In terms of eating and seeing, I am afraid that nothing can surpass the red carp of Wuyuan purse. This red and charming fish is simply a flower swimming in the water. In the ponds of scenic spots and parks, koi fish are the most common. However, there is a big difference between the red carp and the koi carp with a smart body, the red carp has a small head and a short tail, a high back and a wide body, a bulging ridge, and a big belly like a bag, so it is named after the purse.

Carp are close relatives of goldfish. It is said that the purse red carp was originally a change of goldfish in the deep palace of the Ming Dynasty, a certain year a high-ranking official from Wuyuan returned to his hometown, and the emperor somewhat mischievously gave a pair of wet live fish. Later, this pair traveled thousands of miles to carefully care for the fish that brought back their hometown, and they flourished in Wuyuan, with flowers, folk gifts, and incense.

Wuyuan once belonged to Huizhou in history, the mountains and rivers are beautiful, the pine and bamboo are continuous, and the dwellings with the eaves and corners are hidden between the cliffs and peaks and green forests, or are reflected in the clear springs of the streams. In addition to the imperial edict plaques in Huizhou, there are also imperial relatives in the fish. Large families in Huizhou like to dig ponds in the courtyard or set up large water tanks to store good-looking fish, and also watch and eat. The red carp in the purse is the same as those ancient tree tea pavilions and covered bridges and post roads, showing a kind of regional elegance.

There are many very special things on the ground in Huizhou, just take cooking as an example, I like steaming, steaming, powder steaming, dry steaming, from hooves to amaranth, regardless of the meat and vegetarian can be steamed.

The chef who makes Hui cuisine carries a drawer cage everywhere, although outsiders can't understand it, but don't say it, this steamed dish is the same as those bright landscapes, which can best preserve the original flavor. Steamed red carp is a Wuyuan flavor fish dish, which is famous for its fragrant and expensive dishes in the pond and the delicacies on the table.

White pot red fish, at first sight, I feel that the fish meat is very thick, especially the meat on the stomach is transparent, bulging, I thought it was full of fish roe, but I didn't expect it to be full of meat with chopsticks. Can't wait to taste it, and sure enough, the fish meat is fat and tender, sweet and fragrant, and the fish bones are small and weak to be negligible, especially there is no fishy smell at all, just like eating refreshing tender tofu.

The remaining soup was scooped into the mouth with a spoon, and it was also delicious. The host was generous, we benefited, and there was a poached red carp to accompany the meal every day in the future. Red carp is fried in oil and then stewed with bacon tofu and garlic, which is also a common local diet, but it must be seasoned with enough shiso.

After an interval of six or seven years, I went to Wuyuan again in the twilight of spring. At that time, Wuyuan tourism development was hot, and all kinds of tourists could be seen everywhere. In the pond in front of the roadside shop in the county seat or those lively places, there is a piece of red, all of which are raised red carp figures, no ring fat swallow thin, the size is about the same, a pound of more than a pound, twenty or thirty yuan, now copied and burned.

This price is more than twice as expensive as before, and the tide is rising, and the municipal media like us no longer enjoy the same preferential treatment as before. The original ecological purse red carp grows in the deep mountains people do not know, and it is rare to see it on the market.

That time, in a deep mountain to the northeast of the pit pit, I found a family, cast a net in the mountain pool and caught it, and after an hour of patient waiting, a pot of steaming steamed red carp was brought to the table. When I was cooking, I went to the kitchen to watch.

The head of the family is a thin middle-aged man surnamed Wang, who is said to have returned home to make a living as a wild red carp when he was working in Shanghai. He scraped the scales, dug the gills, removed the internal organs, washed and wiped the water with a rag, cut the oblique knife flowers on both sides of the fish body, smeared the refined salt, marinated in cooking wine for a while, put the mushrooms, green onions, and ginger on the fish body, poured half a bowl of clear soup with oil flowers, and then dug a spoonful of cooked lard and put it on the shelf, steamed it with a strong fire on the basket, and served it in about ten minutes.

According to reports, the clear soup is boiled with a mountain spring, if there is no taste of this spring water, you can't make a really delicious Wuyuan purse red carp. Chef Wang said that in addition to being delicious, the steamed is also good-looking, and the stew slightly destroys the shape of the fish, so to really taste the taste, it is better to braised it. So we walked around the neighborhood that afternoon and tasted the authentic taste of teriyaki at his shop in the evening.

The local traditional famous dishes are boxing chicken and palm turtle, that is, fist-sized chicken and palm-sized young soft-shelled turtle, which are very fresh and tender. In late spring and March, the grass grows in the south of the Yangtze River, it is the time when the rape flowers in Wuyuan are yellow, and the heavenly wild vegetables such as mountain fern, wild celery, and bamboo shoots can best regulate the taste, whether it is cold or fried with bacon, it is unparalleled delicious.

The thing that is too good-looking is Tianzhen, and eating Tianzhen into the stomach is almost tyrannical. I once blanched the golden pumpkin flowers with dew in a pot of boiling water, chopped and scrambled eggs, and although it tasted good, I was always a little scruple and ashamed to throw too beautiful things into the pot and eat them again.

The water and soil raise one person, and the water and soil also raise one fish, turtles, shrimp and loach.

In the loach family, the most are loaches, ballpoint pens are generally long and thick, and after getting them, they are drilled everywhere, and they can't be caught if they are slippery and sticky. To catch loaches, you can dry the water and pick out the mud one by one, and there is also a special fishing tool called loach trips like a dung basket, which is stopped in the ditch and driven from the other end with a stick.

In the summer, there are the most loaches in the rice fields, which attract egrets to fly and fall. There is also a kind of knife loach that lives in the big rivers, the dark brown body is too thin and slender, the sharp-beaked monkey gills, and there is a row of thorns on the flat back, which is extremely restless, and looks like it is causing trouble everywhere.

Huangmei in early summer has a big flood, pulling up the barrage across the river, when the net is raised, some of the mesh silver flashes brightly, it is a small fish that is embedded, and the unlucky loach is also hung on the mesh because of the row of troublesome thorns on the back. As for the cloth loach, it is fat and flat, has a long hand, has a round head and has two whiskers, the back is green and the belly is yellow, and the cloth pattern is like a dark spot and color, which is very fleshy, and it is the most delicious loach.

The loach does not like to drill mud, but the loach loves small ditches and puddles. During a thunderstorm, the water is flowing in the four fields, and in the flowing grass or in the small ditches, you will often see the plump and swollen cloth loach that is struggling to swim upstream. Strangely, they are rarely seen outside of this season of succession.

And the loaches that live in the pit don't seem to need to communicate with the outside world. I dug a big hole in the soil, far away from the surrounding pond, but after a few rains, when green grass grew around, I walked past the puddle and found a group of lively small fish swimming in the puddle. If you come back in a few days and dry the water in the pit, you will surely harvest a fat loach.

The creation of nature also corresponds to a local proverb: a thousand years of fish roe, ten thousand years of grassroots. Fish roe and grass roots are very cheap, very cheap things have strong vitality and are easy to feed, as long as there is a mouthful of water in the farmland and a pool at the foot of the mountain, they can grow on their own.

In fact, in Jiangnan, where fish and rice are abundant, whether it is loaches, knife loaches, or cloth loaches, they are all insignificant, and there are not many opportunities to serve on the table. In terms of identity, they are vastly different from mandarin fish and catfish, and they are not on the table compared to crabs and turtles. Only grassroots families patronize them, and they get some oil and salt to cook it ordinarily, and the countryside does not hear of the saying of salt and pepper loach, stewed loach, loach pot or loach drilled tofu...... In addition to this, its fate is more to feed the ducks.