Years: Salted fish life since going to the countryside.

Chapter 952: The Origin of Hot Pot (Participants can join the storyline and Participants can skip it)

Hao Jingshi didn't expect to see this scene when she returned home. The two of them were in the yard.

And even two buttons of the clothes were undone. Aren't you afraid of the cold? But at this time she could only pretend not to see it, and said after a light cough.

"Ahem. Thinking of you coming back today, I used my connections to buy some charcoal and mutton and sent them back. You guys chat while I put the things in the kitchen first."

"Charcoal? Lamb? Mom, are we going to have hot pot at home tonight?"

"Well, hotpot. Now we have our own house and yard, so we can eat whatever we want. From now on, we don't have to live like we did when we lived in the alley, living cautiously all day long, not daring to eat or speak loudly."

Now that Hao Jingshi has returned, they certainly can no longer continue with what they were doing.

Hao Hongmin stepped forward and took the things from her mother's hand, winked at Han Li, and went into the house first.

Hao Jingshi put down her things and left without staying for long, while Han Li and Hao Hongmin went to the street to buy some other ingredients for hot pot.

On the way to buy things, Han Li had never eaten the so-called Dabanlu in Shanghai in his past life or this life, but knew that it should be a kind of hot pot. He thought of the whole piece of mutton with skin that Hao Jing brought back and asked.

"I think we haven't processed the mutton that Auntie just brought back yet. If we don't roll it up and tie it up, the slices we cut later will be too thick. Can we still call it hot pot mutton?"

"Shabu-shabu? Is that the hot pot your family used to set up when we were in Shanghe Village?"

"Yes, isn't hot pot also called shabu-shabu in Shanghai?"

“Different ways of eating”

Next, after Hao Hongmin's explanation, Han Li finally understood what the so-called hot pot in Shanghai was.

Winter in Shanghai is also quite difficult. Although the temperature here may not be particularly low, the damp and cold feeling is particularly uncomfortable and unbearable.

The winter solstice is the day with the shortest daytime and the longest night. After that, the days get longer, the nights get shorter, and the weather gets colder.

The winter solstice is the day from which the nine days of winter are counted. Therefore, people in Jiangnan and Shanghai have created a different song for counting the nine days of winter from other places based on their hometown conditions.
1929. When someone calls you, you don’t extend your hand (when greeting someone, you keep your hands in your sleeves).

On the 27th day of the 39th month, the flute is played on the fence (the cold wind blows on the fence, making a whistling sound).

Forty-nine and thirty-six, sleeping at night is like sleeping outdoors.

Fifty-nine forty-five, poor people dancing on the streets (poor people have no way to keep warm and can only exercise to ward off the cold).

Sixty-nine fifty-four, flies hiding in the cracks of the house (as the weather warms up, flies can be seen hiding in the cracks of the house).

Seventy-nine sixty-three, the patchwork cloth is spread on both sides.

Eighty-nine-seventy-two, cats and dogs lying down (pronounced as ying in Wu dialect, which means "cool", such as Shanghai people say "the weather has turned cool" as "the weather has turned cool").

On the 81st day of the 99th month, the plows and harrows are out together (the earth returns to spring, and farmers prepare for spring ploughing).

In order to survive the coldest days of winter, people in the Shanghai area have to make preparations to prevent frostbite and keep warm early.

Therefore, there is a folk saying that "On the 99th and 81st days, every family makes charcoal briquettes."

Charcoal briquettes: This is a type of "coal ball" made by grinding charcoal into powder and adding an appropriate amount of clay.

The burning temperature of this kind of coal ball is not high, but it can prolong the burning time of the charcoal. After being ignited, it can be placed in a copper hand warmer or foot warmer for heating. It will not produce charcoal ash and dust. It is a relatively clean heating fuel, and is therefore deeply loved by local wealthy and well-off people.

Of course, the gap between the rich and the poor exists at all times. At that time, cities used "charcoal briquettes", while most people in rural areas used the embers from cooking in the stove for heating.

Later, this kind of "charcoal briquettes" were still available in special stores in Shanghai, but only a few families had copper hand and foot warmers, and most families or units had replaced them with "charcoal cylinders."

Later, various heating methods were adopted, such as coal stoves, hot water bottles, hot water bags, infusion bottles, and wearing more clothes.

Winter Solstice: This solar term is taken very seriously in Shanghai, and there is even a saying that the Winter Solstice is as important as the Chinese New Year.

The day before the winter solstice is called "Xiaozhi" by many people. On this day, every household pound rice and make dumplings in preparation for the winter solstice the next day. Many people believe that the New Year comes after the winter solstice, so they worship their ancestors on this day.

Qin * Guang described this festival in (Shanghai County Bamboo Branch Poems).

The winter solstice flower cakes are more delicious, and we share the winter wine and eat them every year.

After visiting relatives and friends in formal attire, pieces of meat are piled on a plate for nighttime sacrifice.

On this day, family members get together to eat dumplings, congratulate each other and worship their ancestors.

After the sacrifice, the offerings become a delicacy for the living, and everyone believes that eating the meat offered to their ancestors can strengthen their physical fitness and help them resist the cold and survive the winter.

Initially, the meat offered as a sacrifice to ancestors was eaten directly, but because it was too cold, many people not only failed to receive the protection of their ancestors after eating it, but instead suffered from stomach upset.

If there is a problem, it must be solved. So people in the south and Shanghai invented something called a "hot pot", which directly solved the problem of stomach upset caused by eating cold meat.

This was also the first form of hotpot in Jiangnan and Shanghai. At that time, someone even wrote a poem specifically for "hotpot". The red lead nine-turn device was first completed, and 100,000 coins were spent to select the best dishes.

The soup is boiling in the kitchen, and the maid is serving meat behind the screen.

Adding fire to the furnace will dissipate the coldness, and the flavor will enter the dantian to generate warmth.

There are still guests living in Xiaosi Temple, whose simple and simple food makes them feel lonely and lonely.

The "hot pot" is a good thing, but in addition to its complicated production process, it also uses "wax" as fuel, and its main function is to keep food warm rather than cooking.

This resulted in the "hot pot" being unacceptable to ordinary people, and therefore it did not become very popular.

Later, the copper hot pot from the old city spread to the Jiangnan and Shanghai areas, and was called "hot pot" because of its shape and function. This was also the most important step in the emergence of hot pot.

The fate of "hot pot" is similar to that of "warm pot" in the past. In the era when copper was the trading currency, small officials and clerks could not afford such a super luxury as copper pot, let alone ordinary people.

However, after those minor officials and clerks had eaten hot pot once with their superiors in the cold winter, they fell in love with the warmth of cooking meat around a pot in winter, as well as this way of keeping warm and eating at the same time.

Driven by these people, the combination of a small red clay stove and a clay pot (earth pot) came into being. Because it was common and practical, it quickly became popular among the people.

This is described in Zhu Bing's poem "Haishang Zhuzhici" published in the former pseudo-dynasty.

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In winter, the red clay stove and the spinach in clear soup are really delicious.

Raw fish, duck and chicken slices can be used to help dispel the cold.

As for why it is called dabanlu, it is due to the accent and customs.

The most commonly used dish at that time was a small clay pot, which was called "甂" (homonymous with "边") in the local area, and "打" means "刷", hence the term "dabianlu".

As for why it is mutton, it is because the wisdom of our ancestors is the same. People in Shanghai and Beijing both believe that you should eat more mutton in winter. Only by eating more mutton will you not be afraid of the cold.

The weather in Jiangnan and Shanghai areas makes it impossible to freeze mutton solid most of the time, and meat that cannot be frozen solid cannot be sliced ​​well. In this case, it can only be stewed, not shabu-shabu. This also completely distinguishes shabu-shabu hotpot from hotpot.

Another point is that in Jiangnan and Shanghai areas, due to the custom passed down from ancestor worship, people prefer to eat meat with skin, and they prefer to eat it before eating pigs and after eating sheep.

The heyday of hotpot was also the period of "foreign concessions".

At that time, the average worker in Shanghai earned about five yuan a month. This kind of consumption, which not only provided warmth but also looked particularly fashionable, was ok for them to consume occasionally, but they simply could not afford it if they did it too often.

However, they had no say in the working hours. Many people got off work late at night or missed dinner time. They were cold and hungry in the dark. The aroma of the soup base made from bones in the hot pot restaurants on the street was a great temptation to them.

But what if you can’t afford to eat alone? Then you can “share the meal” with your coworkers, that is, each of you contributes a little money to eat a hot pot meal with less meat and more vegetables.

"Planning together" is a term used in the north. In the Shanghai area, this situation is called "kang 醵".

If two or three people work together, it is called "kang"; if there are more people, it is called "chu".

(Even in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, there are probably not many bigwigs who know the meaning of the two words "kang juan".)
At that time, mutton and beef were very expensive, and many people could not afford them, so they began to look for other ingredients as substitutes.

In addition, there were many people from Guangdong Province in Shanghai at that time, so various seafood, river fish, bacon, mushrooms, dried goods, pork skin, winter bamboo shoots and many other ingredients were put into the pot, which made hot pot more diversified.

When Hao Hongmin was a child, she could often have hotpot. Later, due to the shortage of supplies and the need to use coupons for consumption, the amount of hotpot she had started to eat gradually decreased. However, she could still have a meal from time to time by buying things on the black market with the help of her family's wealth.

But because of Hao Jianghe's sneaking away later, from that time on, hot pot almost became a simple word in her mind.

But no matter what, the tradition of eating hotpot on the winter solstice has been preserved in Shanghai.

Even in previous years when supplies were tight, Shanghai residents could not buy mutton during the winter solstice. People would buy bones and pork skin to make soup base, add various vegetables, dried goods, and not-so-expensive seafood and river fish to stew, and they could also make a pot of delicious food to get through this important festival.

When Han Li heard this, he felt that from this point of view alone, Shanghai was worthy of being a Category 8 region.

In those years, people in the city started to set up hot pots after the winter solstice, and most families could only cook cabbage and some dried goods.

The most common seafood are kelp, hairtail, and small shrimps. There are river fish, but they are not cheap, and basically no one in Beijing uses these things to cook.

As the two of them were talking, they came to a nearby vegetable market. Han Li had never been to such a place when he was in Sijiu City, so he had no idea what the situation was like back home.

But the vegetable markets in Shanghai are also crowded, but 95% of the people who come here to buy vegetables are women. Each of the aunts and grandmas is carrying a bamboo basket in their hands.

The tall and handsome Han Li looked like an alien among these people, and he felt a little embarrassed because of the crowd.

Although there are a lot of people, there are more varieties of fresh vegetables here than in the old city at this season.

According to Hao Hongmin, all the vegetable markets in Shanghai will still have vegetable bowls available before noon, but they will basically be sold out by the afternoon.

(Vegetable basin: The semi-finished products provided by the vegetable market according to the eating habits of the citizens and the names of the dishes, with the required meat and vegetable dishes mixed together. All of them are pre-selected and cut. After you buy them home, you can rinse them and put them directly into the pot.)
It didn't take them long to buy groceries, but they waited in line for a very long time.

Han Li and Hao Hongmin squeezed in here for a long time before coming out, so the next thing was the celebration banquet in the evening.
(End of this chapter)