Tianjin whitebait

Silverfish, a specialty of Tianjin, is called "the remnant fish" in ancient times. According to legend, whitebait is made from leftovers. Cylindrical, scaleless, with only one cartilage left in it, which can be eaten by thorns. From late autumn to early winter, it grows to 20 cm and weighs more than 100 grams. Because it doesn't eat sundries, it only absorbs nutrients in water, its abdomen is pure and its viscera are not seen, and its whole body is as white as jade, hence the name. You don't have to break your stomach when eating, and there is no fishy smell. Whitebait grows in the salt water of Bohai Bay and migrates to Haihe River and Jiyun Canal. Ninghe River to Beitang River is a famous producing area. Every winter, fresh fat is full of seeds, and they flock into Haihe River to lay eggs. When I swam to the mouth of Sancha River, the thin ice on the river surface began to recover, and the fishermen broke the ice to net it. The whitebait here and now has golden eyes, which is the most precious, commonly known as "golden-eyed whitebait". When it is sold, the male and female are paired to set off the leaves, which are white and green, which is very gratifying, and there is a clear fragrance of cucumber, which is fresh and tender. Specialty culture: Liu Jin, the eunuch of the Ming Dynasty, loved whitebait, and once set up a "whitebait factory eunuch" in Tianjin to collect whitebait from Weihe River. When Yuan Shikai was in power, he once set up a "whitebait tax", which shows its preciousness. "New Records of Tianjin County"; "There are many common fish, but whitebait is a specialty. It is frozen in severe winter and collected in Sancha River. It is obtained by cutting ice and netting. It is clear and clear, and its ignorance is fresh, which is beyond the comparison of other producers." Cui Xu once praised "ice fresh jade out of the net is not as good as jade". Zhou Chu-liang also lamented in "Poems on Bamboo Branches in Jinmen" that "the whitebait is tasted like cucumber when it is used as soup, and the jade eye is as expensive as the golden eye, and the Haihe River is not as strong as the Weihe River". Efficacy of special products: there are many ways to make whitebait, such as cinnabar whitebait, Korean whitebait, whitebait with white sauce, fried whitebait with leek and whitebait soup. Sour-and-sour whitebait, official-burned whitebait, and whitebait rot. Whitebait is sweet and flat in taste, good at nourishing the spleen and stomach, benefiting the lungs and promoting diuresis, and treating diseases such as spleen and stomach weakness, cough due to lung deficiency, and consumptive tuberculosis.
Reprinted with attribution： https://cnlocality.com/(Chinese Specialty Products)