Shen Jialu: Food is the nostalgia of mixed flavors

Shen Jialu, the main pen, senior journalist. Member of the Chinese Writers Association, a director of Shanghai Writers Association. His works have won the 1990 "Bud" Literature Award, 1994 "Guangzhou Literature and Art" award, 1996 "Shanhua" award, and 1991 and 1996 "Shanghai Literature" Literature Award. Published "Fashion Old Furniture" and "Finding Old Furniture" in 2004, showing the immortal charm of classic old furniture, leading readers to shuttle between classical and fashion, opening the window of cultural appreciation of old Western furniture, becoming the era of like to like the West at that time. Must -read books for old furniture. He also likes to collect ceramics and furniture, but he is more willing to be regarded as a gourmet, and he is self -proclaimed with a Shanghai old lady.

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Food is the nostalgic nostalgia

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Shen Jialu

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What makes me more tangled now is that as a gourmet, Shen Jialu, his secular reputation actually surpassed Shen Jialu as a writer. In the relevant reports of the Shanghai Book Fair this year, some reporters simply removed my "writer" title and crowned "gourmet" or "famous gourmet critics". They may think so: gourmets are more appealing than writers.

Coincidentally, this year's Shanghai Book Fair, I have two foods published and signed, one is the Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House's "Eat leftovers", and the other is Shanghai Cultural Publishing House's "Shanghai Old Taste". The first edition of "Shanghai Old Taste" was launched in 2007, was reprinted in 2012, and was printed many times in ten years. There are also Taiwan traditional characters and English versions. This year, the third version was launched, which added 100 pages of capacity. Less than half an hour on the day of signing, the books prepared by the publisher were all sold out. "Eat the remaining words" is the first time that it has been published, and it has also encountered the "CD -ROM Action".

In fact, this year's book fair also launched my literary review collection "Chengnan Blossom", which was published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House and funded by the Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation. This book took me a lot of hard work. It was the crystallization of dialogue and cultural observation with artists in the past ten years, including some book reviews. I don't say how good this book is writing. Just two points. One, before talking to a painter, I will copy his works many times. I think this is a very necessary thought or art preparation, which not only allows me to find a breakthrough in the dialogue, but also understand the character's temperament. Second, when I write a book review, I must carefully read the book preparing to comment before writing. Is this worthwhile? But if you have read most of the book reviews that are chaotic and unbounded today, you will understand my clumsy approach. In fact, it continues a tradition and spirit. However, the publisher may not be optimistic about such books. It is estimated that it is insufficient and supply. Many readers have not bought it. I regret it to me. I can only respond with regretful expressions.

A reporter asked me: In recent years, you do n’t write novels much, but you are keen to write food articles. Do n’t you think this is a waste of talent and time?

This poke to my pain. More than thirty years ago, I first appeared in the literary world, relying on novel creation. It is the foundation of my standing. When I write a novel, I think of my thoughts, shaking my spirits, and eating it. I fell asleep when I fell down. I had a sense of existence and happiness. Later, I joined the news, the work was busy, the information was complicated, and I didn't let me write down. However, I still write a novel every two or three years to maintain the relationship with literature at the speed of jogging.

When I was writing novels, I occasionally involved in the field of food culture. I have an advantage in this regard. At the end of the 1980s, it seemed to be still using food stamps and redeeming coupons in the field of circulation. In order to open the situation of foreign -related tourism, the Shanghai Municipal Government prepared a group of designated restaurants for foreign -related tourism as a window unit for the quality of service quality to receive foreign guests. I am a member of the expert team who participated in the qualification assessment. At that time, I was only a little bit in their early thirties. Later, I made friends with many chefs in Megatron and Lakes, and learned a lot of "Dragon Dragons". Some chefs have first -class technology and their cultural level is relatively low. When they evaluate the title, they need to submit papers. It is really heavy in a pen in my hand, so I ask me to help. In this way, I found that Chinese cooking is indeed a deep learning.

However, when you write this article as a serious matter, you need to push it by others. With the prosperity of Shanghai's tourism industry, there are more newspapers and periodical newspapers. They need food articles very much, so please write. Fortunately, I have a certain literary foundation and aesthetic experience, and I can maintain enough soberness in the praise of others, and I write very seriously. On one occasion, I wrote two foods for "Maritime Literature", and Wu Liang, who was the magazine of the master, "blame" and I wrote too seriously. As far as food articles are concerned, I hate the menu -style articles that are straightforward and step -by -step, and more resistant to the kind of showing articles that are stitched with teeth and full. Humanistic thoughts with truth, goodness and beauty as the core content, and also to appreciate the fashionable style of openness, courage to integrate globalization and informatization.

Chinese traditional literati has always emphasized "text to carry the way", right? The food theme is really easy to write as a pastime, but it is not absolute. Zhuangzi said: Dao is drowing. Then food can also be said. Since modern times, Zhou Zuoren, Liang Shiqiu, Zhang Henshui, Lin Yutang, Tang Lusun, Wang Zengqi, Wang Shixiang, Deng Yunxiang, Zhao Yan and other predecessors have been good at writing food articles, fresh and timeless, and long aftertaste. Experience, knowledge, style, thought, and feelings. I hope my food articles can do this. Shanghai is an immigrant city. In the development of more than 100 years, it has been accepted and compatible with each other. It has greatly exceeded the indigenous immigrants in this port. However, it should also be seen that at every node of the times, there are inevitable situations of rapid turning. Due to too much centrifugal power, some people are thrown out of the original orbit, and a brief spiritual shock will appear. The traditional nostalgic nostalgia, even a sigh of "falling flowers and spring". It is manifested at the level of material life, which is the urban landscape that misses the disappearance, such as the pattern of Shikumen's house and the citizen ecology. Miscellaneous shops such as the world. The colorful food is naturally induced by the desire and self -comfort.

This is inevitable that a century -old emotions are inevitable: in Shanghai to enter the historical barrier of the new and old century, many citizens began to be nostalgic, start to cherish and miss what they have lost, and panic and anxiety about what to be lost. The so -called food is just an inducement in many cases. The nostalgia on the tip of the tongue must be mixed.

So I think: a person's memory is also the common memory of a generation. The flavor cuisine enriches our sense of taste and adjusts our cold life, especially the one -person, one thing, love, and one state maintained by home food, which is the inherent reasons for us to forget. It belongs to the spiritual level, and it is more worthy of collecting and passing it to the next generation than the taste provided by the food itself. I tried to write each food article as a simple and plain life prose, so as to miss life, miss loved ones, and strive to be humorous and humorous in the narrative style, rather than monotonous and boring recipes. I have designed three paths for myself: the relationship between man and food, the relationship between food and nature, and the relationship between people who occur with food as the medium.

From the perspective of history and sociology, flavor snacks are not only personal memories, but also the memory of the city, and even nursery rhymes of the city. They are the genes of the city and the password of urban civilization. Cities without flavor snacks not only lack a simple and beautiful style, but also not worthy of retention. With flavor snacks, the city has vitality and vitality, and has personality and color. The richer the flavor snacks, the stronger the market atmosphere, the more open the city is, and the more wise citizens will be. Today, the city expands rapidly, and many of the space for folk food has been repeatedly compressed until it disappears. In many cases, they are squeezed out. I pay attention to these stories that will disappear snacks and the employees behind them. I hope to retain people's memories, because these memories have become alive, and human feelings become plump and specific.

One year, Wang Weiming of the Youth Daily invited me to open a column in his deputy publication, specially written food, and hoped that young readers could gain a useful life experience from the food. I lock the topic on the forthcoming flavor food. Oil and salt sauce vinegar is put on, and it has been written for several years. Once I took a plane to Beijing, I heard a passenger laughing in the first two rows of passengers in the cabin. I followed the reputation and found that the beautiful eyebrows were reading my column in the Youth Daily. Coincidentally, returning to Shanghai a week later, I saw an uncle on the plane and read my food articles on "Oriental Airlines" and couldn't support it. Before getting off the plane, he secretly stuffed this magazine into the leather bag.

Since readers like to read my food articles, it shows that my text still scratched the reader's itching place.

In 2007, I published dozens of gourmet articles. The title of the book was directly called "Shanghai Old Taste", and asked Mr. Dunbang to draw more than thirty illustrations. In Kumen, the ecology of Shanghai citizens is quite familiar. The city style and alleys in his writing are lifelike, making up for the shortcomings of the text, and given a vivid footnote for the history of the modern and contemporary urban life in Shanghai. This book was sold after the cabinet, and repeatedly printed it, which made me feel full.

Later, I published seven or eight kinds of food such as "Eliminating Foods", "Beauty Duck Head", "Shanghai People Eat", "Fish Eat", "Faste", "Eat the remaining words" and other seven or eight gourmet foods. All ordinary readers are buying. Especially those Shanghai people who left Shanghai in the early years to work in other provinces were settled in the book that they had eaten when they were a child. The past scenes suddenly came in front of them.

Shen Jialu's part of the gourmet collections

It is a reader who gives me a warmer life experience, and also gives me the motivation and reason to continue writing.

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Food writing does consume a lot of time and energy of me, but it also helps me accumulate life and feelings in novel creation.A young foodie asked me how to write a good food article. I think writing real feelings is the most important.The relationship between people and food is equal, with gratitude, with a cherishment, and humble heart, and can bring three points of feelings at the bottom of the pen.The bland details can also take people's heart, and the honest and flat text can also produce a sense of vicissitudes and modernity. The key is whether it can touch the softest, secret and delicate place of human nature.I have been reminding myself: I can't slip into superficiality to pursue the sense of humor or the thrill of the superiors.

Novels are literature, and good food articles also belong to literature.For me, the two are two parallel lines, just like the lovers in the past life, and they suddenly intersect together when they walk.

This article has been authorized by the author, and the graphic and text are provided by the author

The fan surface in the picture is the author's work

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