Qiqihar is a Daur language, which means "natural pasture". It is located in the southwest of Heilongjiang Province and in the hinterland of Songnen Plain, one of the three black soil belts in the world. The high-quality regional environment breeds excellent beef cattle.
Qiqihar barbecue draws lessons from the multi-ethnic barbecue and skewer skills, and forms its own unique style, which is not only included in the intangible cultural heritage, but also brought the reputation of "international (barbecue) food capital".
The smell of barbecue and the crackle of charcoal fire are the taste memories engraved in the hearts of many Qiqihar people. After decades of development and changes, this dish of Qiqihar barbecue, which is derived from the market and enriched in the reform and opening up and the changes of people’s lives, has polished the business card of Qiqihar as the "International Barbecue Capital" and gradually moved towards the whole country and the world.
From local business cards to fragrance floating all over the country
"Master, go barbecue a street."
"Friend, Qiqihar’s barbecue is more than one street."
Shuttling through the streets of Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province, you will understand that what taxi drivers say is true.
In many commercial streets in Qiqihar, you can see a barbecue shop every few tens of meters. There are shops with different characteristics, such as online celebrity style barbecue, street barbecue and family mixed meat. Tourists with different accents line up in front of the shops. This has also become a unique landscape in Qiqihar block.
"Take the high-speed train from Harbin to Qiqihar on Friday night, get off and go straight to Majia barbecue. Go to the morning market to eat fire on Saturday morning, go to Meris barbecue town to eat a large piece of meat from the Chen family at noon, go to Zhalong wetland to watch cranes in the afternoon, and then take the high-speed train back to Harbin at night. " Like Liu Jiajia, a citizen of Harbin, many tourists from neighboring cities take the "barbecue train" on weekends.
Beef becomes tender in the inside and tender in the outside after roasting, with rich aroma, tender and juicy, and the charcoal smell produced by charcoal is attached to the meat. The dishes on the dining table are exquisite, rich baked goods and dishes are matched, and the fatigue of the day disappears in front of this square inch baking tray.
"High-quality beef with special seasoning is absolutely delicious!" Liu Jiajia said.
On June 18th, 2022, at the launching ceremony of "2022 Qiqihar Barbecue and Food Festival", the World Federation of Chinese Food Industry awarded Qiqihar the title of "International (Barbecue) Food Capital". Nowadays, barbecue has become a city card for Qiqihar, just like Beijing Roast Duck, Tianjin Goubuli Steamed Bun and Harbin Potted Meat.
"Barbecue, Qiqihar people’s hospitality"-On the signboard of the barbecue shop with fireworks and gas, this slogan makes diners feel warm and rush to take pictures and punch in.
Walking into the barbecue shop, the room was full of diners and food bloggers were broadcasting live. A large piece of meat is dipped in the secret sauce before roasting, spread on the baking tray and sizzle instantly. After roasting, it is cut into small pieces and served with side dishes such as perilla leaves. It tastes delicious.
In addition to serving as the executive president of Qiqihar Barbecue Industry Association, Guo Xu is also the founder of Chef Shi Zhi Zao Catering Management Co., Ltd., whose barbecue shops with fireworks, temper tantrums and grounding gas have been opened in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities.
Seeing the popularity of Qiqihar barbecue and the homesickness economy, many Qiqihar people who go out make Qiqihar barbecue fragrant at home and abroad through the modes of opening stores outside the territory and building factories inside the territory.
"Chengdu friends can eat authentic Qiqihar barbecue!" In March 2022, the first store of BBQ in Qiqihar opened in Chengdu. All kinds of barbecue supplies-beef, baking tray, dipping sauce, etc. all come from Qiqihar.
Song World Expo is the vice president of BBQ in Qiqihar, Chengdu. When he was in college in Chengdu, he always missed the barbecue in his hometown, and from time to time, he asked his family to send a few pounds to relieve his hunger. This young man born in 1995 has a "big dream" about barbecue-1,000 stores will be opened in two years.
Zhou Tao, deputy director of the Qiqihar Municipal Bureau of Commerce, said that up to now, there are more than 21,000 Qiqihar barbecue stores nationwide. Shanghai’s Yangji Qiqihar Barbecue, Beijing’s Qiqihar Stoker’s Charcoal Barbecue, Suzhou’s Tanfu Northeast Charcoal Barbecue … According to the data commented by the US Mission and the public, "Qiqihar Barbecue" has become a hot word in platform search.
In the face of the rapid increase in the number of stores outside the territory, on June 18, 2023, Qiqihar City issued the collective trademark of "Qiqihar Barbecue". The store authorized to identify "Qiqihar Barbecue" is equivalent to the official "endorsement". Like Liuzhou snail powder and Shaxian snack, "Qiqihar Barbecue" will show its status in the field of barbecue through a collective trademark.
"Authorized by the government at the global level, a number of stores that truly represent the Qiqihar barbecue brand have been selected to provide strong standard support for Qiqihar barbecue to leapfrog to China cuisine in all directions." Zhou Jianyu, director of the Qiqihar Municipal Bureau of Commerce, said.
Barbecue is a gift from Qiqihar to the world. In the future, Qiqihar will focus on building a number of regional and national chain store brands, and strive to build a benchmark for Chinese barbecue.
From National Cuisine to Intangible Cultural Heritage
Hundreds of years ago, in the vast land beyond the Great Wall of China, the winter in the north was cold and long. A method of eating meat by heating stones for roasting was loved by Daur people, which nourished the vigorous physique of the safari people.
With the Daur people moving from Heilongjiang to the banks of the Nenjiang River, this kind of barbecue food is also fragrant and comes to the Daur area of Meilisi in Qiqihar City.
Blanch the Artemisia scoparia bud, put it into the chopped fresh beef, add a little salt and cooking oil and mix it evenly, and a dish of Daur barbecue will be mixed. When the Artemisia buds are mixed with meat, they clatter, and the wild vegetables and beef give off a unique fragrance, which customers praise again and again after tasting.
"It’s a traditional way for Daur people to eat mixed meat with willow buds. Later, it was loved by more and more people, and it is also one of the characteristics of Qiqihar barbecue." Kang Yan, a 43-year-old Daur, lives in Hala New Village, Meilisi Daur District, Qiqihar City.
New formats such as "barbecue+camping" and "barbecue+coffee" have enabled this ethnic minority village, which is dominated by farming, to catch the express train of rural revitalization. Kang Yan and many villagers can enjoy the dividends brought by rural revitalization at their doorstep.
"Qiqihar barbecue has a long history. During the Liao and Jin Dynasties in 900 AD, the Qidan people living in Qiqihar put raw meat slices on hot stones, forming the embryonic form of barbecue production technology. Later, barbecue gradually entered the family, rich people used flat-bottomed iron pots, and poor people used pieces of iron pots. In the Qing Dynasty, the Hui people brought the slaughtering and processing techniques of beef. " Walking into the barbecue museum in Meris District of Qiqihar City, the narrator explained the history of Qiqihar barbecue to tourists.
"Qiqihar barbecue is the result of multi-ethnic integration." Zhou Tao’s historical context of Qiqihar barbecue is numerous. After consulting a large number of materials and investigation by dozens of experts, it is found that Qiqihar barbecue has great northern regional characteristics, clear inheritance context and numerous people, which has a history of more than 100 years. In 2021, Qiqihar barbecue was successfully selected as the intangible cultural heritage of Qiqihar City.
"In the beginning, the guests came to the house, so that they could be baked once. At that time, they were all made at home. After 2000, barbecue shops appeared in the streets and lanes on a large scale. On the one hand, the people had money and could afford it. On the other hand, the market had demand and the business could be done. " Guo Xu said.
Qiqihar barbecue has experienced several generations of changes from its rise to the present. From the initial family barbecue, to a pot "roasted all over the world", and now refined according to the different meat quality, "Qiqihar barbecue has higher and higher requirements for meat in its development, which also reflects the progress of society and the changes of people’s lives to a certain extent."
A plate of barbecue bears the homesickness of wanderers, the reunion of relatives and the hearty friends, witnessing the integration and development of national culture and recording the ever-changing changes in people’s lives.
From a plate of barbecue to an industrial chain
"Qiqihar barbecue is famous, thanks to the barbecue industry chain built for many years." Zhao Jun, deputy secretary general of Qiqihar Municipal Government, said.
In order to dig deep into the barbecue industry and make the brand stronger and bigger, Qiqihar City has continuously promoted the action plan of the whole barbecue industry chain from breeding, segmentation and processing, cold chain logistics, supermarket stores and e-commerce sales for many years.
Walking into the cowshed of Longjiang Yuansheng Food Co., Ltd., located in Halahai Township, Longjiang County, Qiqihar City, the piano pieces are wonderful, and the cylindrical rollers used to massage the cows are evenly distributed in the cowshed.
"These cows grew up listening to music. After eating and drinking enough, they were massaged and walked, and the meat was more delicious." Cai Chengda, deputy general manager of Longjiang Yuansheng Cattle Industry Co., Ltd., introduced that the company has bred 8,500 purebred cattle and improved 150,000 cattle, and gradually formed the "Longjiang Cattle" industrial chain from breeding to dining table.
In the Gonghe livestock trading market located in Meilisi Daur area of Qiqihar City, a cart of beef cattle was transported in and out, and the transaction was hot. Merchants carefully selected their favorite beef cattle with small sticks and registered their transactions with cards throughout the process. During the peak season of bull market trading in summer, the daily trading volume once a week is 7,000 to 8,000, which can provide more than 70,000 high-quality beef cattle for Qiqihar every year.
"At present, we are building a new digital platform, which is more systematic and intelligent." Zhao Lidong, deputy mayor of gonghe town, Meilisi Daur District, Qiqihar City, said that the digital platform can find the information of beef cattle’s breeding place, selling place and meat yield, as well as the cow face recognition system. The project is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
As of the first half of this year, there were 1.295 million beef cattle in Qiqihar, and 312,000 were slaughtered, achieving an output value of 14.03 billion yuan in animal husbandry, up 5.7% year-on-year.
Cutting meat, mixing meat, weighing and packaging … In the 1300-square-meter workshop of Heilongjiang Qihan Yangjia Muslim Meat Industry Co., Ltd., dozens of workers operate in an orderly way on the assembly line. At the end of the assembly line conveyor belt, the packed cartons are labeled with addresses from all over the country, such as Beijing and Zhejiang, and a truck next to them is already ready to go-every five seconds, a box of barbecue is packed and shipped out here.
"A cow can produce 550 to 650 kilograms of meat, and the most suitable for barbecue is about 100 kilograms. How thick the meat in different parts is cut and how long it takes to bake is the best. " Yang Ning, general manager of Heilongjiang Qihan Yangjia Muslim Meat Industry Co., Ltd. picked up a bag of traditional mixed meat and introduced that this "online celebrity" product has sold more than 500,000 pieces on a social platform. In the first eight months of this year, the company’s online store sales exceeded 100 million yuan.
The continuous improvement of the logistics network has realized that Qiqihar barbecue is fragrant all over the country. At present, SF Express has put cold chain vehicles and quick-frozen equipment in Qiqihar, and Heilongjiang Yunleng Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. plans to start 27 pre-warehouses in 16 cities in China in the second half of the year to drive Qiqihar barbecue, meat products, mushrooms, fungus, special vegetables and other products to the whole country. Today, Qiqihar online barbecue e-commerce enterprises have increased to more than 50, and the retail sales of e-commerce networks in the first half of the year reached 830 million yuan.
At present, Qiqihar has promoted 19 key projects in the whole barbecue industry chain with a total investment of 7.04 billion yuan. In 2022, the whole industrial chain of Qiqihar barbecue will reach 20 billion yuan, and it is expected to hit 30 billion yuan in 2023. Qiqihar is continuing to polish the city card of "International (Barbecue) Food Capital".
(Xinhua daily telegraphReporter Guan Jiantao and Zhang Yue,
Participate in writing: Liang Dong Fan Yingchun)
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