt water and then fermented. It has a unique flavor and was very popular during the Han and Tang Dynasties.
Meng Ren of Soochow was born in a poor family when he was young, and his mother was old and weak. She wanted to eat bamboo shoots. Meng Ren was extremely filial. After seeking to no avail, he hugged the bamboo and cried. Unexpectedly, "filial piety touched the heaven and earth, and in a moment the ground split open, and several bamboo shoots came out." This is
"Crying bamboo shoots grow" in "Twenty-Four Filial Piety".
Later, Meng Ren served as the Sima of the prison pond and was responsible for looking after the fish pond. After catching the fish, he was reluctant to eat it, so he made bream and sent it to his mother. But Meng Ren also refused. She sent a message to her son, saying, "You are a fish."
"Official, the purpose of sending the bream to me is not to avoid suspicion." He returned the fish bream.
Fish bream is a specialty of Wu. Not only Meng Ren wants to eat it, but also aristocratic families in Soochow, Cao Wei, and Shu Han have the habit of eating bream.
The idiom "popular among the people" originally refers to delicious food that everyone loves to eat, and later extended to mean well-written poetry and prose, which is widely praised and spread by the world.
The delicious food mentioned here comes from two ancient ways of eating, one is the "wine" mentioned above, and the other is "zhi".
"Shuowen Jiezi" says: "Zhao means roasting the meat. Put the meat on the fire."
Duan Yucai noted: "If you add the meat to the fire, you can put it on a fire." It can be seen that roasting means stringing meat ingredients and roasting them on the fire, just like today's barbecue.
According to legend, during the Spring and Autumn Period, the famous assassin Zhuan Zhu was entrusted by Gongzi Guang (later King Helu of Wu) to assassinate King Liao of Wu.
To this end, he went to Taihu Lake and spent three months learning to grill fish. After he was successful in learning, Zhuanzhu approached King Liao of Wu on the pretext of offering grilled fish, and took out the fish intestine sword hidden in advance from the belly of the fish.
Successfully assassinated him.
It seems that grilled fish already existed in the pre-Qin era.
By the time of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms, although roasted fish was rarely seen in historical records, it was still a very common delicacy.
With the advancement of productivity, the method of grilling fish has become more sophisticated.
Before grilling fish, people in this era had to scrape off the fish scales and wash it clean. Then they used a knife to make a few small slits on the fish, and then added ginger, green onion, orange peel, black bean juice and other seasonings to marinate it for flavor.
When grilling the fish, "broil it over low heat until it's half-cooked." Bake the fish over low heat until it's half-cooked, then brush it with the sauce mixed with bitter wine, fish sauce, and black bean sauce. Wait patiently for a while before eating.
In fact, the fish at this time were not only edible, but could also be made into strategic weapons.
The Jianghuai region is rich in fish, and some fish are rich in fat. Although they are not suitable for eating, they can be made into fish paste.
In the early days of Jian'an, Liu Fu was appointed governor of Yangzhou, so he stocked thousands of dendrobium fish paste as a weapon for defending the city. The fish paste mentioned here is fish oil.
For example, during the Battle of Chibi, Huang Gai, who pretended to surrender, brought a fast boat full of fish oil to Cao Cao's naval force. Taking advantage of the "strong southeast wind", he set fire to "burn out the northern boat", which finally caused Cao Cao to be defeated.
But this does not affect Cao Cao's love for eating abalone. How could a person who could write such an open-minded poem about the life of a turtle dare not eat fish because a big defeat left a shadow on the innocent abalone?