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What I know about Chinese cooking

In 1925, Mr. Lu Xun concluded: China is just a huge kitchen. Today I think the other way around, the kitchen is a condensed China. Since food culture became a prominent science, there are roughly two schools of research on it: one is focused on cooking and focusing on the cooking production stage, which is called the cooking culture school; the other is focusing on eating food and reveling in the food consumption stage, which is called the cooking culture school. It's the food culture school. Their most common feature is to organize the national heritage and carry forward the "national quintessence". The two groups have different directions, but the research results are consistent. I secretly think that studying Chinese cooking is not only about cooking and eating, but also about the people who cook and eat the food, and the relationship between them.

It should be said that I know very little about today's "cooking world". It is only because I am disgusted with some phenomena in the cooking world that I have the courage to summarize and list the strange phenomena that have harmed Chinese cooking in recent years.

Our motherland has a vast territory and a large population, which naturally forms a rich and colorful food culture. For the convenience of research or title, we can use different expression systems for the ethnic diversity and regional diversity of food culture. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, it was roughly called "bangkou", which refers to the different cooking characteristics of different gangs. Groups of chefs, in order to survive, spontaneously organize themselves according to flavor schools, inherit and practice skills, and open up space for development. At the same time, they also have a strong sense of feudal gangs. Since the 1980s, "cuisine theory" has been widely spread. First, people from Sichuan, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Guangdong came out to promote the "four major cuisine theories" of Sichuan, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Guangdong; then, people from Hunan, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Anhui came out to complain, so the four The major cuisines were transformed into the eight major cuisines. Seeing that others have become the climate, of course Beijingers and Shanghainese couldn't sit still. As a result, the eight major cuisines were expanded into the top ten cuisines. The "Chinese Cooking Dictionary" published by China Commercial Press in 1992 actually included the still-controversial "Cuisine Theory" as an academic achievement. From then on, the seeds of the cuisine debate were laid.

Shandong people want to use Shandong cuisine to cover the flavors of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. How can Henan people tolerate it? Just a little investigation revealed that not only Jiang Taigong, the ancestor of the Shandong people, had settled in Henan for a long time before he became famous, butchering dogs and selling meat, and even the sage Kong, who "never tired of food", was also a descendant of Shangqiu people in Henan. Jiangsu cuisine, one of the "four major cuisines", is deeply influenced by Henan; Zhejiang cuisine, one of the "eight major cuisines", is the descendant of Kaifeng cuisine in the Northern Song Dynasty. Is it true that "descendants" come first and "ancestors" come last? As a result, Henan people are unwilling to buy it when it comes to the ranking of cuisines. Next, the Shaanxi people came out and said that the Han and Tang Dynasties were the only prosperous times in China in ancient times, and Xi'an cooking scene still has three unique features: beef and mutton steamed buns, dumpling feasts and imitation Tang cuisine, but "Qin cuisine" is not among the eight top ten "cuisines" Column, puzzling! Soon, Guizhou people stood up and spoke. Guizhou cuisine is several times spicier than Sichuan and Hunan; Shanxi people said Shanxi cuisine is the most sour in the world; Stewed vermicelli. After all the fuss, some people stood up and made peace with each other - since everyone has their own reasons, there is no need to be limited by the numbers of the top ten and eight, and all provinces and regions can form a tie. As a result, in the ranking of cuisines, the famous ones among the top four, eight, and ten are all trying their best to defend their existing status, while those provinces and regions that are not on the list are trying hard to squeeze in. For a time, more than 30 provinces and autonomous regions across the country proposed to establish their own "cuisine". Even Chongqing, which had just separated from Sichuan, some people came out to advocate the "Chongqing Cuisine Theory". As a result, the academic bubble of cuisine theory evolved into a Great Leap Forward-style farce.

As a cultural phenomenon, it is normal for diet to show certain regional and ethnic differences. However, this difference does not have clear and specific spatial and temporal boundaries, and it cannot be quantified. For example, the braised pork we often eat is made by housewives in the north and the south. However, the flavors of each are different. Of course, there is no difference in quality. Some people insist that it is "Hunan cuisine", which is almost nonsense. Practice has proved that the "cuisine" theory is quite foolish to mechanically use administrative divisions to divide cuisines. This is a system of expression that is cut to fit the needs of the shoe, and will only lead to cultural "feudal separatism" and endless debates.

The people who originally advocated this "doctrine" may have only wanted to standardize academic terms and facilitate research. However, this "academic achievement" was used by the relevant provinces and regions, and eventually turned into a competition among provinces and regions for ranking of catering capabilities. In addition to fighting, those disadvantaged provinces and regions that are rising up are also competing to establish their own "cuisine" and highlight their own regional cultural characteristics.

If the "cuisine theory" is allowed to continue, it will definitely hinder the development of Chinese cooking.

2

Although Chinese cooking has a long history, cooking competitions are considered a new thing. Before 1980, skill competitions such as live chicken feather plucking and quick meat cutting were held in various places, but their impact was limited. In November 1983, the National Culinary Masters Technical Performance Appraisal Conference was held in Beijing. This was also the first large-scale industry event with national influence. As a product of the socialization of cooking, the competition is undoubtedly a good platform for the industry to exchange skills, improve levels, and display images. Its role in promoting China's culinary industry is also undoubted.

However, since the 1990s, cooking competitions have overly pursued the external beauty of dishes and blindly promoted carved plate decorations, thus falling into the quagmire of formalism. From the perspective of cultural roots, Chinese food culture is the product of fuzzy philosophy. The inherent shortcomings of rationalism have led to Chinese cooking becoming perceptual cooking, which in turn has led to the tradition of focusing on sensory stimulation such as mouth and eyes as the aesthetic value orientation. On the producer side, due to historical reasons, the cultural quality of the practitioners is relatively low. They are unable to transform old traditions with scientific means, and lack enough rationality to establish a correct aesthetic ideological system. In this case, correct guidance from relevant industry organizations is particularly important. However, in the past ten years, despite the loud voices of knowledgeable people, the formalism of various cooking competitions has become more and more intense. In order to achieve good results in competitions, some chefs resort to tricks and sensationalism. Dragons are carved out of foam, human breasts are put into vegetables, the top of the head is cut into slices, and the human back is used as an anvil. The list goes on and on.

In the 20 years since 1983, thousands of gold medals, silver medals, and bronze medals have been produced in national competitions. In addition, tens of thousands of award-winning dishes have been produced in various provincial and municipal competitions. At first, there was a fear that the menus in restaurants across the country would be overflowing, but the reality is exactly the opposite. Nowadays, such award-winning dishes are nowhere to be found on the menus of restaurants across the country, and operators have always stayed away from such fancy dishes. Since the market is unwilling to buy it, what is the use of holding such a formalistic competition? With so many industry elites gathering in one place, accumulating treasures and spending huge sums of money, is it just to make the judges laugh? The society under the market economy is a cost society. Any kind of social behavior must pursue a reasonable input-output ratio to reduce ineffective costs as much as possible. Every time a cooking competition "concludes triumphantly", the organizers always talk on stage about how this competition has surpassed the previous one in terms of scale, how much the number of award-winning contestants has increased, etc. However, the social cost of the cooking competition has not been discussed. Rarely mentioned.

At present, mankind has entered the fourth year of the 21st century, and many handicraft production industries are advancing with the times. But strangely, the number of star-rated hotels in metropolitan areas In the kitchen, there are still a few "stoves" that dominate. The apprentices have to kowtow, bow, and wash their work clothes to their masters. The "zaotou" can beat and scold the apprentices at will. When something like this happens, the giver does not need to blame himself, and the recipient does not need to feel ashamed. It seems that this is a trivial matter. The most serious thing is the kitchen package system and industry monopoly. It’s unknown when the kitchen-service system originated, but one thing is certain, that is, it is full of parasitic remnants of the feudal industry system. You can often see this phenomenon: if a hotel kitchen is contracted for 30,000 yuan to a "zaotuo", he can take away 20,000 yuan with peace of mind, and the remaining 10,000 yuan can be divided among his more than 30 apprentices. If more than 30 people share 10,000 yuan, it will never equalize the rich and the poor. The "second stove" will get 3,000 yuan alone, the "third stove" and the "fourth stove" will each get 2,000 yuan, and the rest will be divided up layer by layer. I have pity for those new apprentices who have just started working hard. After years of hard work, they can’t get much money in the end. During the holidays, they have to squeeze out gift money from their own teeth to please their masters.

The kitchen package system enabled a very small number of "stove owners" to accumulate a large amount of wealth in a short period of time, laying an economic foundation for their implementation of industry monopoly. Therefore, with the backing of strong economic strength, these "stoves" can easily open up joints, smooth relationships, and control the next kitchen of their choice.

While they continue to expand and control the kitchen, they also get involved in industry organizations, influence important industry events, use cooking competitions, recruiting apprentices and other means to unite the party and overcome differences, cultivate their own power, and eventually become kitchen tyrants.

It is not difficult to see that the unreasonable kitchen package system is the soil for the emergence of kitchen tyrants and the source of the poverty of lower-class kitchen workers. The kitchen hierarchy is a product of the feudal production method in the old era and the source of industry inequality. Therefore, if we allow it to develop, it will only lead Chinese cooking astray.

Four

Retroism is an old problem. All industries known as the "quintessence of the country" seem to have never been immune, and today's Chinese cooking is no exception. The retro scholar opened the "Roasted Tail Feast List" and found a dish of "fish stuffed with milk". His eyes couldn't help but shine, and he exclaimed, "Look, Europeans are still eating hair and drinking blood, and our ancestors will use dairy products to make fish." Eat it!" I opened "Dream of Red Mansions" again, and I was intoxicated again when I saw "Eggplant", "When we are cooking eggplant with chicken, Americans are still eating raw steak!" I can save some from ancient recipes! National pride is also the reason why these scholars of the National Heritage School are so popular. Thanks to their tireless efforts, we can eat "Confucius cuisine" in Qufu, "Red Mansion cuisine" in Beijing, "Peng Zu cuisine" in Xuzhou, and "Xi Shi cuisine" in Zhejiang...

The restoration of Chinese cooking culture generally follows two paths. The first is "specializing in old records". For example, the so-called "Red Mansion Cuisine", its developer claims that every dish in this Red Mansion Banquet can find its origin in "A Dream of Red Mansions", and the ingredients for each dish are carefully selected. Excellent, beautiful in appearance, compatible with north and south, rich in nutrients, nourishing and fitness-enhancing. In fact, it is not difficult to replicate this banquet. The problem is that we don’t know what the group of people in suits and ties around the table want to eat from it. Form and content are always contradictory, and emphasizing form will inevitably damage content. This Red Mansion dish needs provenance, style, and both northern and southern flavors. When put together in the end, nutrition and health may no longer be taken into consideration. The other kind of retro doesn't even have old stories, it's completely made up by scholars and created out of thin air by chefs, such as Peng Zu cuisine and Xi Shi cuisine. This type of dish is ridiculous and does not stand up to scrutiny. Retro-style cooking, whether it is "old school" or "fabricated", is nothing more than sensationalism by scholars and gimmicks by store owners, and we must not take it seriously.

Being ancient is not a problem, but we still eat good ancient medicines, watch good ancient costume dramas, and sometimes eat good ancient food. We are here to discuss the motivations for cooking retro - scholars seeking fame and stores seeking profit. In fact, they are quite simple. If someone wants to use this to relive the old dream of a noble lord and arouse the pride of emperors, generals and prime ministers, then he (she) has gone down the wrong path. In reality, there are many such people.

It is not just a matter of a day or two that the trend of luxury banquets has risen. The craze for luxury banquets with swallow-winged abalone that originally came from the developed coastal areas of the south has now rapidly infected mainland catering. Markets, especially inland provincial capitals and central cities, are the hardest hit areas. In 2002, I wrote an article titled "Swallow-winged Abalone Is an Evil Way" to pay attention to the phenomenon of evil banquets for wealthy families in Zhengzhou's catering market. Another year has passed, and Yan-winged Bao has no intention of restraining himself. According to the current information, Yan-winged Abalone is not only available in large and medium-sized hotels in Zhengzhou, but also spread from the provincial capital to the county town, and it will continue to develop at this rate. I'm afraid it will soon be available in towns and villages.

Yan-winged abalone and other luxury banquets have formed a climate in the national catering market in a short period of time, which to a certain extent reflects the general trend of professionalization in today's catering market. What is hidden behind this consumption phenomenon is the social reality that in recent years the income gap between various social classes has widened and the rich and poor are seriously stratified.

Marx criticized that the prosperity of Asian cities is completely related to government consumption. This statement still sounds meaningful now, because the prosperity of wealthy banquets in real society fully applies to this law. . If the wealthy banquet is just a fight for wealth among a few rich people, then it will be harmful, but limited; the scary thing is that its prosperity is somehow related to the government's consumption. Under the current system, it is not allowed for a director to put even a dime of public funds into his own pocket, but nothing will happen if he eats 1 million a year. In this way, he is likely to turn the power in his hands into capital for personal enjoyment of life, an important one of which is to eat rich banquets. As a result, the rich and powerful banquets began to become a tool for corrupt elements to spend money and enjoy themselves. Countless people's wealth and anointing were also included in the prosperity of the rich and powerful banquets, and flowed away with the sewers.

Six

I often marvel at the speed of the catering market "advancing with the times". Here I still take the city where I live as an example. Yesterday there was a hot pot competition between "Little Tail Sheep" and "Little Sheep". Overnight, "Little Donkey" hot pot became popular on the streets again. For food lovers, this is truly the golden age of appetite. Since 1995, braised mutton first took Zhengzhou by storm, followed by soft-shelled turtle steamed buns, braised spicy fish, Han Palace ginger duck, Mi Zong cuisine, swallow-winged abalone, Northeastern cuisine, etc., which have become more and more charming. Changing King's Flag. Zhengzhou's geographical location and transportation hub characteristics determine that it can be regarded as a barometer of the national catering market to a certain extent. Therefore, the phenomenon of blindly following the trend in the Zhengzhou catering market is not an isolated case, but a representative one. When a dish becomes popular and a brand becomes popular, everyone will follow suit and start to get excited, making Li Kui not like Li Kui and Li Gui not like Li Gui. Then they disperse in a rush and look for new goals. These Great Leap Forward-style cloning movements have discredited Li Kui and crossed Li Gui. Enterprises have repeatedly built and then destroyed, causing the development of the entire industry to become a bubble.

The fundamental reason why various blind following trends have repeatedly occurred is that the entire industry currently lacks a set of game rules based on modern consciousness and scientific spirit. In the market tide, many catering owners tend not to strive for openness, fairness and impartiality in industry game rules, but are superstitious to speculative rules based on personal experience. While individual restaurant owners may be the beneficiaries of speculative rules at certain times, overall, when general industry rules cannot be clearly established, anyone in the industry can become a victim.

Seven

There are many associations, multiple leaders, and unhealthy competition. These problems were not possible 20 years ago, because many industry organizations had not yet been established at that time, and of course there were no conflicts. There is no more disputes. After 1987, as more and more industry organizations were established, conflicts became increasingly prominent in areas where their businesses overlapped. As far as "national" industry organizations are concerned, there are several industry organizations related to catering and cooking, including the Culinary Association, the Hotel Association, the Tourist Hotel Association, the Culinary Culture Research Association, the Food Culture Research Association, etc., and each of them claims to be authoritative and "authentic". ”, everyone can issue documents, hold activities, and influence the development of the industry. Due to imperfect restraint mechanisms and irregular rules of the game among industry organizations, driven by huge industry interests, these organizations have become increasingly cross-penetrated and conflicts have become increasingly acute. The current status quo is that multiple governments and multiple leaders have brought a lot of chaos to the entire catering industry, and also caused some negative social consequences. Below, the author only tries to give two examples.

First, there are too many cooking masters. Appraising cooking masters is originally a good thing, but after Association A has evaluated them, Association B will also evaluate them; after the national association has evaluated them, the provincial and municipal associations will continue to evaluate them; they just evaluated a batch in the spring, and another batch in the fall. Therefore, in the past one or two years, the Chinese culinary industry has ushered in an unprecedented harvest season of masters and masters, with hundreds of "national-level" masters, thousands of famous teachers, and tens of thousands of "provincial and municipal-level" masters and masters produced every year.

Bless our masters and famous teachers. Because they are lucky enough to be in the prosperous times, they can spend thousands of yuan to buy a few exquisite bronze medals, which not only fulfills the dream of being a master and famous teacher, but also enriches the family collection.

The second is the proliferation of famous restaurants and famous dishes. It is also a good thing to evaluate famous restaurants and famous dishes, but due to unhealthy competition, the taste has changed again. A small restaurant, in order to decorate its appearance and expand its influence, spends money to approve the famous restaurants and dishes of Association A. Before the signboard can be hung, the documents of Association B have come down. We will not recognize the famous restaurants and dishes of Association A until After spending money to buy a bronze medal from Association B, it was finally over.

Famous shops and famous dishes are overflowing. The trouble is for the hotels and restaurants that are in a dilemma, but the joy is for those businesses that sell bronze medals. What's more serious is that such short-term behavior has greatly damaged the credibility and image of the industry, destroyed the unity among colleagues in the national culinary industry, and is not conducive to the long-term development of our Chinese cuisine.