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In the past 2020, what was the hottest food? That’s right, it’s snail noodles. Since 2015, the sales revenue of bagged Liuzhou snail noodles has doubled 21 times.
However, when most people eat snail noodles for the first time, they will smell a subtle “shit” smell. As a weird snack that originated in Liuzhou, Guangxi, how did snail noodles conquer the taste buds of the whole people and dominate China?
A bowl of ecstasy snail noodles is inseparable from the hot and sour soup base of snail snails, smooth and elastic rice noodles, and side dishes such as fungus, peanuts, and yuba. Of course, sour bamboo shoots are essential, which is the source of the “feces” in snail noodles.
Why are sour bamboo shoots so smelly?
To make sour bamboo shoots, you usually need to peel off the big-headed sweet bamboo shoots, cut them into green bamboo shoots, put them in a tank, put bamboo slices on them, and pour them into mountain spring water to ferment for 15-20 days. And this fermentation process will produce various acids, phenols, alcohols, aldehydes and other substances.
This study by Guangxi University detected 54 volatile substances in sour bamboo shoots. They emit rancid, musty, and earthy odors, but the top one is the second highest relative content of p-cresol. You can find it in feces and urine, and it only needs a very small concentration (70g per cubic meter of air) to emit a pungent smell.
If this is the case, why do people get more addicted the more they eat?
This may be related to the phenomenon of “olfactory fatigue”. There are olfactory cells in your nasal cavity. When odor molecules bind to receptors on the dendrites of olfactory cells, the cells will open channels. Calcium and sodium ions flood into cells, triggering electrical signals, which are transmitted to the brain through nerve cells, allowing you to smell.
However, if the stimulation is repeated, a large influx of calcium and sodium ions will trigger a series of chemical reactions, which will close the channel and fail to generate electrical signals. The same odor can no longer be smelled unless the odor molecule is replaced by a new odor molecule, causing the nerve to regenerate electrical signals.
In other words, when you repeatedly smell the snail powder, you will gradually lose the smell. And when you sip the powder, the aromatic substances in the soup, such as furan compounds, will re-stimulate your paralyzed nerves and let you smell the real fragrance behind the odor.
However, it is not far to go with the fragrance alone. Snail noodles can beat grilled cold noodles, spicy cabbage, and hot dry noodles to take the top spot in local cuisine, and it is inseparable from the efforts of Liuzhou City Government for nearly a decade.
As a veteran industrial city, one-tenth of the domestically produced cars comes from Liuzhou, butIn the eyes of most people, there is no sense of existence. In order to gain a reputation, Liuzhou chose snail noodles.
In 2011, Liuzhou snail noodles began to travel north to Beijing, but high rents and restrictions on raw materials forced the retreat of the few physical stores.
In 2012, another 15-meter-diameter cauldron was put in 2000 duck feet, 1000 catties of snails, 1000 pig feet, 300 chickens, 200 catties of tube bones, 200 catties of beef bones, and 11 tons of water. Ten thousand people are organized to eat snail noodles, but it can only make locals feel good.
How can more outsiders quickly experience the beauty of snail noodles?
The answer is to make packaged food. In 2014, Liuzhou gave birth to the first package of snail noodles in bags. After years of technological improvement, the original 15-minute snail noodles can be cooked in only three to five minutes. The shelf life has been extended from 30 days to 180 days.
In 2018, the output value of pre-packaged snail noodles surpassed those made in physical stores and became the most important growth point.
Such rapid expansion is largely due to the “Industrial Revolution” led by the Liuzhou Municipal Government.
In addition to the introduction of local standards, in 2016, Liuzhou City built a snail noodle industrial park in Yufeng District, covering an area of 800 mu.
Building a bamboo shoot planting base of 1,300 acres here, renting a workshop of 20,000 square meters, just these two, the company can get nearly 3 million subsidies in the first year.
Today, there are 30 production companies in the industrial park. Every day, 2 million packets of snail noodles start from here and flow to all parts of the country.
In addition, in order to keep the fertilizer from flowing into the fields of outsiders, Liuzhou also completed the certification of the geographical indication trademark of “Liuzhou snail powder” in 2018. From then on, only the snail noodles produced in Liuzhou were orthodox. Even in a fraternal city like Nanning, it was not allowed to “cottage”.
Be aware that the competition in the snail powder industry is extremely fierce, especially in Henan. Companies that originally made hot and sour noodles have transformed to make snail noodles, which is today the largest producer of snail noodles outside of Guangxi. However, Liuzhou has the highest market share, accounting for nearly 80%.
After all, it was Liuzhou who made snail fans. In 2019 and 2020, snail fans can enter the public eye so frequently, in addition to its own “net celebrity attributes”, it is also inseparable from Liuzhou’s continuous promotion of nearly ten years.
In turn, snail noodles have also made Liuzhou. In this industrial city with a permanent population of about 4 million, the snail noodle industry has created 250,000 jobs.
And this includes the master who is responsible for making sour bamboo shoots. As the snail noodles dominate the country, they no longer have to feel sad because they carry a smell.
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