China News Service, Shanghai, February 24th: Nanxiang Xiaolong Steamed Buns "Airborne" in Paris
China News Service reporter Li Jiajia
A small piece of dough weighing only 9 grams, with the tacit cooperation of two rolling pins, turns into a sun-shaped dough that is thin around and thick in the middle, wrapping 21 grams of filling core. Each pleat is uniform in length and thickness...short In just ten seconds, a Nanxiang steamed bun shaped like a pagoda stood in the palm of You Yumin's hand.
In February this year, the 124-year-old Yuyuan Nanxiang Steamed Bun Shop came to Paris, France for the first time.
As the sixth generation intangible inheritor of Nanxiang Xiaolong making skills, You Yumin and her team traveled tens of thousands of kilometers to bring the original "Shanghai taste" to the Yuyuan Lantern Festival in Paris, greatly satisfying the taste buds of fans.
In February 2024, at the Yuyuan Lantern Festival in Paris, France, there was a long queue in front of Nanxiang Steamed Bun Shop, full of fireworks.
Photo by Lu Junjian
Nanxiang steamed buns were originally a traditional specialty of Nanxiang Town, Jiading District, Shanghai.
During the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, a boss named Huang from Nanxiang opened a cake and pastry shop called "Rihuaxuan" in the town.
In order to stand out in the market competition, Huang Mingxian, the adopted son of Boss Huang, adopted the method of "heavy stuffing and thin skin, changing the big to small" method for the big meat steamed buns, and developed a bun filling formula based on pork essence meat, which gave rise to the world-famous " Nanxiang Xiaolong Steamed Buns”.
It's obviously a meat bun, but why is it called "mantou" in Shanghai?
This is mainly due to dialect.
The steamed buns in Shanghai are very different from those in the north.
Northerners call those with fillings steamed buns and those without fillings steamed buns. This is not the case in Shanghai. They are collectively called steamed buns. Vegetable steamed buns are vegetable steamed buns, and meat steamed buns are meat steamed buns. Even "fried steamed buns" and "xiaolongbao" are also called steamed buns. Known as "fried steamed buns" and "small cage steamed buns".
In the 26th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (AD 1900), Wu Xiangsheng, the brother-in-law of Huang Mingxian's daughter-in-law, wanted to expand his business and brought Zhao Qiurong, the master of making steamed buns, to Shanghai County, which was known as "the capital of the south of the Yangtze River and the link between the rivers and seas" at that time.
A store specializing in steamed buns was opened on the side of the Jiuqu Bridge in the Chenghuang Temple, named "Changxing Building", which is the predecessor of today's Yuyuan Nanxiang Steamed Bun Store.
A team of craftsmen from Nanxiang Steamed Bun Shop led by You Yumin showed off their intangible cultural heritage skills at the Yu Garden Lantern Festival in Paris, France.
Photo by Lu Junjian
Wu Xiangsheng also continued to improve on the original craftsmanship, changing from a large steamer to a small steamer. More than 16 pleats were made at the closing area, evenly and neatly arranged in a spiral shape, just like the open lips of a crucian carp. It is small and exquisite, showing his exquisiteness. of handicraftsmanship.
Even though Nanxiang Xiaolong Steamed Bun is a small one, its production process is quite particular. It not only uses unfermented all-purpose flour as the skin, but also has ten strict and standardized production processes, namely mixing the dough, rising the dough, pressing the dough, and rolling the dough into strips. , picking the embryos, kneading the embryos, rolling out the dough, making fillings, wrapping and kneading, cooking and steaming.
When steaming in the basket, the temperature, pressure and heat must also be strictly controlled. Steam in boiling water for 7 minutes, and it must be translucent when it comes out of the basket.
This time, Nanxiang Xiaolong Steamed Buns "went overseas" with the Yuyuan Lantern Festival. Due to transportation restrictions and ingredient requirements, it also brought a lot of challenges to You Yumin.
How to make the "same style" of Shanghai Yuyuan on-site in a foreign country and maintain the original characteristics is their biggest concern.
A team of craftsmen from Nanxiang Steamed Bun Shop led by You Yumin showed off their intangible cultural heritage skills at the Yu Garden Lantern Festival in Paris, France.
Photo by Lu Junjian
"From the weather, temperature, humidity to the types of ingredients, steaming tools, etc., the situation here is completely different from what we have in Shanghai." You Yumin told reporters that when making xiaolongbao in Shanghai, pork sandwich meat is generally used as the filling. That is the front leg meat, but there is no fat in the front leg meat of French pigs, and it is generally very lean meat. "So we can only use relatively fatter pork belly instead of sandwich meat."
In addition, the high-gluten flour in France is too strong, and the low-gluten flour is too bad. "We made several adjustments, and finally added bread flour and cake flour to prepare the flour that is most suitable for making pastries and use it to roll the dough."
After overcoming many difficulties, the team of Yuyuan Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant was finally able to present a show of intangible cultural heritage skills to local friends with great satisfaction.
Not long after the Lantern Festival opens every day, long queues of people already form in front of the stalls.
"Pick it up gently, move it slowly, open the window first, and drink the soup later." You Yumin introduced this traditional secret to tasting Xiaolong Steamed Bun while making it.
"It's really delicious!" At the Yuyuan Lantern Festival in Paris, Frenchman Cézanne (pseudonym) ate Nanxiang steamed buns for the first time. Although his chopstick skills were very limited, it did not affect his taste of this Shanghai intangible cultural heritage at all. Desserts are delicious.
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