Huizhou cuisine-Stinky Mandarin Fish

Huizhou Cuisine

Huizhou cuisine, one of the Chinese Great Eight Cuisines, comprises the specialties of South Anhui, Yanjiang, and Huaibei. Huizhou cuisine has a profound cultural background, is one of the shining pearls in China’s food culture treasure. Stinky Mandarin Fish is the representative.

Huizhou Cuisine originated in a small town under Huangshan. Huizhou Cuisine is famous in the Song and Yuan, Ming. The formation of Huizhou cuisine is closely related to the geographical environment and friendly environment. Huizhou cuisine chefs pay more attention to the taste and the color, the cook braising and stewing the food with a small fire, and a long time.

The substantial cultural continuity and the unique natural environment have contributed to the establishment of Huizhou culture, whose representatives are Huizhou merchants, Huizhou-style architecture and Xin’an medicine and so on. Among them, food culture is a unique one. Based on that, Huizhou cuisine, which we call it today.

character (1) The food goes bad slightly - Fluff Tofu 毛豆腐

It is the unique eating habit of Huizhou people to have food that goes terribly slightly.

Fluff Tofu 毛豆腐

Fluff tofu is a kind of natural food that nobody will Miss for any reason. However, you must be brave enough to eat Fluff Tofu. It is not easy to describe the flavor of Fluff Tofu in words because it is so unique that not everyone can adapt to it. The character of Fluff Tofu in the first taste is a bit unacceptable. Tourists all come here to eat it. Some are probably afraid, but when they taste it, they think it is delicious, and they won’t see its material. If we need to overcome smell disturbance to eat Stinky Tofu, we also need to overcome visual disturbance to eat Fluff Tofu.

How to make Fluff Tofu

To make Fluff Tofu, people need to ferment tofu, until fluff-like edible hyphae grow on it. It is those fluffs that make people afraid and keep them away. However, Fluff Tofu is a dish that is most representative of Huizhou cuisine. It is the unique eating habit of Huizhou people to have food that goes terribly slightly.

character (1) The food goes bad slightly - Stinky Mandarin Fish臭鳜鱼

In Huizhou, before the Spring Festival, every household will prepare picked mandarin fish. The pronunciation of Gui ( mandarin fish ) and Gui (rich) is the same, so people add the meaning of “rich” and “having more than need every year” to it. Stinky Mandarin Fish is a necessary dish for the Spring Festival. Stinky Mandarin Fish is made when cooking material goes bad slightly, which is the same as Fluff tofu. However, it has another name called Pickled Fresh Fish. The character Xian( fresh ) means that the fish is fresh after being pickled, while it should be fired in soy sauce.

The mandarin fish has gone bad slightly. What does “fresh” come from?

It does smell a bit stinky, but when people taste it, it is very fragrant. When Huizhou people pickle fish, they don’t use any particular condiment. The local people said that in fact, stinky mandarin fish is not pickled firstly. In fact, mandarin fish is not produced in Huizhou. At the earliest period, mandarin fish was transported from the bank of Yangtze River to Huizhou by Huizhou merchants. People who have been to Mount Huang must be impressed deeply by the people who carry heavy goods.

80% land of Huizhou is mountains and hills. In ancient times when the transportation was inconvenient, people had to transport goods by carrying by them. It is the reason that contributes to the success of this famous Huizhou cuisine called Stinky Mandarin Fish because, at the earliest period, mandarin fish was carried to Huizhou by people. So, it took as long as 5 to 7 days, or as fast 3 to 4 days to arrive at Huizhou. Thus, during this period, how to keep fish fresh and not let it go wrong?

One way was to carry them with a wooden bucket. Also, a layer of thin brine should be spread on it at every interval of time, whose purpose was not to pickle them but to keep them fresh. So after several days of carrying, it was sent to Huizhou. Then when the wood bucket was opened, it smelt very stinky. The local people say that Stinky Mandarin Fish is made during the period of carrying, while the secret to keep mandarin fish fresh is that it should not be dehydrated when being pickled. However, if it is not dehydrated when being pickled, the cooking material will go wrong.

So, the second key is the duration of pickling. How long does its freshness date last is a critical problem in technology? If it is over-pickled, it will go wrong totally, and it is inedible. If it is pre-pickled, it is the same as fresh fish. Then it will not have the effect and flavor of pickled one. It should be said that there are more pickled cooking materials than dried cooking materials in Huizhou cuisine.

character (2) homology of medicine and food

In Huizhou cuisine, there are many medicinal materials that are made into delicious food. The Huizhou people know the theory of homology of medicine and food and focus on daily maintenance, which are consistent ideas of Xin’an medicine. Xin’an medicine pays attention to strengthen the body. After eating, the body absorbs the nutrition and enhances the body. And then your vitality will be cultivated. Once your body is improved, and life is enough, your immune system will be strengthened, and you don’t have to take medicine. Through this kind of diet, you not only feast your stomach but also build up your body.

The kudzu root 葛根

With high forest coverage, Huizhou is abundant in animal and plant resources, which lay a solid foundation in the diversity of cooking materials for Huizhou cuisine. Summer is the best season for digging kudzu root. The kudzu root is the necessary food in the Spring Festival for the people in Huizhou. The locals said that it was not an easy task to dig kudzu root in the mountain. For health, the locals willing to spend much effort to pull out the kudzu root.

Kudzu root is made into powder for preservation. The first step is to mash the flesh kudzu roots into powder and wash it, and then dissolve the powder in the water. After filtration and a period of precipitation, pour the water away, and the remaining is kudzu powder. So the medicinal material, kudzu root can be used as cooking materials at any time.

Dumplings Made from Kudzu Powder

The Huizhou people eat Dumplings Made from Kudzu Powder not only for taking the meaning of reunion but also for the function of cooling and detoxifying of kudzu powder. Because in the Spring Festival, people eat too many greasy foods and drink and smoke too much.

character (3) balance between nutrition and flavor

This function of good for health and helps to balance the nutrition of our body. One of the essential features of Huizhou cuisine is that it emphasizes a balance between nutrition and flavor. Therapeutics Soup is the most typical representative. There are significant differences both in nutrition and taste among the five cooking materials of the soup. Due to the unique concept of cooking of Huizhou cuisine, the cooking materials can be mixed in harmony. The ingredients obtain and at the same time enhance the flavors of each other. It is difficult to give a precise definition of the taste of Huizhou cuisine. It uses the original flavor of cooking materials mostly.

In cooking Huizhou cuisine, we often mention a sentence. Namely, if cooking materials have flavor, cook them out, conversely, make them reconcile. If the cooking materials are tasteless or even don’t have flavors, other cooking materials are used to combine the taste rather than use seasonings while cooking the Huizhou cuisine.

Wenzheng Mountain Bamboo Shoots 问政山笋

As for Sichuan cuisine, it uses the spicy flavor to improve the taste. Huizhou people emphasize introversion. They slowly mix things to make a new feeling. To make the tastes of each ingredient mix well, it needs to be stewed for a long time. However, in Huizhou cuisine, it takes a much longer time to cook some cuisines than stew soup. There is a famous dish in Huizhou cuisine. That is Wenzheng Mountain Bamboo Shoots. It earns its name for that main materials are produced in Wenzheng Mountain in She County, Anhui Province. There is a record of bamboo shoots in the Prefecture of Huizhou.

When cooking Wenzheng Mountain Bamboo Shoots, the chief must use the carbon furnace, for it can provide heat by the burning charcoal. This method is called simmering. It takes at least five or six hours, and some dishes even make more than ten hours. After being simmered for a long time, bamboo shoots and bacon blend with each other to a perfect state. In ancient times, however, this dish could not only bring people the enjoyment of delicious food, but also the sadness of parting.

character (4) time-consuming

Frying is seldom used in cooking Huizhou cuisines, and steaming, stewing and simmering are more frequently adopted in cooking. It is related to the character of the Huizhou people. Regarding the style of Huizhou people, it is affected by traditional Confucianism, and therefore Huizhou people are very introverted and are not fond of making themselves widely known. They pay attention to health preservation, relaxation, and cultivation, which is similar to a life of seclusion. That is the mood of life that they pursue.

At the same time, there are a lot of charcoals here. Therefore, it is supposed to be very common for them to stew or simmer some simple dishes and delicacies in the soup as a way of health preservation. As cooking Huizhou cuisine is time-consuming, most Huizhou cuisine restaurants will make room especially for placing casseroles and carbon furnaces, to simmer various dishes in advance. Some people even take this as a standard of determining whether a Huizhou cuisine restaurant has authentic cuisine or not.

Charming Huizhou Cuisine

By picking and swallowing the merits of different kinds of cuisines, Huizhou cuisine has gradually created an image mainly of high-grade feasts. With the information and logistics more advanced today, Huizhou cuisine will become better and approach perfection day by day by its unique cooking virtue and superior integration capabilities.       

Chinese Great Eight Cuisines

1. Shandong Cuisines: Salty fresh, thick oil sauce, food therapy health;
2. Sichuan Cuisines: Heavy oil, heavy salt, spicy hot;
3. Cantonese Cuisines: Original, salty, fresh and light;
4. Jiangsu Cuisines: Sweet and yellow wine;
5. Fujian Cuisines: Salty-sweet (southern), spicy (northern);
6. AnHui Cuisines: Heavy oil, heavy salt;
7. Hunan Cuisines: Heavy oil, heavy salt, heavy spicy, preserved flavor;
8. Zhejiang Cuisines: Special, fresh, tender, with yellow wine.