China News Service, Xining, July 26 (Zhou Ruichenzi) In the midsummer of China, many places are too hot, but in the cool climate of Qinghai Plateau, there are countless fans of the "warming pot food festival", which is also a favorite of the locals. Summer activities add a sense of ritual, and the craftsmen also create "heavy tools" for this.
Hold the group for "warmness", boil meat in a 1.2-ton copper pot
Recently, the Fifth Folk Culture and Art Festival and Hot Pot Food Festival in Huangzhong District, Xining City, Qinghai Province was held at Zongkayi in the district. Some villages and catering units here used northwest characteristic warm pots of different sizes to cook warm dishes. The pot feast, an extra-large heating pot weighing about 1.2 tons, is amazing.
According to the designer of the heating pot, Wang Fubang, the pot was made by 72 silver and bronze craftsmen in more than two months. The shape follows the open shape of the traditional heating pot. It adopts hammering, engraving, gilding and wrong silver. A variety of traditional crafts such as inlays, inlays, etc., using traditional patterns such as the eight auspicious treasures and the wishful lotus.
The picture shows the Huangzhong heating pot photo by Ma Mingyan
In addition, there are 100 warm pots of different sizes and patterns on the food festival site, such as bridge steak, yellow braised lamb, mushroom stewed chicken, vegetarian mixed and other warm pots based on local special ingredients, attracting tourists to taste them. Likes constantly.
Participant Wang Qiang is from Lanzhou, Gansu. After more than ten years in the catering industry in Huangzhong, Qinghai, he has become a senior player in the "warmer".
"Huangzhong is the hometown of warm pots on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Every household eats warm pots here. From the very beginning, only cooking beef and mutton soup has developed into spicy and Beijing flavors," said Wang Qiang.
Wang Qiang, who has participated in the 5th Hot Pot Festival, knows the preferences of the diners. The beef brisket warming pot made with local yak beef and the tiger skin chicken claw shrimp warming pot combined with Sichuan characteristics are wiped out as soon as they are on the table, Wang Qiang said : "Next year he intends to continue to work hard on ingredients. It is also possible to put precious ingredients into a warm pot for cooking."
The picture shows Zhao Haishan engraving patterns on the lid of the warming pot. Photo by Ma Mingyan
It takes tens of thousands of hammers to be worthy of being "worthy on earth"
It is understood that the material of the heating pot is mainly copper. The uniqueness of the Huangzhong heating pot is that it is not made by spinning like the traditional heating pot, but is mainly hammered by hand, and the decorative pattern is also pure. Hand-engraved.
Zhao Haishan, 35 years old this year, is a local copper craftsman. According to him, Huangzhong heating pots are all handmade. The perfect presentation of a heating pot requires copper quenching, styling, design patterns, engraving, etc. Nearly a hundred steps, just hammering requires tens of thousands of times.
Zhao Haishan said: "Not only do we make pots by hand, but the tools we need to make pots are all handmade. For example, there are more than one hundred kinds of chisel for engraving patterns. Make chisel of different shapes. Each craftsman starts with different weights and angles, so you need to make chisel according to your own habits."
The picture shows the Huangzhong extra large heating pot photo by Ma Mingyan
Warm the pot, fill your stomach, bulge the money bag
According to Zhao Haishan, he learned copper processing skills from his father since he was a child, and has nearly 20 years of experience in copper processing. Currently, he is mainly responsible for the production of warm pots, while his father puts more energy on the production of handicrafts.
Every summer, there is an endless stream of people looking for Zhao Haishan to make pots, and then there are online orders. He looked at his mobile phone photo album and said triumphantly: "This pot is a work I will participate in in 2020, called Tiger Tray. The copper eight-treasure heating pot was sold three months ago for 21,500 yuan."
According to reports, Zhao Haishan and his father's shop has a turnover of nearly 1 million yuan in heating pots each year, and the net profit can reach more than 300,000 yuan.
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