Origin of Fish Head with Chopped Pepper

It is said that it can be traced back to Yongzheng period, when Daxing Wenzi Prison was established. On his way to escape, Huang Zongxian, a famous anti-Qing scholar, passed through a small village in Hunan and lived with a poor farmer. It happened that the farmer's son caught a river fish from the pond in the field, which solved the trouble of the hostess's clever wife, so he cooked with river fish. After the fish is washed, it is boiled with salt, then chopped with homemade peppers and steamed with the fish head. I don't want Huang Zongxian to eat it and feel delicious. After returning home, he asked the chef at home to improve this dish, so he got today's "Fish Head with Chopped Pepper".

Authentic Hunan cuisine uses grass carp or silver carp and silver carp as fish heads, mainly because these fish heads are big and tender. Sometimes it's not just fish heads, most of them carry a small part of their bodies and a huge plate, which makes people think that chefs must not have enjoyed this dish. When a dish arrives at a place, it often needs to incorporate some local characteristics. When this chopped pepper fish head arrived in Wuhan, it was said that it was made of Wuchang fish. According to the character of Wuhan people, I'm afraid it will be changed to whole fish, which is "Wuchang fish with chopped pepper" Another example is those places in Jiangnan that don't like spicy food. When cooking fish heads with chopped peppers, chefs are always merciful and put less peppers, but locals with light tastes also eat boo.

Chopped pepper, as the name implies, is chopped pepper. Pepper is not a native domestic variety, it is native to tropical areas of Central America and South America, and it is the most important condiment for Indians. Pepper was introduced to Europe in 1493. At the end of 16, pepper was introduced to China as an ornamental flower, but it has never been used in diet. In Gao Lian's Eight Chapters of Zunsheng in Ming Dynasty (159 1), there is the earliest record of peppers in China, which says: "There are many peppers, the flowers are white, the fruit looks like a bald head, and it tastes hot and red, which is impressive." Pepper was introduced into China in two ways. One is to enter South China through the Straits of Malacca and take root in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangdong. The other is to take the ancient golden road and the Silk Road, enter Gansu and Shaanxi from West Asia, and cultivate in the northwest. Northwest people eat Chili, although it is not as fierce as Sichuan people eat spicy food now, but it is also an essential seasoning. In addition to corn, there are red pepper skewers hanging at the gates of northern Shaanxi. When I was a child, I lived in Xi 'an, and my mother often discussed with her neighbors how to make hot sauce and hot oil. When you come home from school, you can usually dip steamed bread with Chili oil as an appetizer before meals.

China first began to eat peppers in Guizhou and its neighboring areas. During the reign of Kangxi, pepper was once used as a substitute for salt in Guizhou and undertook the task of replacing salt. During the Qianlong period, Guizhou, Zhenxiong, Yunnan and Chenzhou, Hunan began to eat a lot of peppers. The history of Hunan people eating Chili peppers is earlier than that of Sichuan people who are now famous for their spicy food.

One river, one lake and four waters in Hunan Province have always been flooded frequently, with a humid and harsh climate and hot Leng Xia in winter (Changsha is one of the four famous stoves). Pepper has wonderful functions of expelling wind and cold, dredging channels and promoting blood circulation, stimulating appetite and strengthening stomach, inhibiting bacteria and relieving itching, and preventing corrosion and expelling insects. It has therapeutic effects on common cold, spleen and stomach deficiency cold, joint pain, frostbite of hands and feet, etc. Zeng Guofan led the Xiang army into the east and out of the west, and also developed a "overlord soup" made of beef and cow blood, supplemented by Hunan mountain pepper, to protect soldiers from rheumatism.