Gonggua

Gonggua is a traditional famous product in Shaoxing, which is as famous as yellow rice wine and fermented bean curd. Gonggua was once one of the eight tributes of Shaoxing in history, so it was named Gonggua. Gonggua is pickled from cucumber. Select the fat, fresh and tender first-class cucumber with a length of about 6 inches, wash it, dry it in the shade, marinate it with a specified proportion of salt, take it out for 10 to 5 days, bleach it with clear water, mix it with sweet noodle sauce, put it in the jar layer by layer, seal it with yellow mud, marinate it in the sauce for about 25 days, and then open the jar for eating. Gonggua is bright red in color, fresh and tender in meat, salty and sweet, crisp and refreshing. When eating, wash off the paste, cut it into thin slices, and mix it with sesame oil. It tastes very delicious, especially as an accompaniment to porridge and rice soaked in water. Because of its low price and good quality, it can promote appetite and is deeply loved by people in urban and rural areas. In the Qing Dynasty, Shaoxing had a certain number of tribute melons transported to Beijing every year. It is said that in the Qing Dynasty Palace, the concubines liked millet porridge for breakfast and Gonggua for porridge. It is said that there is a custom in the Qing court. From the early summer, the palace advocates plain and clean dishes, and the royal family and relatives compete to follow suit, including the tribute melon in Shaoxing. Every year, the Palace Office of Internal Affairs distributed Shaoxing Gonggua to princes and ministers in the name of the emperor, but the quantity was too small to meet the needs of princes and ministers, so they sent people to ask Shaoxing local officials for it, and Shaoxing Gonggua became famous in Kyoto. Before liberation, Liu Hexing in Shuicheng Lane, Shen Tongmei in Changqiaotou, Xianheng in Caoyou Bridge, Qianyu in Kaminooji, Song Wensheng and Anchang Renchang in Ke Qiao all produced tribute melons, which were exported to all parts of the country and overseas. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the production of Gonggua has developed further. Reclaiming land from the sea in the 1970s, the vast beach became the base for planting cucumber, which provided sufficient raw materials for making Gonggua. After the 1980s, Shaoxing produced tribute melons, including Xianheng Food Factory, Shaoxing Brewery and Chengnan Food Factory in the urban area, and more than 10 pickles factories in Shaoxing county, with an annual output of about 150 tons of tribute melons.
Reprinted with attribution： https://cnlocality.com/(Chinese Specialty Products)