🌾 The thousand-year health wisdom of Yanzhao Maixiang: the "fasting" aesthetics of Gaocheng Palace Noodles in Hebei Province
Located in Gaocheng District, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, there is a royal tribute that has been passed down for more than 600 years, which is Gaocheng Palace Noodles.
Its birth itself is an Eastern philosophical practice about "carbohydrates".
Gaocheng Palace Noodles uses local high-quality high-gluten wheat as raw material. This wheat grows in the fertile soil along the Hutuo River. It absorbs the sunshine from the North China Plain and also absorbs the rain and dew there, thus giving the flour a naturally chewy texture and wheat flavor.
In the traditional production process that has always been passed down, the experienced master chefs always insist on using finely ground first-grade flour, and start kneading the noodles as early as five in the morning in an environment that still retains morning dew. They often say this: "The noodles need to wake up for a corresponding length of time, and the strength must be kneaded into the bone marrow." This extreme respect for the raw materials makes Gongmen a typical type. It is a low-GI high-quality carbohydrate because this type of noodles has a complex processing process and contains a special physical structure. Its digestion and absorption speed is slow, and it can continuously provide energy to the human body, but it will not cause severe fluctuations in blood sugar. This perfectly fits the definition of "high-quality carbohydrates" in modern nutrition.
🍠 The Golden Memory of Jiaodong Peninsula: The “Resistance” Secret of Yantai Sweet Potato Vermicelli
Once you are in the farmer's market in Yantai, Shandong, and look at the bunches of amber-colored Yantai sweet potato vermicelli, what you are actually touching is the ancient wisdom contained in the harmonious coexistence of the people and carbohydrates in the Jiaodong area.
The "Golden Planting Belt" is located in Yantai at 37° north latitude. The 25-size sweet potatoes grown in the sandy soil here have a wonderful balance of sugar and starch.
Local craftsmen bring fresh sweet potatoes, beat them repeatedly, wash them, and then precipitate them to extract the purest sweet potato starch.
Moreover, during the last process of making vermicelli, that is to say, during the natural drying, the starch molecules are quietly reorganized in the bright and warm sunshine of winter, thus producing a large amount of resistant starch.
As the local elders often say: "After the vermicelli has been frosted, eating it will not cause weight gain." This naturally formed resistant starch is exactly the "fat-reducing black technology" mentioned by experts from the People's Liberation Army General Hospital. It is not absorbed by the small intestine, but it can provide nutrients for the beneficial intestinal flora. While increasing the feeling of satiety, it is like a dedicated "intestinal scavenger", allowing Yantai people to enjoy the satisfaction brought by carbohydrates while maintaining the bottom line of health in the steaming pork and cabbage stewed vermicelli .
🍜 The heroic gift of Qinchuan: the energy philosophy of Xi’an biangbiang noodles
Xi'an, the ancient capital of Shaanxi Province, a city wrapped in carbon water, explains what the "source of energy" is through a bowl of biangbiang noodles.
The winter wheat in the Guanzhong Plain has gone through the process of sowing in autumn, passing through the hibernation stage, then growing in spring, and finally being harvested in summer. Its three hundred-day growth cycle allows the wheat grain to fully absorb the essence contained in the earth.
Those people who are called Laoshan people have a special way of making noodles, which is "silver in the basin, gold in the hand". When kneading the noodles, they only use a small amount of salt water and well water in the Guanzhong area, relying on countless exercises of kneading, rubbing, pulling and shaking.
The amylopectin in the wheat was quickly gelatinized when the one-meter-long trousers surface was tumbling in the boiling water, and it also released the most simple and original aroma.
This is the most direct and cleanest fuel for the human body.
In Xi'an, whether it's early in the morning in Yanta District or when it's getting dark in Huimin Street, a bowl of biangbiang noodles topped with spicy oil is the most practical solace for workers.
In its purest form, it tells us that carbohydrates themselves are not the culprit. The key to the problem lies in how we control and use them.
Those people in Xi'an choose to enjoy delicious food during lunch and use the energy they have consumed by running around all afternoon, thereby making carbohydrates a driving force to move forward rather than a burden.
🎋 The delicacies in the forest in the south of Caiyun: the "polysaccharide" symphony of wild mushrooms in Chuxiong
In Chuxiong, Yunnan, a deep place in the virgin forest, after the rain fell, a feast centered on "high-quality carbon water" quietly kicked off.
The bamboo baskets carried by the locals are looking for the wild fungi known as "mountain treasures".
The matsutake mushrooms from Nanhua County, or the chicken fir trees from Lufeng County, these gifts from nature are all high-quality carbohydrates that are easily underestimated and ignored.
The cell walls of fungi are rich in fungal polysaccharides, which are carbohydrates with a complex structure and are not sugars in the traditional concept.
Among the Yi people in Chuxiong, the simplest cooking method is charcoal grilling. It is the best way to stimulate the deliciousness of this "carbohydrate". It is special and has a unique and significant effect.
The matsutake slices appear slightly curled on the grill, and then exude a unique pine wood fragrance. What this brings is not only a taste enjoyment, but also a gentle nourishment for the human immune system.
The extraordinary wisdom of "eating mountains and nourishing mountains" that the people of Yunnan Province have adhered to for thousands of years coincides perfectly with the concept of "mushroom polysaccharides are beneficial to immune function" in modern nutrition, making the food culture of this red land shine with the brilliance of science.
🌱 The crystallization of wisdom from the hills of eastern Sichuan: the slimming revolution of Dazhou’s “coir raincoat rice”
In Dazhou, Sichuan, there are traditional villages where a rice-making technique is spread. This technique is called coir raincoat rice and is on the verge of being lost.
This is not a special rice variety, but a wonderful transformation of ordinary Dazhu County fragrant rice by local people.
They steamed the rice until it was halfway cooked, spread it on the bamboo coir raincoat while it was still hot, and quickly cooled it with the cool breeze from the mountains.
This seemingly simple operation is called "starch retrogradation" in the field of food science. It will convert a large amount of ordinary starch in rice into "resistant starch."
This is the secret of the older generation of Dazhou people who "work vigorously but have no meat on their bodies".
Today, this folk wisdom is given new life.
Just as the "Adult Obesity Diet Guide" advocates, people in Dazhou mix this "cold rice" with dried tofu from Xuanhan County and lotus root from Kaijiang County, thus creating a modern diet that can fully satisfy appetite and meet the needs of fat loss.
Such a simple creation originating from the hilly areas of eastern Sichuan transforms carbohydrate intake into controllable energy management, and truly achieves a perfect balance of "enjoying delicious food and living a healthy life".
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