The Nostalgic Taste of Wenzhou

WENZHOU, a port city in southeastern China’s Zhejiang Province, is situated on the south bank of the Oujiang River, and thus has local delicacies known as “Ou cuisine.” With its tradition as a commercial city, there are now tens of thousands of Wenzhou merchants doing business around the world, but their memories of the food from their hometown never fade. Wenzhou’s food is simple and straightforward. Mouth-watering delicacies are available everywhere, from food stalls to restaurants. In Wenzhou, with its diverse topography and land forms, there are multiple ingredients to choose from, and seafood prepared with its original taste is the most popular. And the cuisine not only shares traits with Zhejiang’s delicacy, but also possesses its own distinct characteristics.

Raw crab salad, a classic cold dish, uses swimming crabs from the Oujiang River and marinates in a blend of ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, and white pepper for about half an hour to an hour. It tastes sweet and sour, with the prominent flavor of rice wine.

Scylla serrata, or mud crab, is the most favorite crab dish for Wenzhou locals. The best time to savor the plump crab is around the midautumn day. The steamed crab tastes fresh and sweet, and it is dipped in soy sauce and vinegar as most Wenzhou people prefer. The dressing, an essential on the dining table, is specially made from local rice vinegar, which should be boiled first with soy sauce as well as some minced garlic.

Fish ball is a popular snack in Wenzhou. To prepare this dish, fish bones are picked out and fish meat is seasoned with starch, the mixture kneaded till it turns elastic. Though called fish balls, they are actually long strips, resembling little fish. After boiling them in the soup, they are scooped out and garnished with rice vinegar, scallions, and pepper powder. The fish balls sold in restaurants are made daintier and tastier without much starch, and are served in a bowl of soup dotted with green beans and wontons.

Minced fish with three sliced garnishes is one of the “three specialties” in the Ou cuisine. Fresh yellow croakers or brown croakers sourced from the East China Sea are chosen to make the dish. The fish meat wrapped with cassava starch needs to be slightly pounded into thin fish fillets with a mallet, and then cooked in boiling water, adding shredded chicken, sliced ham, sliced mushroom, and cooked Chinese baby cabbage. The fish fillets taste tender and the soup delicious, with an eyecatching bright color.

The exceptional culinary skills are also used in cooking seasonal fresh vegetables. The inner layers of leaves are stir-fried to make a dish and are dressed with vegetable juice pureed from the outer layers of the Chinese cabbage.

A bowl of glutinous rice, topped with mushrooms and pork paste, sprinkled with chopped green onions, as well as a spoon of gravy often reminds people of the comfort of a caring family. The rice must be accompanied with crispy fried dough sticks and another bowl of sweet syrup, jellied bean curd, or egg drop soup. There are two kinds of jellied bean curd, sweet and salty. The salty variant is nothing unusual, while the sweet taste is added with sugar and mint water. The mint water is an indispensable dessert mate in Wenzhou, and emanates a refreshing smell similar to cooling balm.

Almond fruit pudding is a traditional summer dessert. It is cooked with almonds, agar, milk, sugar, and water, garnished with oranges, yellow peaches, mangoes, dried bayberry, raisins, and other ingredients, and is shaped as and tastes similar to bean curd. A bowl of the dish can cool one down and provide relief from the summer heat.

Strolling around the old town of Wenzhou, time seems to pass by so slowly that everything appears to travel back in time to childhood days with a familiar taste which has never changed. C