Eating "Jie'er" in Yunnan

"Jie'er" is the pronunciation of "fungus" in Yunnan dialect. In this land where edible wild mushrooms account for more than half of the country, "Jie'er" begins to emerge every June when the rainy season comes. Production peaks in July and August. Yunnan people will eat a lot at this time. In the eyes of Yunnan people, those wild mushrooms that are more expensive than gold in foreign countries are just delicacies found every year. They are delicious but not rare.

It is not uncommon to eat "Jie'er"

There is a kind of wild fungus with an inconspicuous appearance. It is black and is called "Pig Arch Fungus" by the locals. Such a vulgar name comes from the fact that sows are very sensitive to the smell of this fungus and will dig it out of the soil and eat it. A long time ago, Yunnan people even disdained to eat this wild mushroom because "this is what pigs eat."

It wasn’t until the locals heard that this inconspicuous black pimple was more expensive than gold after being transported abroad several times, that they knew that the “pig fungus” was called “black truffle” abroad and was highly regarded. respected.

The price of black truffles in Yunnan probably started to rise in 2013. Even so, compared with the overseas market, which costs hundreds of thousands per kilogram and is sold in high-end restaurants, black truffles in Yunnan are simply "Cabbage price". Especially in the production areas, the black truffles that farmers take directly to the market sometimes only cost three to five hundred yuan per kilogram, and ordinary people can easily enjoy them.

Matsutake, known as the "King of Fungi" in Japan, and you would like to take a bath and burn incense to eat a few pieces of it, is just a must-have home-cooked dish for Tibetan families in the Shangri-La area every rainy season. There are also many wild mushrooms such as ganba mushrooms and morels that sell for astronomical prices abroad or in coastal areas of China. They are all common species in the Yunnan wild mushroom trading market.

? In Yunnan, eating "Jie'er" is really not a rare thing.

The gourmand who “takes his life to make money”

? In a chat, Zhao Yongchang, director of the Edible Fungi Research Center of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said in a half-joking tone: Yunnan people eat fungi. , paid a heavy price in life.

? If you think about it carefully, this is really not a joke.

? Imagine that time goes back 10,000 years (that is when humans first began to use mushrooms). Tribal women who rely on picking as their main source of food accidentally discovered the delicious "Jie'er", but Then, they discovered that some "Jie'er" can kill people, while others don't. Data from the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences shows that there are 2,729 species of large fungi in Yunnan, accounting for 56.9% of China’s known large fungi, and wild edible fungi account for 2/3 of the country’s total.

It is difficult for us to know which of the 2,729 species of wild fungi our ancestors encountered, but we know that there are more than 200 species of edible wild fungi with economic value that are mainly traded today. To put it simply and crudely, for every 10 kinds of "Meier" picked by people, only 1 may be non-toxic.

However, the temptation of delicious food does not stop because of danger. Zhao Yongchang said that the people who paid the price in this process were mostly poultry and livestock raised in captivity. People feed unidentified wild fungi to animals first, and only then do experiments on themselves after confirming that the animals do not experience any discomfort after eating them.

This is what Zhao Yongchang calls "the price of life."

Accidentally eating "psychedelic mushrooms"

Until recent years, people have been poisoned by eating wild mushrooms, and the exploration of strange fungi has not stopped. For example, it has only been in the past 20 years that red fungus has been widely eaten in Yunnan. "Seeing little people" has become a joke that people talk about every year during the fungus season.

If you plan to have a date with your friends after get off work, your colleagues may say: Be careful when you see little people. This symptom is mostly caused by "seeing hand blue". Jianshouqing is a type of boletus. Commonly known delicious boletus, old man's head, yellow onion, white onion mushroom, red onion mushroom, etc. are also boletus. Jianshouqing is their close relative. The gills turn blue when touched and are slightly poisonous.

Because the toxins contained in Jianshouqing contain ingredients similar to LSD, you will have hallucinations after being poisoned, and you will see big red flowers, bicycles, monsters and ghosts... You can't imagine it, but you can't see it.

In addition, there may be gastrointestinal reactions such as nausea and vomiting, which may be life-threatening in severe cases. This is why restaurants in Yunnan are extremely cautious when handling wild mushrooms.

When eating mixed mushrooms (a variety of wild mushrooms mixed together) in restaurants in Yunnan, there will be a timer on the table. The waiter will tell you that you must not move your chopsticks before the timer expires. If you If you are too curious, put your chopsticks into the soup pot to explore, and the waiter will immediately replace you with a new pair of chopsticks.

The "original" taste

Poisoning cannot suppress people's love for "Jie'er". In almost all wet markets in Yunnan, you can almost see mushrooms selling. The emergence of this selling method is not to cater to people's appetite. It was originally just a way for farmers to deal with the leftover "Jie'er". Since fresh wild mushrooms cannot be stored for a long time, the unsold wild mushrooms or Some wild mushrooms that are too small to be valued will be mixed together and sold at cheap prices. Unexpectedly, this selling method is very popular among ordinary diners.

Nanhua County is one of the important distribution centers for wild fungi in Yunnan Province. More than 290 species of edible wild fungi have been discovered here. The rich resources have also attracted wild fungi from surrounding areas to trade here. Nanhua County in 2017 The transaction volume of wild mushrooms reached 543 million yuan.

Even in such an environment, ordinary residents still like to buy a small basket of mixed mushrooms for seven or eight yuan on the way to get off work. There may be two milk mushrooms in it, or there may not be; there may be one. There may be a big handful of bacteria or a small handful. It all depends on luck. Both the buyer and seller are very "Buddhist". Stir-fry it at home, or make soup with farm-made ham. Locals say that the umami flavor of the mixed mushrooms and the thickness of the cooked soup cannot be compared with a single "Jie'er". If the mixed mushroom ham soup is not finished, the mushroom soup noodles will be the breakfast for the next day.

Over the years, wild mushrooms have been used by chefs to match various precious ingredients, including expensive caviar, foie gras, lobster, etc. However, at the 2017 Nanhua County Wild Mushroom Food Culture Festival , but the winner of the first prize was "boiled chicken fir".

To put it simply, this is just using the most common boiled water to boil the chicken coriander mushrooms broken up by hand. The locals like to use "sweet" to describe the taste of chicken cocoon. When making chicken cocoon at home , often breaking them off and stuffing a few pieces into their mouths to taste the sweetness. The soup cooked with chicken fir is naturally "sweet". The sweetness is actually a slightly sweet taste. The chef specially brought a mountain spring to ensure the deliciousness of the boiled chicken fir.

Another way to eat chicken fir fungus is to eat chicken fir fungus in oil. Tear the chicken fir fungus into strips and put them into hot oil. Boil them over low heat. At the same time, add Sichuan peppercorns, dried chili peppers, and bay leaves. Wait for a variety of spices and simmer until slightly yellow but not hard. The fried chicken fir is ready, chewy and can be served with noodles or rice. In the eyes of many chefs, this is simply a waste of money, because the smell of oil and spices covers up the original freshness of "Jie'er", but for locals, this is the best way to preserve the short-lived wild mushrooms. For example, our ancestors originally made cured meat for preservation, but now it has become a delicacy.

Yun's "Jie'er" cannot be explained clearly in just two thousand words. Last month, I was invited by a friend to write an article called "36 Strategies of Matsutake", which are 36 ways to eat matsutake. You can imagine how many different flavors and stories there are among the more than 200 kinds of wild mushrooms that are often eaten.