Riding the wind of rebirth

"This is also very possible." Zhou Zhi said: "Historical records record that 'the Luo Luo clan is particularly devoted to their master'. Madam Shexiang is the ancestor of their master. In the core area of ​​the Yi ethnic group, there are probably very few people who dare to touch her portrait."

"Xiao Miao! Elbow! Come out, wash your hands and eat noodles!" Grandpa Wang shouted outside.

Zhou Zhi once had a very ordinary impression of Capital Noodles with Soy Sauce. Even the one from Capital Hotel was very ordinary to him.

It was not until he ate the mixed noodles made by Grandpa Wang that Zhou Zhi realized how ignorant he was.

There are quite a lot of details in it.

The diced pork and diced pork belly should be fried separately. If they are fried together, the lean meat of the diced pork belly may become dry and the fat will be too oily.

For example, if you add onions, because they need to be fried for a long time, they will easily become burnt. The best way is to fry them in sesame oil or fresh peanut oil over low heat first, then throw away the burnt onions and continue processing with onion oil.

There are also some particularities in stir-fry sauces, there are two kinds of sauces, one is dry yellow sauce made from soybeans, the other is sweet noodle sauce made from bran. The old man is particular about where he eats, he always buys sauces from Liubiju outside Qianmen, Dadinghe in Jinshifang Street, or Dahulu outside Fuchengmen.

Put the two sauces in a bowl according to a certain proportion, and mix them with old rice wine. Finally, mix them into a "sauce paste" before use.

When frying the sauce, use vegetable oil, the best is sesame oil, followed by good peanut oil.

To make fried sauce, first clean the wok and dry it, then heat the scallion oil in the wok, and use only a little scallion and minced ginger as the remaining seasonings.

The sauce is ready, and the next step is to add the toppings.

Noodle toppings are vegetables that are placed on the noodles. In Sichuan, they are called "qiao cai". However, the qiao cai used in Sichuan must be cooked, while in Lao BJ, they are even raw.

There is even a jingle for this: green bean sprouts, Chinese toon sprouts, blanched chives cut into sections; chopped celery, lettuce slices, and garlic cloves broken into two; bean sprouts, remove the roots, and cut the thorny cucumbers into thin strips; cut a few slices of xin mei, blanch cowpeas and chop them into small diced pieces, and small water radishes with green tassels; drizzle a little chili and sesame oil, and sprinkle mustard until it's spicy. Although the fried noodles are only a small bowl, seven or eight dishes are the toppings...

Noodles are hand-rolled noodles. The wide ones are called "banertiao" and the thin ones are called "yiwosi". Banertiao is a wide noodle that is like a ribbon and chewy. Yiwosi is a thin noodle. Regardless of width or thinness, the production method is the same. Pour cold water into the pot and take it out. If you like to rinse it, you need to rinse it again. If you like to eat it in a pot, you can put it directly into the bowl.

Then add the ingredients on top, pour the fried sauce on it, and add two cloves of garlic, and a bowl of authentic capital fried noodles is ready.

Grandpa Wang is a well-known glutton in the cultural circle of Beijing. Many of his dishes are considered to be top-notch in everyone's mind. Moreover, the old man has a wide range of interests. Whether it is expensive royal cuisine or cheap ordinary noodles, he is very particular about them. The taste of his dishes is often not available outside, which makes people feel the taste of experience.

The old man’s noodles with soybean sauce is just like this. It directly changed Zhou Zhi’s stereotype of Beijing cuisine. It turns out that noodles with soybean sauce can be so delicious!
"This noodle is so delicious!" Because she ate it so happily, the sauce was smeared on the corners of Mai Xiaomiao's mouth, and she really looked like a kitten: "Pork elbow! You've never made this for me before?"

"I'm not good at cooking noodles... Oh, cooking noodles is a cooking term, which refers to the skill of making delicious food with wheat flour and starch." Zhou Zhi was also slurping noodles: "This is the strong point of the people in the area north of the Huaihe River and Qinling Mountains in China. To be honest, our area is not as good."

"I suddenly feel that studying liberal arts is also good." Mai Xiaomiao praised earnestly: "You liberal arts students are all really good at cooking!"

"Uh..." There is no necessary connection between these two attributes. Xiao Miao, you are suffering from survivor bias! After finishing a bowl of delicious noodles, I returned to the big room. The three old men had already appraised the scroll.

"It looks scary, but it's mostly oil stains." When Mr. Wang saw the two people coming in, he gave his opinion: "The palace painting with the big open door is a style from the early Ming Dynasty. It is similar to the paintings of Taizu and Chengzu, as well as the four emperors Renzong, Xuanzong, Yingzong and Xianzong in the National Palace Museum in Taipei."

This is a very strange phenomenon. Among the portraits of emperors from various dynasties now housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, the portraits of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty are of varying quality. Among them, the ones mentioned by Mr. Wang are extremely exquisitely created and lifelike, while the rest cannot be compared with these ones in terms of style or the degree of detail of the painting.

In fact, the reason is the imperial portraits in the Forbidden City, which actually come from many sources.

On October 14, the 14th year of Qianlong's reign, a batch of portraits left over from the previous dynasty were discovered in the Imperial Household Department's treasury. These portraits were mainly standard images of emperors and empresses from past dynasties, mixed with famous officials and sages. All were exquisitely portrayed. The Imperial Household Department said in its memorial that they "did not look like the work of ordinary people."

Qianlong ordered people to investigate and found out that they were collected and stored in the Treasury of the Imperial Household Department after the change of dynasties from Ming to Qing. At that time, they were only "treated as ordinary paintings" and no one cared about them for decades. They were "covered in dust and eroded by insects, and were somewhat damaged."

Qianlong was very concerned about this matter. He believed that he was so virtuous that he had carefully maintained even the royal tombs of the previous dynasties. Moreover, these images were "still in their original silk and with their crowns, tassels and beautiful hair". He could not bear to abandon them casually, so he ordered that these images be mounted uniformly, and gave detailed instructions on the mounting grade, materials, colors and other details.

He also ordered that "if there are any damages, they should be repaired and restored. If they need to be renovated, they should be renovated immediately."

At that time, the unit in the palace that was specifically responsible for mounting calligraphy and paintings had a nice name. It belonged to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was called "Mi Dian Zhu Lin". It took more than a month for Mi Dian Zhu Lin to mount the batch of paintings and enshrined them in the newly renovated Nanxun Hall.

From then on, these portraits had a unified name, "Portraits of Emperors, Empresses and Meritorious Officials of All Dynasties in Nanxun Hall".

Qianlong also wrote an article "Nanxun Hall Collection of Images" for this occasion, which was engraved on stone and placed in front of the hall, and he also wrote a poem: "Writing and responding is not ancient, who passed on the teachings of Xixuan? Here I look up at the sun, respectfully and protect the whole sky. The summer rain never invades the tent, and the fragrant wind still enters the strings. I am suddenly inspired to admire it, and I will work hard to plan and govern."

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

However, this batch of paintings was not complete, so Qianlong ordered to collect them from the public. The result was of course a mixed bag of quality. That is, among the portraits of Ming Dynasty emperors enshrined in the Nanxun Hall, except for six painters who were extremely skilled, the rest collected from the public were quite mediocre.

The funniest one is Zhu Yuanzhang. Apart from a few "positive portraits" found in the inner treasury that showed graceful and dignified looks like those of an emperor, the ones in the folks are exactly as described in the legend, with a pig kidney face and a pig woman's dragon face. I guess Zhu Yuanzhang himself would have been furious if he had seen them.

What Mr. Wang meant, of course, was that the painter who painted this portrait of Madam Shexiang was the same painter who painted the portrait of the emperor of the early Ming Dynasty.

"Have you thought of a repair plan?" asked Grandpa Qi, but the question was rather casual.

"It's mainly just about removing the oil and some stains. There's almost no mildew. The preservation condition is pretty good."

"Isn't it difficult to deal with oil stains?" Mai Xiaomiao asked puzzledly: "I think I saw a documentary about dealing with ancient paintings."

"Western painting is mainly done with oil, and it is more difficult to deal with oil stains on the base of oil paintings." Zhou Zhi said: "However, our ancient Chinese paintings basically use water-soluble pigments. After painting, a layer of curing agent and isolation agent is added to the surface. The minerals used are alum, which is very different from oil stains. Therefore, it is not difficult to remove. It can be dissolved with organic solvents, or even washed with diluted detergent, and then poured with hot water. Because oil is clearer than water, it is easy to remove."

"So simple?" (End of this chapter)