2200年历史的中国“汉堡包”，很难边走边吃
2023-05-12 11:22阅读：
肉夹馍将走向何方？陈晓卿笑着讲述自己曾听一名餐厅老板说要做一种可以让人边走边吃的肉夹馍，“这是对肉夹馍的不尊重，要真正品味肉夹馍，你需要静静地坐下，闭上双眼细细品味每一口。”
Roujiamo: China's 2,200-year-old 'burger'
The Chinese pork-and-flatbread sandwich known as roujiamo has been
called 'the world's oldest hamburger'. Like much in China, its
precise origins are shrouded in the mists of time.
My first encounter with roujiamo (肉夹馍) was on an early winter's day
a quarter of a century ago, in a bitterly cold, wind-scoured
Beijing alleyway. There, I stumbled across a weather-beaten
itinerant vendor, braced against the chill in a thick padded-cotton
jacket and fur hat, making roujiamo to order off the back of a
three-wheeled bicycle cart. From a bubbling, soot-black cauldron
suspended over
a blazing puck of coal, he ladled out long-braised morsels of pork
and plunked them onto a tree-stump chopping block. Next, he used a
cleaver to mince the pork together with what seemed like an entire
fist's-worth of coriander, added a dollop of rich broth from the
pot, and wielded the cleaver once more to deftly slice open a
crisp, hand-sized freshly baked flatbread and nestle the glistening
pile of meat inside.
When he handed it over, wrapped in a plastic bag, it was so hot
that it scalded my fingers. I gingerly peeled back the edges of the
bag and took a bite. In the fading light of that winter afternoon,
roujiamo – the crunch of the bun, the meltingly tender pork with
its scalding burst of juice and the bracing tang of coriander – was
a revelation.
Roujiamo at its best is a primal thing. Cooked and sold in the
elements, it's a street food that comes wreathed in an aura of
ancient dynasties, the Silk Road and far-off desert frontiers. The
sandwich is closely associated with the north-central city of Xi'an
in Shaanxi province. Since 202 BCE, Xi'an has been both the eastern
terminus of the Silk Road and the capital for 13 more-or-less
successive Chinese dynasties.
The meat preparation used to make the filling for roujiamo is
traditionally traced back to the Warring States period (475 to 221
BCE). The introduction into China of Central Asian-style
flatbreads, like the kind used in roujiamo, is often credited to
Ban Chao, a Chinese general who spent more than 30 years battling a
confederation of nomadic tribes during the 1st Century to regain
control of the farthest western reaches of China.
Every family has its own roujiamo recipe, but there are some
constants. First comes the lazhi (腊汁), or stock, which includes a
list of spices that reads like the cargo manifest for a Silk Road
caravan: ginger, star anise, cassia, Sichuan peppercorn, loquat and
two medicinal herbs called Fructus Amomi and Lanxangia tsaoko (all
originally domesticated in China); dried tangerine peel (likely
domesticated in the Indo-Burma region); white pepper, sand ginger
and cardamom (from South India); cumin (from Western Asia); and
nutmeg and clove (from the Spice Islands of Indonesia), to name
just the most common ones. A special premium is placed on 'aged'
stock (陈年老汁) – the most legendary examples of which are purported
to have been lovingly tended to and bubbling away for decades, if
not centuries.
Once the stock is made, thick slices of pork belly take their turn
in the pot, simmering for hours. The flatbread bun, called baijimo
(白吉馍), takes its name from what is today known as Beiji township.
Sitting some 130km northwest of Xi'an, the town was once a
horse-resupply post along China's equivalent of the Pony Express
system, which ran far west to the most distant reaches of the
empire. Baijimo was traditionally made by sticking partially
leavened dough against the wall of a wood-fired, Central
Asian-style oven. Today, in a modern nod to simplicity and
expedience, it's often cooked to blazing-hot crispness in a
pan.
Sadly, thanks to rapidly rising standards of living and government
regulation, the more rustic styles of roujiamo have largely been
chased out of the alleyways of Chinese cities. But roujiamo is
still much-loved in China, and it's in little danger of
disappearing. Its enduring popularity has spawned numerous
nationwide chains such as Zhang Family Ziwu Road Roujiamo
(子午路张记肉夹馍) and Bingz Crispy Burger (西少爷). And even in bustling
southern Chinese cities like Shenzhen, it's often possible to find
a roujiamo vendor somewhere deep within the local food courts,
albeit with the pork simmering away in an electric slow cooker
rather than over an open fire.
To be sure, roujiamo is far from the perfect food. Despite its
comparison to a hamburger, it's notoriously hazardous to eat on the
go. Proper roujiamo is filled to bursting, regardless of the
potential consequences for one's clothes and dry-cleaning budget.
(Wrapping it in a plastic bag helps, but only so much.)
'You have to use both hands to eat roujiamou; otherwise, the
filling's just going to launch out from both sides of the bun,'
said Beijing-based film director Chen Xiaoqing. 'It doesn't really
work to walk around and eat roujiamou at the same time.'
Chen has spent the better part of the past several decades mapping
China's culinary landscape in a series of wildly popular food
documentaries, including Netflix's Flavorful Origins. While the
style of roujiamo people are most familiar with is associated with
Xi'an, he says, there's actually a range of styles, distinctly
different from each other.
His own favourite is Tongguan roujiamo (潼关肉夹馍), named after a
garrison town that, in days long past, guarded a strategic pass
roughly 120km east of Xi'an. The flatbread used for Tongguan
roujiamo is unlike that used in the Xi'an style. With less
leavening, it has coils densely folded together like a snake
charmer's basket; crisp and flaky, the bread shatters into the pork
with every bite.
'The surface is really rough and uneven, so when you pick it up, it
just feels good in your hands,' Chen said. 'It takes real heart to
make it right – but when that happens, it makes me dizzy.'
Other commonly seen styles include one with a filling of la niurou
(腊牛肉), a close cousin of corned beef that's associated with Xi'an's
substantial Muslim population. The city of Qishan, about 120km west
of Xi'an, has its own version made with minced pork and red
chillies. And over the past few years, a variation called duijia
(对夹), from Chifeng in far-off Inner Mongolia has taken China by
storm: it features a bun made from millet flour and a crisp, smoked
pork filling.
Roujiamo has made its way abroad, too. Chen says his production
team, en route to watch Chelsea football team play in London,
happily stumbled upon a restaurant called Xi'an Impression selling
roujiamo directly across from Emirates Stadium. Bingz Crispy Burger
has opened locations in Singapore and Canada. And in New York,
Xi'an natives David Shi and his son Jason Wang have turned a
basement stall in a Flushing shopping centre into a local empire
called Xi'an Famous Foods, which now boasts a dozen locations. Wang
says there was never any doubt that roujiamo would feature
prominently on the menu.
'It's such a classic dish of Xi'an,' he said. 'It'd be like saying
we're going to open an American brunch restaurant, but without any
bacon.'
Roujiamo has room for experimentation and innovation. Seitan
roujiamo, made from wheat gluten, has made occasional appearances
on the specials board at Xi'an Famous Foods. And even in Xi'an
itself, it's possible to find a mash-up of roujiamo and the Sichuan
stalwart malatang (麻辣烫), or hot spicy soup. In malatang roujiamo,a
traditional roujiamo bun is stuffed chock full of sinuous ribbons
of tofu skin, sliced potatoes and thick slices of seaweed, all
bathed in an incendiary dose of chilli oil.
For all that, though, roujiamo has proven stubbornly resistant to
high-concept reinvention, and the best versions don't stray too far
from the classic, rough-around-the-edges approach. McDonald's
learned this the hard way in 2021 when the company finally decided
to try its own hand at 'the world's oldest hamburger'. Roujiamo
appeared on the breakfast menu for a 24-day limited run to mark
Chinese New Year – and promptly earned scads of angry hashtags for,
bafflingly, being made with chicken (served in criminally meagre
portions, to boot). Roujiamo has not appeared on the menu
since.
So where is roujiamo headed next? When we talked, Chen mentioned
that he'd heard from a famous restaurateur in China who is working
to develop a roujiamo that people can more easily eat while they
walk. Then he laughed.
'I feel like if you try to eat a good roujiamou while you're
walking down the street, it's just kind of an insult to it – a sort
of disrespect,' he said. Chen paused for a second, as if lost in a
happy memory. 'To really do it justice, you need to sit very still,
close both eyes and savour every bite.'
