Slogan of selling internal organs

Speaking of snacks, many people immediately think of Changsha stinky tofu, Tianjin pancake fruit, Wuhan Regan Noodles and so on.

But when you ask a Cantonese what is the most impressive snack, his answer is probably-beef offal.

(via network)

Cantonese people are full of enthusiasm for beef offal. This is so hot that an enthusiastic netizen even set up a beef offal association and vowed to fight for the cause of tasting beef offal for life.

(Enthusiastic netizens' explanation of joining the beef offal association)

For many Cantonese people, beef offal may be a street snack to accompany them when they grow up. Although they can't explain why they are so obsessed with this thing, it doesn't affect Cantonese people's love for it at all.

What magic is hidden in the giblet?

The long history of beef offal

Beef offal, full name "beef offal". Eat beef offal, eat beef offal.

There are different opinions about the source of beef offal.

It is said that in ancient times, when a king plowed the fields in Xiannongtan to worship the god of agriculture, it suddenly rained heavily. Seeing that the local people were hungry and cold, the king immediately ordered the slaughter of the farmed cattle and put the beef, tripe, heart, liver, louver, intestines and radish into the pot. After eating it, people found it delicious, so it was handed down.

There is another saying. According to legend, there was a severe cold in Lingnan in the Qing Dynasty, and the demand for beef and mutton increased. A Hui chef has finished eating beef, and there is really nothing to entertain guests. So the chef used his quick wits to stew the remaining beef offal and radish in a pot, add spices such as star anise, fragrant leaves and dried tangerine peel, and then add Lingnan special sauce. As a result, this pot of stew is full of fragrance and floats all over Xiguan.

(via network)

Although it is a legend, it reveals two things: first, the beef offal is likely to come from Xiguan, Guangzhou, and second, the beef offal tastes really good.

In fact, the raw materials of beef offal are all cow scraps. In the past, they were all meat used by the poor to supplement nutrition. In the eighties and nineties of last century, self-employed people such as stalls and trolleys began to appear.

At that time, a group of people who were not afraid of hardship, tiredness and dirt started the business of selling beef offal with trolleys. It was said that it was fresh at that time? It costs only 4 cents to put cattle into the water, but the cooked tripe can be sold for a bunch of 2 yuan money, and the cart for miscellaneous cattle that can be traveled everywhere is not rented. This seems to be a very profitable business.

However, people who made beef offal at that time rarely passed on their skills to the next generation, because only they knew how much effort it took to make a delicious pot of beef offal. Buy fresh beef offal at three o'clock every morning, go home and clean it up, add spices and cook it. There are no lazy steps.

The beef offal stall has a history of 40 years, and now many young people in Guangdong have grown up eating the beef offal stall in the alley downstairs. The uncle and aunt of the beef offal stall looked at the children who used to let their parents buy beef offal, and now they also bring their children to visit.

For the younger generation in Guangdong, they eat not only delicious beef offal, but also the feelings they have established with their aunt beef offal for more than ten years and the years when they secretly bought beef offal from their families and added a spoonful of Chili sauce.

(via network)

What's in the guts?

It is said that "there is braised pork in the north and beef offal in the south", and that "beef offal rolls three times, and the gods are unstable". Where is the beef offal that fascinates Cantonese people?

If you ask a Cantonese where there is authentic beef offal to eat, they will tell you, "When you see a simple cart, it looks a little old. There are one or two iron pots on it, and the stall owner is holding a pair of scissors. If someone is standing around to eat, then there is a 99% chance that this kind of beef offal is authentic. "

In that pot of beef offal, there are refreshing beef lungs, beef hearts, beef louvers, tender beef bellies and intestines with tough passages, beef tendons and brittle bones with brittle teeth, and beef tongues and burdock that taste strange but some people like.

(via network)

These raw materials, which could not be served on the table in the old days, are mixed with various spices and herbs, fresh ingredients and sufficient calories. One side of the materials forms delicious food, so the taste of Guangdong beef offal takes root on the tip of the tongue of Cantonese people.

In addition, Cantonese people have brought beef offal soup into full play. The preferred way to eat Guangdong beef offal is radish beef offal. The radish that is not easy to boil is boiled in the pot for a period of time, and the essence in beef offal soup is boiled into large radish pieces. Sweet and soft radish combined with the fragrance of beef offal soup is a must. White radish itself has the functions of clearing away heat, promoting fluid production and promoting digestion, which can just neutralize the internal heat brought by beef offal.

(via network)

In addition to radish, there are usually gluten and Chinese cabbage that are good at absorbing soup, as well as fish eggs with elastic teeth. Some stalls can also order rice noodles and pork rolls as staple foods, which are cheap and full. This is the food whose per capita income in Guangdong is less than that in 20 yuan.

(via network)

Every beef offal stall has its own secret sauce. If you want to eat Guangdong beef offal, you should match these homemade Chili sauce or bean paste, either sour or spicy or sweet. Every Cantonese has his own perfect proportion of beef offal sauce.

(via network)

There is a China writer who is also a son-in-law in Guangdong. Every time he goes to Guangdong, he eats a bowl of beef offal.

When he eats beef offal with similar taste abroad, he always feels that something is missing. Finally, once in Guangdong, when he advised an old man who was eating beef offal to sit next to him for dinner, the old man's words made him suddenly enlightened: "When eating beef offal, you must eat the best taste!" (Eating beef offal means standing up and eating delicious food) "

This most grounded snack in Guangdong is the most authentic when eaten in the most grounded posture.

Today's giblet

Many people know that there is a kind of online celebrity beef offal in Guangzhou, called Apo beef offal.

The opening frequency of grandma's beef offal varies from once a week to once a month, and now it is irregular. And every time grandma opens a file, the queue gets longer and longer.

(grandma giblet | via network)

With grandma getting older and worse, everyone is very concerned about this matter, but they are also worried that maybe one day, grandma's beef offal will never be eaten again.

Not only grandma's beef offal, but also authentic beef offal stalls in Guangdong are disappearing.

Have a plenty of moved into a fixed store, continue the good craft before.

But more, either because of the loss of craftsmanship or because of the continuous improvement of operating costs, gradually disappeared in various alley intersections.

Forty years ago, there was an ox cart stall called "Ji Liang giblet". Because the products are good and the business is very good, it only takes one or two hours to sell out the beef offal at a time. But because the boss knew that beef offal was not easy to sell, he didn't pass on the secret recipe until his death.

(via network)

Later, his children grew up. Because they missed the smell of their father's beef offal, they tried their best to make beef offal and named it "13 beef offal" after the landmark where their father once set up a stall in Hong Kong.

Nowadays, Guangdong beef offal is still an indispensable snack in Guangdong people's life, but what we see in the streets is more chain-type beef offal shops. Their storefront is very bright, and the kitchen utensils look cleaner than those in the trolley period, but they don't seem to be as delicious as those of the children on the street in Little Square.

(via network)

However, for Cantonese people, the position of the most delicious beef offal restaurant is still stable, and the steam rising in the beef offal pot and the neat "chirping" scissors sound are still Bai Yueguang in my heart forever.

-The end-