Hezi Four Delicacies

Hezi Four Delicacies

　　Hezi Four Delicacies

    “Do not laugh at the turbid wine of the farmers’ New Year feasts, in good years guests are treated to chicken and pork aplenty,” goes a line from Lu You’s poem “Visiting Shanxi Village.” In Yongxin, even in an ordinary farmhouse, when guests arrive, before serving them the home-brewed wine, the hospitable hostess will take out several generous handfuls of local specialties from a row of small jars, arrange them on a plate as tea snacks, then pour a cup of hot tea to chat and catch up.

    These “local specialties” are none other than Yongxin’s famous orange peel, spiced ginger, honey eggplant, and spiced radish.

    Legend has it that during the Tang Dynasty’s Kaiyuan era, the folk songstress Xu Hezi from Yongxin, upon being selected to enter the imperial palace, brought along these hometown specialties—orange peel, spiced ginger, honey eggplant, and spiced radish—as she missed her home. Some say that because she regularly consumed orange peel and honey eggplant, her singing voice became especially clear and resonant, surpassing all others and earning her the title of Imperial Songstress. Once, when the Empress suffered from dizziness and headaches, Xu Hezi presented her with spiced ginger. After applying and consuming it, the Empress’s symptoms disappeared. Emperor Li Longji then decreed that these four Yongxin specialties be offered as tributes, causing a sensation in the capital Chang’an and earning them the name “Hezi Four Delicacies.”

    Orange peel is made by picking pomelo oranges just as they grow to slightly larger than a fist, slicing them into crescent-shaped thin pieces while the skin is still green, and boiling them with copperware (to preserve their original white flesh and green skin color). They are then rinsed in flowing mountain spring water, wrung dry, and mixed with white sugar before being sun-dried. Young women often prepare this delicacy before getting married, to serve to guests during the New Year after moving into their husband’s home. When drying the orange peel, they sometimes skillfully carve patterns such as carp, butterflies, or flowers into the peel with small knives. The finished product almost looks like a piece of art—one might hesitate to eat it. The orange peel features emerald-green edges, jade-white flesh, a delicate fragrance, and a sweet, refreshing taste. It aids digestion, strengthens the liver, and improves eyesight. Chewing a few slices with tea not only fills the mouth with sweetness and aroma but also helps regulate digestion and soothe the spleen and stomach.

    Every year from July to September, the scenes of making spiced ginger and spiced radish across Yongxin County’s towns and villages can be described as a beautiful spectacle: rows of pickling jars neatly placed on rooftops, courtyard walls, and drying grounds... everywhere is packed with thick, dark-brown pickling sauce giving off an intoxicating aroma in the sunlight. The pickling process is much more complex than making orange peel and requires strict attention to cleanliness and hygiene. The first step is making the base sauce. Glutinous rice is steamed to encourage the growth of beneficial microbial enzymes, then mixed with water and sun-dried for seven days to produce a richly fragrant, deeply sweet sauce. The second step, for spiced ginger, involves briefly boiling peeled and cleaned ginger in water, then placing it in the sauce and sun-drying it under the fierce sun for another seven days. After washing off the sauce and drying the surface moisture, it is sealed in a clay jar. After about a month, a thick layer of fragrant, sweet white crystal sugar (enzyme-produced sugar) forms on the ginger’s surface. The thicker the layer, the better the quality. The interior of the spiced ginger has a slight brown sugar hue, red tinged with yellow, with a salty, sweet, and mildly spicy flavor. It warms the stomach, nourishes the brain, refreshes the mind, and is especially effective in treating dizziness and headaches. There’s a saying in Yongxin: “Eating spiced ginger in the morning is better than drinking ginseng soup.” As for spiced radish, it is made by pickling salted radish and drying it with the sauce. The finished product also has a layer of white crystal sugar on the outside—loose, fine-textured, and balanced in sweetness and saltiness. It is highly nutritious, containing various amino acids essential to the human body, making it a premium health food. Additionally, spiced ginger and spiced radish can be used to cook loach or stew chicken and duck, removing fishy odors and enhancing the flavor of the broth, making it especially delicious and sweet.

    Honey eggplant is made from high-quality unripe eggplants and premium honey (or white sugar), refined through the traditional nine-steaming and nine-sunning process, commonly known as Nine-Steam Honey Eggplant. The finished product is deep coffee-colored, clear and translucent in appearance, fragrant to the nose, and sweet and delicious to the taste—it truly excels in color, aroma, and flavor. This renowned specialty is not only rich in nutrients and visually appealing, earning it the title of an elegant food, but also moistens the lungs, stops coughing up blood, and offers certain therapeutic effects for lung diseases and bronchitis.