Kunming snacks with a sense of hometown and nostalgia

Author: Lao Kai / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: The Oedipus complex (i.e., mother complex), which is a subconscious phenomenon frequently mentioned in Freud's pioneering psychoanalytic theory. Although the "mianxiang complex" of Kunming people cannot be ranked on par with the severity of the Oedipus complex, it at least indicates that mianxiang is not just a dietary habit and preference for Kunming people, but also an emotional attachment and expression. It is no exaggeration to say that Kunming people have grown up both on rice and on mianxiang. Most Kunming people's breakfast, lunch, and late-night snacks are inseparable from a bowl of steaming hot mianxiang year-round. During festivals and weekends, families often treat mianxiang as their main meal. When visiting graves or going on excursions, they prefer to picnic on cool mianxiang under the shade of trees. When guests come from afar, the best etiquette is to treat them to a high-end Guoqiang mianxiang—how could this be exaggerated? Cooked rice retains its grain shape, just expanded and doubled in size. Year after year, day after day, meal after meal, the grains become tiresome for Kunming people. One day, they suddenly had an inspiration to innovate and embark on a great reform, deciding to stretch the grains into lines to eat—who dares to accuse Kunming people of lacking imagination? For a main meal, one must wait until several dishes and a soup are served, then the family gathers around the table in order of seniority, each with a bowl of rice, and eats by picking meat and vegetables, dipping them in soup, and washing them down with rice. Mianxiang is a fast-food type, easy to eat without hassle, combining various toppings like meat, vegetables, soy sauce, chili, MSG, pickled vegetables, and soup in one bowl. Everyone eats separately, hygienic like the Western custom of separate dining, simple yet rich, casual yet free. Compared to the bland steamed buns and filled buns in Northern Chinese cuisine, Kunming's mianxiang is truly a feast for the eyes, a delight for the taste buds, and a variety of flavors: large pot mianxiang, small pot mianxiang, clay pot mianxiang, braised mianxiang, cool mianxiang, stir-fried mianxiang, Guoqiang mianxiang. Cool mianxiang comes in sour soup, assorted, tofu flower, eel, etc., while hot mianxiang hased into braised meat, shredded chicken, spicy, tender beef, fried sauce, and three fresh mianxiang. Still the same mianxiang, but it has vividly unfolded the dazzling five colors of white, green, red, yellow, and orange, and the refreshing five flavors of fresh, fragrant, salty, spicy, and sour. The richness of mianxiang toppings stems from the year-round fresh vegetables in Kunming's plains, making mianxiang a evergreen snack in Kunming, loved by young and old, rich and poor. Its endless appeal and enduring charm reflect the kindness, loyalty, and devotion in the character of Kunming people. Outsiders eat mianxiang as a "tourist product," driven by novelty and curiosity, while Kunming people eat it with deep affection, from beginning to end, finding more flavor and closeness with each bite. Because they are eating the fragrant rice fields surrounding Kunming's plains, the orchids blooming in summer, and the willows swaying in spring—the essence, vitality, and spirit of hometown and sentiment! Sometimes, I absurdly imagine: if tomorrow a ban on eating mianxiang were suddenly imposed, how many Kunming people would be melancholic, restless, suffering from cravings, unable to sleep? After enduring this, would they gather on the streets, shouting, "Give us mianxiang!" or "Without mianxiang, we die!" Such fantasies are purely ridiculous, but they truly make some Kunming people away from home (especially women) suffer. Kunming writer Lady Zhang Manling once mentioned mianxiang in her letters to me in the late 1970s while studying at Peking University, and she could not help but vividly describe it as if describing a delicious meal. When I studied in France, I visited Tang Lejing in the small town of Sertean, who fiercely told me, "I am married, settled in Sertean, but I am the only Chinese here. I really want to match Kunming's widows with Sertean's widowers, taking French men to cafes on weekends and inviting a group of Kunming women for picnic cool mianxiang outings." Her subconscious is filled with the "mianxiang complex." P2-5