Erya says, "The mackerel is the prawn." ”
It is recorded in the ancient Shandong marine biology monograph "Remembering the Mistakes of the Sea", "There are shrimp in the sea, the long ruler is Xu, into the child's arm, the fisherman's net is obtained, the two are combined, the day is dried or pickled, and the goods are called shrimp".
The standard Qingdao wild prawn, like the venue crab in Qingdao Wanggezhuang, is basically a folk legend due to the tight production. Chinese shrimp represented by Qingdao shrimp is known as the world's three most famous shrimps, along with Mexican brown shrimp and Guyana white shrimp.
Prawns don't get their name because they often pair up with a male and a female. Shrimp are large and often use "pairs" as units, hence the name "shrimp". There are not many words describing seafood in "Dream of Red Mansions", but in the New Year's goods presented by Wuzhuangtou to Ning Guofu, there is a description of "fifty catties of sea cucumbers and fifty pairs of large prawns".
The cephalothorax of the prawns is short, the abdomen is long, and the whole body is wrapped in a thin and tough translucent carapace, and it is said that some of the prawns are as large as a child's arm, and they look very "majestic", no wonder many folk tales imagine them as mighty dragon palace guards. Zhao Lingqi of the Song Dynasty once wrote in the third volume of "Hou Mackerel": "The seedling shrimp-like centipede and the one who supports the shrimp is called the shrimp male." Therefore, in ancient times, the word "shrimp male" was similar to the shape of shrimp seedlings and centipedes, so shrimp was called shrimp male. Shrimp was not a particularly precious ingredient in ancient times, as an important auxiliary ingredient, it used to be called Kaiyang, Golden Hook, and was mostly used to hang soup.
In the mid-to-late 70s of the last century, a large number of prawn heads flowed into the Qingdao restaurant at that time, and it is said that all the body parts of the prawns were exported to Japan and became the main ingredient of tempura shrimp. Back then, in addition to the Spring Festival limited edition, a few saury fish with a bandwidth of not much bandwidth than the table were limited. Most Qingdao people who rely on the sea to eat the sea do not see a single meat all year round. Therefore, when people can buy prawn heads for a few cents a pound openly, the festive atmosphere is more jubilant than the New Year.
This kind of prawn head has a real shrimp brain, and the real and touching umami is still made into shrimp head paste, shrimp head soup, lo mein, and shrimp brain dumplings by folk gourmets. Star Huang Xiaoming's mother mentioned this passage in an interview, saying that when she was pregnant with Xiaoming, she ate a lot of prawn heads in order to supplement nutrition.
What shrimp can be called Qingdao prawn?
When the small shrimp grew in the Bohai Sea until October, they began to gather and swim out of the Bohai Bay, which was called autumn shrimp, and the Chinese fishermen caught them for about 12 catties. Outside of the Chinese seas, Japanese fishermen are fishing. When they return the following year, they have grown into about a pound of spring shrimp by the time they spawn. That's when it's called giant prawns." Qingdao prawns were 38 yuan a pound when it was around 1964, which was officially regarded as patriotic propaganda material. At that time, the monthly wages of workers were all at this number, and two shrimps were equal to a month's salary, which was really scary.
The cultivation of "Qingdao shrimp" began in 1958, and large-scale aquaculture began in 1979. In 1982, the second wave of marine aquaculture represented by Chinese shrimp originated in Qingdao, which made China the world's first in terms of output, export volume and seedling volume for more than ten consecutive years.
In the first decade of the last century, Qingdao's catering industry was a little fancy, and prawns were a classic snack on the banquet, 50 yuan each. Compared with people's income of less than 100 yuan per month at that time, eating a large shrimp is the same price as eating a wild rhubarb now. Many people have a deep memory of the quality of shrimp at that time, three shrimp beaten marinade, a pot is thick and bright shrimp soup with golden oil, and then there is a green spring leek to enhance the taste, which can be described as very amazing.
Qingdao prawns have a high meat yield, the shrimp meat is crispy and soft, and the aftertaste is long.
Nowadays, prawns have become a common seafood ingredient, and there are many people and hotels who use them to make fried cabbage and prawns for lo mein. Some restaurants use the whole shrimp as shrimp soup dumplings and steamed shrimp dumplings, and the shrimp tails are swaggeringly thrown on the outside of the buns, which looks arrogant and pretty. The representative seafood of Shandong cuisine is braised prawns in oil and fried sea cucumber with green onions. Braised prawns in oil, in terms of cooking techniques, the two of braised and stewed are superimposed, making the fresh and thick prawns easier to taste, and the finished product is bright and mellow in color, and only the soup can be used for a bowl of rice, and the popularity of the folk is far more than that of another fried sea cucumber with green onions. This cooking method can be inferred from one another, and it can be used for any shrimp oil stew.
Written by |Cui Yan.