Chongqing city looks like a pot of hot pot!
Surrounded by two rivers, is it like a pot of hot pot soup? And the Yuzhong Peninsula, like a piece of fresh hairy belly floating on the hot pot, is scalding … Some people say that Chongqing is more like a mandarin duck pot, with red soup on the Yangtze River and clear soup on the Jialing River.
No wonder Chongqing hot pot is famous all over the world. Chongqing looks like it, which is very good with hot pot.
Five conjectures
For decades, many people have been trying to research the origin of Chongqing hot pot, but they have not found a convincing source. I combed it, and there are five main origins of Chongqing hot pot mentioned in various articles. I call them "five conjectures" about the origin of Chongqing hot pot.
Conjecture 1: the origin theory of jiangbei street.This is the view of Li Jieren, a famous Sichuan writer who has opened a restaurant in Shanghai and worked as a vice mayor of Chengdu. In Li Jieren’s article "Talking about the basic necessities of life in Chinese-1947 and 1948", there is such a passage: "Eating beef omasum hotpot with buffalo originated in Jiangbei, on the other side of Chongqing. At first, the general retail dealer bought buffalo viscera, washed it and boiled it, then cut the liver and stomach into small pieces, put a mud stove on the shoulder, and put a griddle iron basin on the stove. The pot was turned upside down and boiled with a spicy, hemp and salty marinade. So people on the bridge by the river, friends who generally sell labor, and beggars who want to eat meat after earning a few words, gathered around the burden and benefited. It is not only economical, but also can increase the quantity of calories. I haven’t known it for many years, and it was all noticed by people above the class of Little Bourgeois. It was not until 21 or 22 years of the Republic of China that a small restaurant in Chongqing Commercial Street ennobled him and moved him from the head to the table.
Conjecture 2: the origin theory of "water eight blocks"On the streets of Chongqing, there is also a hot pot restaurant named "Shuibakuai", which is probably a belief in this school of theory. Some people think that at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, there was a popular way to eat "eight pieces of water" on the docks and streets of Chongqing. On the roadside food stall, there are small dishes filled with all kinds of beef offal, and there is a mud stove next to the stall. There is a large pot with a grid on the stove, and the pot is spicy soup base. Diners pick raw slices from the plates to burn food, and then count the plates to pay for it.
Conjecture 3: the origin theory of Zaifang Street.Zaifang Street, next to Chuandao turn, is under the existing Shibanpo Yangtze River Bridge. This is the slaughter place of cattle and sheep in Chongqing in those days. According to this view, Chongqing hot pot originated in this place around the fifteenth year of the Republic of China (1926). Because after the cattle were slaughtered here, no one wanted the beef offal, so some people collected these beef offal that nobody cared about and opened a spicy hot pot restaurant.
Conjecture 4: the theory of the origin of boatmen.This statement is very common, and many hot pot owners have told me so. Chongqing is a big wharf with many boatmen. For the convenience of eating, at the bow of the boat and by the river, boatmen casually set up a pot to pick up or buy some beef offal that was not needed in the slaughterhouse. When the spicy soup was cooked, the hot pot was born.
Guess 5: the theory of the origin of miscellaneous vegetables.This origin, because it is not clean, even a little disgusting, is basically not mentioned in all hot pot restaurants now. Why? Because, miscellaneous vegetables are the leftovers in the restaurant before. Every day, especially in larger restaurants, a lot of leftovers are accumulated. Restaurants gather these leftovers together, wholesale them to vendors, buy them back from vendors, pack them in cauldrons, and sell them to poor people passing by on the side of the pier. A spoonful of miscellaneous vegetables and a bowl of "Maoertou" dry rice is a meal. There are also some poor families who buy some to go home and eat them as food. There is some oil and water in the miscellaneous vegetables, which can also be regarded as a beating in sumptuous food.
Leftovers naturally don’t taste good. Small vendors engaged in miscellaneous vegetables business came up with a clever idea, adding a lot of sea pepper and pepper. Under the hot marijuana, all the strange smells were suppressed. The poor people who bought home, after eating miscellaneous vegetables, will continue to cook vegetables with the remaining spicy soup base-hot pot was born. Miscellaneous vegetables, this name is not nice, so people gave it a nice name, called "Naolong Palace".
Miscellaneous vegetables are found all over the country. Beijing is called "combined vegetables", which is actually leftovers. During the Anti-Japanese War, the beggar boss of Marble Stone married his daughter, and he did a lot of things in the open air by the Marble Stone River. All the banquets that beggars come to eat are "making trouble with the Dragon Palace".
It is said that in the past, the income from selling miscellaneous vegetables in restaurants was not the boss’s, but the private account of all the guys.
Because the grade of miscellaneous vegetables is very low, Chongqing people swear and often use the word "miscellaneous vegetables": you miscellaneous vegetables! Here, miscellaneous vegetables are basically equivalent to the "three abuses" in Mandarin.
Which conjecture is more correct?
These five conjectures about the origin of hot pot have been flying around for many years in the smell of hot pot over Chongqing, and no one can explain themselves.
There are different opinions, which makes the owners of Chongqing Hot Pot Restaurant unable to recognize their ancestors. Some bosses, who can’t wait, just find an ancestor at random and hang it on the wall for three incense sticks in the morning and evening. If you are bold, simply claim that I am the first one. Why don’t you find another one to come out?
This article dare not say the final conclusion, just trying to get as close to the truth as possible.
According to the basic logic theorem, if there are two different descriptions of the same object, there must be a false one. Besides, there are five different descriptions. What should we do? I suggest we try the "exclusion method" first.
Personally, the most popular "the origin of boatmen" is the first of these five conjectures to be eliminated.
There are docks all over the Chuanjiang River and boatmen all over the Yangtze River. If hot pot originated from boatmen, why is it unique to Chongqing? Is it possible that the boatmen in Yibin, Luzhou, Fuling and Wanxian will not eat? Are they all that stupid? I don’t know if I want to use spicy soup to cook vegetables. They don’t kill cattle there? There will be no abandoned beef offal?
Therefore, if the boatman origin theory holds, then the origin of Chongqing hot pot is not Chongqing, but the whole Sichuan River. Chongqing hot pot will be sadly renamed Chuanjiang hot pot-where there are no boatmen in Chuanjiang? Where is Chuanjiang spicy? Where do boatmen not eat? Where is the dock free of beef offal?
Besides, why should only a boatman set up a pot and burn food with spicy soup base? Will beggars? Will the porters on the dock? I think farmers are also very likely. In the field, a pot and a dish can be very hot. Can we also have a theory of the origin of farmers, porters and beggars?
In fact, before Chongqing hot pot, there was no record of spicy hot pot in Sichuan. Therefore, the origin of Chongqing hot pot must be found in the history of Chongqing, not on the Chuanjiang River. That is really the wrong dock.
Some people take a photo of a boatman eating hot pot in the late Qing Dynasty as an ironclad proof that hot pot originated from boatmen. Oh, my god, this photo can only prove that they are eating hot pot, and it can only prove that there was a hot pot in the late Qing Dynasty. Who eats hot pot? He invented this hot pot? This logic is too powerful. I still eat hot pot every week. Why didn’t you say that hot pot was invented by me?
This theory of origin has no facts and no logical support.
The second thing to be eliminated is "eight pieces of water".
It is a mistake as the name implies to say that eight pieces of water originated from hot pot. Hot pot is what you eat in the spicy soup base! It has never been "eight pieces of water".
The book "Cuisine of Sichuan Cuisine", published in 1980s, has an entry of "eight pieces of water". Eight pieces of water is a kind of cold chicken. Use a male chick, boil it in boiling water a little, and cut it off. Then remove the chicken head, chicken feet and chicken wings, just cut the chicken body in half and then in half, cut it into eight pieces, and then use the oblique knife method to connect the bones with the meat and slice it into pieces of uniform size. Put it in a big basin, add red oil and other seasonings and mix well.
This is a folk dish, which used to belong to the category of "Tian Xi".
The book Sichuan Cuisine is very authoritative in the industry. When this book was written, many chefs and gourmets in the Republic of China were still alive, and many dishes in the book were handed down by these masters, so they didn’t talk nonsense.
I used to cook chicken, as if I liked the word "eight pieces", and there is a famous dish called "eight pieces of chicken with fish flavor". In short, it is to cut the chicken into pieces, like fried crispy meat, coat it with egg powder, fry it twice in oil pan, fry it until crispy, and then pour in fish sauce. In fact, it is not necessary to cut only eight pieces, but to use the expression "one chicken cuts eight pieces" to describe that this chicken piece should not be too small, otherwise it will not be enough to chew.
Therefore, eight pieces of water and hot pot have nothing to do with fart. It’s all a lie, plus a rumor.
There are three theories of origin: Li Jieren’s theory of the origin of Jiangbei, others’ theory of the origin of Zhafang Street, and the theory of the origin of miscellaneous vegetables that is not so tall.
Of these three origins, the first two are about the place of origin. Only the theory of the origin of miscellaneous vegetables is about the origin of the vegetables themselves.
It doesn’t matter where the place of origin is in Chongqing. No one can come up with hard evidence to prove that the hot pot came from my Dajiang North, or from my Dazaifang Street. The existing ones are all isolated evidence or legends. What we need to analyze is the time interval when hot pot was born in Chongqing and its evolution process.
Many famous dishes, especially hot pot, a special diet form, are unlikely to be so-and-so geniuses. Most of the whimsy after waking up goes through an evolutionary process and then gradually takes shape.
Evolution process of hot pot
This is also my guess, not necessarily right. Readers are welcome to criticize and correct me.
In the mid-Qing Dynasty, peppers came to the table in Sichuan.
But the premise of hot pot is not only pepper and pepper, but also oil and water. Scoop a spoonful of water to ensure that you can’t cook the taste of hot pot. If you have to cook it, it is estimated that no one will eat it. In those days, regular restaurants, no matter how big or small, could not invent the form of hot pot-in those days, spicy food was very off the table and was the food of the poor.
Slowly, by the end of the Qing dynasty, some small restaurants began to appear spicy dishes. This can be seen from the book "Chengdu Overview" published in 1908. At that time, less than 10% of the dishes in Chengdu restaurants were spicy. This is a very strange phenomenon. Restaurants refuse spicy food, but it has long been popular among the people-I have a book "Zhong Fu Lu" written by Zeng Yi, a beautiful woman in Chengdu during the Xianfeng period, which contains her family’s method of making watercress.
Then, the combination of miscellaneous vegetables and spicy food should be the earliest form of hot pot.
Miscellaneous vegetables and peppers all come from grass roots. After the combination of the two, you can use pepper to suppress the strange smell of miscellaneous vegetables. More importantly, the combination of oil and water in miscellaneous vegetables and pepper and pepper is the necessary condition for the birth of hot pot-we have to talk about logic, right?
Since the miscellaneous vegetables with pepper and pepper are not difficult to eat, can we not waste the soup after eating the miscellaneous vegetables? Something hot, isn’t it delicious and economical? If you add a little unwanted beef offal, the oil and water will increase and the taste will be good-well, in this way, the hot pot will stumble all the way to us.
The boss who started making hot pot is probably the one who sold miscellaneous vegetables.
To establish this form of hot pot, several conditions must be met: first, the bottom soup should have oil and water; Second, pepper and pepper have widely entered the people; Third, there are cheap sources of goods, such as beef offal and pig offal; Fourth, there are a large number of customers-friends who are so poor.
Unfortunately, Chongqing meets all these four conditions.
Miscellaneous vegetables have oil and water; Pepper was already popular in the late Qing Dynasty, which is recorded in writing. Chongqing Zaifang Street is not far from the pier, and the purchase channel of beef offal is very convenient; Plus Chongqing Grand Pier, the rich are a dime a dozen, and the poor are more than a dime a dozen.
Hot pot, in this way, is separated from miscellaneous vegetables and becomes an independent diet form-Heroes don’t ask about their origins, but delicious food is king!Chongqing hot pot, which was born at the grassroots level, set off in this way and headed for its sea of stars!
At the beginning, hot pot was probably also a tourist stall, and then some tourist stalls with good business were fixed as sitting stalls.
Early chafing dish, I believe, is not only available in Chongqing, but all places that meet these four conditions are likely to develop this form of chafing dish independently or by reference. It’s just that in my big Chongqing, this hot pot is booming.
In the early 1920s, there was a "worthwhile" pub in Shuigou Street, jiangbei town. The location of this pub is relatively partial. In the past, it mainly sold "cold single bowls", that is, loose wine with a little peanuts and dried beans, and the business was not good. Later, the hot pot business was added, and the business was good.
However, this is not the earliest hot pot in Chongqing. Because, at this time, there are already many open-air hot pot stalls on the roadside of Chaotianmen and other docks. Moreover, this "worthwhile" is definitely not the first, but other restaurants that learn from cats and tigers.
At that time, the hot pot stalls were sloppy. A mud stove, an iron pot, and inside the iron pot, there is a tic-tac-toe nine-square grid that is still in use. Next to the pot, there is a chopping board. The main dishes on the chopping board are: beef oil residue, beef heart, beef liver, large intestine and leg meat. Vegetarian dishes are wrapped in white, green onions and garlic seedlings, and there are also dried rice and dried rice.
The boss stood behind the chopping board with a kitchen knife in his hand. Beef oil residue and other meat dishes have been cut into large chunks, and diners (basically laborers) feed by the chunks, while the boss helps diners change the designated meat dishes into knives and cut them into small pieces. Everyone eats their own food-please note that there is no hairy belly at this time. As for vegetarian dishes, they are charged by the "handful", and the boss pays how much for each handful.
In the early days, except for the docks at Chaotianmen, most of the hot pot stalls in the city were concentrated under the eaves of the street at Jiaochangkou, and their management methods were the same as those on the docks. Jiaochangkou was a slum in Chongqing. The rich people in Chongqing are mostly in Duyou Street (now Jie Fangbei) not far away.
Compared with the most famous hot pot stall in the market, the boss nicknamed it "Li Maomi". When he counted the diners, he used the old small copper coins. Small copper coins are also called cents, so they got this nickname. Li Maomi is good at business. Every morning, he collects lithograph posters of various theaters on that day and sticks them on the wall next to the stall, where diners can talk while eating. This hot pot stall was destroyed by war during the Anti-Japanese War.
Chongqing hot pot is so famous that it has become a representative of spicy hot pot. This is related to the location of Chongqing. Before the Anti-Japanese War, Chongqing was the largest water wharf, the largest commercial city and the largest industrial city in southwest China (although there were few industries), and there were many poor people, so this hot pot stall correspondingly increased, and its reputation gradually increased.
Chongqing hot pot became famous all over the country, which really depended on the Anti-Japanese War.
Almost all the famous hot pot restaurants I can find are famous during the Anti-Japanese War. These hot pot restaurants are: Yunlong Garden, Luminous Cup and Shuyuan in Linjiangmen; 141 of Mihua Street (now Bayi Road) (later merged with Yunlong Garden in 141); Do not return if you are not drunk on May 4th Road; The "Han Palace Maodu Hotpot" in the Spiritual Fortress (now Jie Fangbei) … and so on.
Can’t help but say a digression. Now some hot pot restaurants like to recognize their ancestors. Of course, not only Chongqing, but also many places in China have this bad habit: find a brand that has disappeared from history, and then run out to recognize their ancestors and say that they are descendants. I’m sorry, please show me the chain of evidence, or I won’t recognize your grandson who was born. Especially those who call themselves the "first family" are even more absurd. Hot pot is a gradually formed diet, and it is impossible to prove who is the first one!
Get down to business. Hot pot stalls have appeared, can the hot pot restaurant be far behind? However, who actually moved the hot pot from the roadside stall into the small restaurant has no test now.
The hot pot at that time was completely different from now. Mr. Ma Zhitu once recalled the scene when he was eating hot pot in Chongqing: "Just lowering the table, sitting on a high stool, stepping on the table, shirtless, eating and drinking loudly, is really called eating Chongqing hot pot." -At that time, hot pot, put a small mud stove on the table, a small pot on the stove, or one person, or several people, sit around and eat.
The stove is on the table, and diners have to sit on high stools. The trick of burying hot pot in the table will take a long time to appear.
Ma Shitu, a famous person, ate a lot of hot pot in Chongqing and wrote a lot about it. Slowly, the fame of Chongqing hot pot spread far and wide.
Finally, let’s guess againThe birth path of hot pot(The following is pure conjecture. If there is anything wrong, please criticize.)：
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, with the popularization of peppers, miscellaneous vegetables, peppers and prickly ash were finally happily combined.
Then, the hot pot is separated from the miscellaneous vegetables. After several years, from 1900 to 1910, people began to forget the relationship between hot pot and miscellaneous vegetables. At this time, as an independent diet, hot pot was accepted by people.
Then (1910-1920), hot pot booths appeared, that is, the predecessors who carried the burden of hot pot and wandered around.
Some hot pot stalls with good business have been fixed and become hot pot stalls. After another, more people joined the team of hot pot stalls. However, the hot pot fixed stall and the traveling stall are likely to coexist, just as the traveling stall and the fixed stall in Dandan Noodles have coexisted for a long time.
Around 1920, the business of hot pot stalls became better and better. The population of Greater Chongqing is also increasing. Many high-end people not only like the heavy taste of hot pot, but also don’t want to put down their bodies, go to the roadside and rummage around in a pot with people who are working hard. At this time, some restaurants began to put hot pot on the table one after another.sideline in.
The professional hot pot restaurant appeared later, and it is estimated that it will not appear until around 1930.
The final shape, development and popularity of Chongqing hot pot in the whole country was during the Anti-Japanese War.
Original title: the origin of Chongqing hot pot! The truth may surprise you …
