China people have long distinguished from each other in shape. Sea cucumber and shark's fin symbolize men and are aphrodisiac. Abalone and bird's nest symbolize women and nourish yin. In fact, the ancients in China always thought that abalone was a nourishing food that was very beneficial to the body. There is a Chinese medicine theory that abalone can tonify deficiency, nourish yin, moisten lung, clear heat, nourish liver and improve eyesight, so it is called "eyesight fish". However, today's nutritionists believe that many extreme foods in China, including abalone, do not exceed the conventional nutritional value.

Professor Ma Guansheng of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety, China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the highest authority of nutrition in China, believes that there is little difference in protein between abalone and eggs, and other nutritional components such as calcium, iron, zinc, selenium and vitamins have no unique advantages. In fact, there is not much difference between abalone and other ordinary seafood in providing nutrition. Therefore, these precious things are not "precious" in nutrition. Professor Yang Yuexin in the same research institute personally led the determination of the nutritional components of abalone. She told me: "From the simple chemical composition analysis, we can't tell why the nutrition of abalone is high. Even some chefs in Zhongnanhai often ask us what kind of nutrition shark's fin and abalone have. In fact, the ability of scientists is limited. " She admits that their analysis is purely from the perspective of western science, that is, the determination of known trace elements such as minerals, protein and vitamins. "We know a lot about the ingredients in plants, but there are still few excavations about animals. Fish should also have many unknown ingredients." Finally, she stressed: "I estimate that no one in China has studied the nutrition of abalone from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, which is immaterial and holistic. This will not be the direction of our future research, because you can't apply for such a fund. "

In recent years, scientists have found that the life science represented by food nutrition is the most complicated of all sciences, and a characteristic is often expressed by multiple genes instead of one-to-one causality. In this case, if one of the ingredients is extracted, it may not have the original curative effect. Professor Mai Kangsen from Ocean University also felt some confusion in nutrition of China's best food, including abalone. "For abalone, why do people like it? Apart from non-scientific factors, is there a scientific reason? Ginseng is also an example, like a human figure. Science is preconceived, and the current impetuousness of China scientists and their rejection of what they think is not is the biggest obstacle to our scientific development. Under this circumstance, the prejudice against China culture and Chinese medicine is affirmative. " For example, he said that our body's immune system should be the most complete, and lower organisms have immunoglobulin, but shrimp is gone, and caterpillars have nothing. "But a caterpillar with no immune system and living in a dirty environment will live well. What's the matter? Is our methodology wrong? You use human immune methods to study worms, and you can't find anything, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't have that system, but it is expressed in another way. "

Will abalone contain something that can't be found in western nutrition? Western nutrition is nothing more than five basic substances: protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and sugar. Now people find that the sulfated lipopolysaccharide contained in sea cucumber can improve human immunity, which has nothing to do with nutrition, but has physiological and pharmacological effects. It is found that abalone is rich in refined ammonia, and some scientists speculate that human sperm swimming mainly depends on arginine.

High-end symbolic significance of food

Although abalone has no special nutrition and has been accepted by many China scholars and even those gourmets, this has not prevented eating abalone from becoming a high-end symbol in the food industry in China. A cooked Japanese dried abalone can fetch up to 168 yuan in a restaurant named shun feng near the Beijing Agricultural Exhibition Hall. Ten years ago, shun feng Catering Group successfully started high-grade seafood in China. Last year, its turnover ranked second in the domestic Chinese food industry. Chen Junhai is a senior employee here and also calls himself a gourmet. He told us about the extreme feeling of eating abalone: "Fresh abalone has the taste of fresh abalone, and dried abalone has the taste of dried abalone. Fresh abalone is fresh and fine; Dried abalone is soft and moderate in hardness, and it is somewhat elastic when bitten. When the teeth touch, it will push up and come down with a little force. At the same time, there is a special fragrance in the throat, and the aftertaste is around the mouth. Some people pursue this realm, and one or two is enough, 98 yuan! "

China people are often famous for their rich food culture. On almost any occasion, "eating" is a topic that you never tire of. So when Chinese people get rich, the first thing they may do is eat. People in China can prepare a meal for several days, especially Cantonese cuisine, which takes several days. In cooking, we should add cloud legs, old chicken and red meat to simmer slowly, so as to make it taste harmonious and give full play to the inherent umami of abalone. This is hard for westerners represented by male and female cultures to imagine and understand.

Beijing is undoubtedly a gourmet paradise for wealthy gourmets. Beijing, which is located in the political, cultural, economic and military center of China, means that there are the richest people here, and even those rich foreigners will flock to Beijing to spend money. Ten years ago, smart Cantonese and Hong Kong people came to Beijing to open a high-end abalone wing restaurant. Liang Chengwei, a Hong Kong native, became one of the most successful businessmen with his Viagra abalone. Now he has opened at least 2 abalone restaurants in mainland China and served as the chairman of the newly established abalone wing banquet committee in China.

one afternoon, he finally called and asked me to meet him. An hour later, in a suite living room of the Capital Hotel, I met this heavyweight in the abalone industry. As soon as I saw him, I immediately remembered the words of a photographer in Beijing: "The eyes of gourmets are very peaceful, unlike ordinary people who are nervous."

"Why are abalone popular in mainland China?" I asked him. This gourmet, who is quite gentlemanly and has a profound cultural accomplishment in China, thinks that there is a certain distance between food and nutrition. "At the dinner table, the most important thing is taste, not nutrition. Eggs are nutritious, but they can't replace the gourmet feeling in our gourmet world. There is also a cultural pursuit. " He then explained to me that this pursuit has led to a huge difference between American fast food culture and China people's food culture for thousands of years. "A steak and a hamburger can live, but abalone is not just a matter of eating enough for us. After eating good abalone, you will feel it the next day. Even the same abalone, the difference in taste between them is like the huge difference in quality between red wines. "

background knowledge

the color of abalone shell

the color of abalone shell varies with abalone species, food intake and growing environment. Abalone shells are rich in color, but most of them are green-brown or reddish-brown, which is a protective color similar to the environment where abalone lives, such as rocks or seaweed. However, different kinds of abalone have their relatively stable colors. The black abalone that eats giant algae is blue-black, while the red abalone is dark red, and the yellow abalone is light reddish brown or dark green. Wild Haliotis discus hannai is mostly brownish green or brownish red, but artificial culture will grow a bright green shell because of feeding kelp, Undaria pinnatifida or compound feed made of brown algae and green algae, while feeding laver will grow a dark red. Because of the irreversibility of abalone shell color, we can judge the origin and breeding mode of abalone by it. The whole shell is brownish red for wild abalone; The green one feeds abalone cultured in kelp to the sea cage in Dalian area; Green in the front and brown in the back are abalone cultured in intertidal zone of Qingdao; The shell with green and dark red stripes is the abalone cultured in Fujian cages fed with kelp and laver.

We can often see abalone marked with the words "Extra Large Wild Abalone" in the seafood market, which is expensive, usually 3%-4% higher than that of cultured abalone of the same specification. Many merchants take advantage of the fact that ordinary consumers can't correctly identify wild and farmed abalone, and use farmed abalone to impersonate wild abalone.

abalone's "back butt"? If the spiral part at the top of the shell is green, it is an abalone that is artificially propagated on the seabed or cultured in intertidal zone; If it is brownish green or reddish brown, it is abalone grown from wild seedlings. Because the growth environment in natural sea area is similar to the intake of bait, there is no obvious difference in nutritional components between the two kinds of abalone, but the sales price should be different.

Age and growth of abalone

Abalone is a slow-growing species in the shellfish family. It usually takes 1-4 years or more from the fertilized egg to the commodity specification of 6-8 cm. Take Haliotis discus hannai in China as an example, it takes about three years to grow to reach about 7 cm. The growth rate of abalone decreased with age, and the weight and shell length of young abalone increased faster than that of old abalone. The shell length of aged abalone increases slowly, but its shell tends to increase and thicken slightly.

As the abalone shell grows, it mainly extends forward, and because the thin right side of the abalone shell always grows faster than the thick and rolled left side, it grows leftwards.

abalone shells will leave a growth line similar to tree rings in the process of growth. Whether the growth line is obvious or not is related to the living environment, season and the kinds of food consumed by abalone. In the fast-growing season, growth line is obvious and the distance is wide; In the slow-growing season, on the contrary, growth line is dense and the distance is close.

Generally, we can judge the age and growth of abalone shell according to its growth line. Take Haliotis discus hannai in China as an example: the annual age is about 2? 5 cm, 4-5 cm for 2 years and 7-8 cm for 3 years.

Sometimes it is not easy to judge the exact age of abalone shell directly from its front growth line. We can clean up the algae, oyster shells and lime worms attached to the shell surface, and see their annual rings through the perspective of electric light.

A-Yi abalone becomes the pinnacle of food

Mr. Chen Xuezhi from China Food Culture Research Association is one of the scholars who are opposed to comparing abalone with eggs. He said that their research shows that the taste stimulation of different foods is very different, and its sensitivity is no less than the reaction of acupuncture and moxibustion in traditional Chinese medicine to a certain point. Other scientists believe that many people's tastes come from amino acids, and when a dish is cooked for 12 hours, it is equivalent to a chemical reaction in a chemical reactor for 12 hours. The longer the time, the more products, but the more it may be destroyed.

Su Dongpo, a famous poet in the Northern Song Dynasty in China, once wrote an "abalone trip", praising the delicacy of abalone. Su was also a great gourmet in the history of China. But in the contemporary era, it is Yang Guanyi, a Hong Kong resident, who pushes abalone food culture to the extreme. He won the highest honor badge award from the International Chef Association for inventing a unique method for cooking abalone. At present, only three people in the world have won this award. "It is he who makes abalone so famous all over the world today." Liang Chengwei said. Twenty years ago, a central leader ate abalone cooked by Yang Guanyi, and after praising it, Yang became famous overnight. Since then, tasting Yang Guanyi's "A Yi Abalone" has become a luxury of food, and he has also become a rich man in the catering industry. Now the best "Ayi" abalone can be sold for hundreds of thousands of yuan each. Last year, someone stole 15 abalone that he used as a town shop in Fulin Hotel in Hong Kong. Each of these Japanese three-headed abalone was worth 3, yuan.

Although the status of chefs in China is not very high, celebrity chefs and imperial chefs are quite different. Ma Yongqiang said: "The fate of the kitchen knife, the shaving knife and the utensil knife is different in the history of China. The kitchen knife is always supreme! For thousands of years, almost all literati, including the emperor, have been willing to eulogize the kitchen knife. " However, he thinks that China's food culture is also involved in too much power, and some top dishes have obviously symbolized people's status and identity. "The spiritual satisfaction given to people by Yan Bao Chi Shen lies in their wealth and high-grade, and these four dishes themselves have a bureaucratic atmosphere. In fact, China has been an official culture for thousands of years, because many cultures are related to power. " He said.

Abalone profiteering

At noon one day, Zhang Jiancheng led me to visit their customers in Maidao, Qingdao. These self-employed people go to Dalian Pacific Ocean Treasure Company, where Zhang is located, to buy abalone fry every spring. When they come back, they will keep them in the enclosed shallow rocks. After 18 months, these abalones, which are basically close to wild farming, can grow to 8-9 cm without feeding, and the yield is quite high. This is very similar to the process of farmers farming and producing grain, so some people call these farmers "Baonong" for short. "After these people buy abalone fry from us, they can turn six times in 18 months?" Zhang said with some excitement.

Liu Yuan, 43, is the first Baonong I have ever met. He has been a Baonong for only three years. Before that, he bought abalone from other abalone farmers and resold it to other places. Later, when he saw the huge profits of raising abalone, he also began to rent sea areas from the local village government. Hey, does this business make money? "On seeing us, he couldn't help saying. Liu has the boldness and loyalty of Shandong people, and at the same time has the shrewdness of businessmen. He told me that in 21, he bought 18, abalone seedlings, and later paid 1,2 Jin and earned 2, yuan. Now, besides selling his own abalone, he is also selling other abalone farmers to Dalian and Guangzhou. Today, another abalone farmer in the same village is going to sell the abalone that was stocked last year to Liu Yi, so we went to the seaside 1 meters away with Liu Yuanguo to see the family collecting abalone.

In the midday sun, the sea is slowly ebbing, and the famous Laoshan Mountain in Qingdao looms in the distance along the direction of the sun. In the backlit sea, several figures in black diving suits are floating up and down in the water, and they gather the abalone caught in several cages. On the shore, a woman in a pink cotton coat was walking around nervously. Liu Yuanguo told me that she is the hostess of this land. Obviously, she is anxious about how many abalones can be harvested on this 1-mu dike slope. After all, this is their family's efforts and expectations in the past two years. Liu estimated by experience that this dike slope can harvest 1 Jin of abalone this time.

three hours later, Liu put the first 1 Jin of abalone in his home. After measuring the size one by one, his wife gave the money to the man. Today, the purchase price of 8 cm abalone is 165 yuan/kg. In the evening, these abalones will be sold to Dalian by air at 175 yuan/kg, and the air freight is 1.35 yuan/kg. The owner there has been waiting for many days. Since these days, due to the death of large-scale cultured abalone in the south, the supply of abalone in the whole China market is somewhat tight.

On this day, the selling price of this kind of 8 cm abalone in Changxing market in Dalian is 185 yuan/kg, and once these abalones arrive in some high-end restaurants in Dalian, they can generally be sold at least in 75 yuan/kg. It is said that the profit of dried abalone is higher. I once saw Japanese dried abalone sold for 88 yuan a catty in Hongqiao market, the largest aquatic product market in Beijing.

The huge profits of abalone farming make it easy for the local government in Qingdao to lease a large number of sea areas to abalone farmers who are eager to get rich, and the village committee can earn 1,2 yuan per mu from the leased sea areas every year. Since there are 27 kilometers of coastline in Qingdao now used for abalone culture, so