Qianjiang Evening News·Hours News Reporter Huang Baoqing
In recent years, there have been often popular costume dramas on TV and the Internet. In addition to the fascinating plot, there are also various attracting scenes of eating in the play. Some crews will carefully examine the details of the ancients' meals, while others do not seek deep understanding and shoot ridiculous plots.
So, how did the ancients eat? Recently, Long Qiuxue, a female doctor who graduated from the Department of Sinology at the University of Munich, published the book "What the Ancients Eat" which allows you to travel thousands of years and have a glimpse of the ancients' dining table .
"What Things the Ancients Eat" is a book that deeply interprets the dietary life of the ancients. It not only increases knowledge but also is very interesting. It vividly introduces the development of China's "eating culture", historical origins, unique flavors of famous food, etc., reflecting the social life forms and contemporary styles of different historical periods and regions.
After reading this book, you will understand that the dietary life of the ancients was like this. The ancients only ate two meals a day at the beginning, and "afternoon tea" was also popular in ancient times. What are the exotic delicacies of in the Tang Dynasty? How particular are the banquets of the ancients... satisfying readers' curiosity about the dietary life of the ancients.
More than two thousand years ago, a thinker in our country said: "Food, sex, nature." It exposes the two most important points in human nature. In the following years, another thinker said: "The king takes the people as heaven, and the people regard food as heaven." Indeed, compared to "color", "food" is not only directly related to personal survival, but also the key to the survival of the country and nation. In the process of thousands of years of dietary practice, human beings have explored and developed a colorful and colorful dietary culture.
Our country is a great country with a civilization of 5,000 years, and has a vast territory and a vast territory; many ethnic groups have lived in this land and have left their own food culture; in addition, our Chinese nation itself is a nation that embraces all rivers, and many foreign food cultures have also been absorbed into our own system. In this way, our food culture, which has accumulated for five thousand years, seems particularly profound and has a long history.
Today, we can easily taste all kinds of delicacies from all over the country and even the world without leaving home. After dinner, we can’t help but think about what our ancestors were eating in another time and space? Although we cannot travel through time and experience their diet immersively, the ancients also recorded their dietary culture in the painting volume with their pens and ink. Coupled with the archaeological discoveries over the past hundred years, we can get closer to the dietary life of the ancients.
Long Qiuxue's "What Things to Do with Ancients Eating" is a collection of essays that write about the ancient food culture, and can also be regarded as a brief history of ancient Chinese food culture. The author is a PhD in the Department of Sinology of the University of Munich and is from a professional background. This book is a popular and popular book for the public. Although it is not as obscure as academic works, it is as rigorous as academic works. In addition, the author is also good at explaining food culture in combination with historical stories, which makes the work more vivid and interesting.
In the chapter of this book "Zhongming and Ding Food: Pre-Qin Era", the author tells a story. According to the "Zuo Zhuan", during the Spring and Autumn Period, 5 people from Chu State offered turtles to Zheng State king Zheng Linggong , and the doctor of Zheng State, Song and Prince Guisheng, happened to be inviting to meet. Song's index finger suddenly moved, and he showed Guisheng the index finger and said, "In the past, my index finger must have been extremely delicious!" When the two entered the palace, they saw the chef preparing to kill the turtle. The two looked at each other and smiled. The turtle is a larger animal similar to the turtle ( turtle ).
and others saw Mr. Ling. He asked, "Why are you laughing?" Young Master Song didn't say that, and Young Master Guisheng answered truthfully. Ling Gong is a man who likes pranks. He thought, didn't your young master Song brag about his accurate prophecy? Then I don’t let you eat it. Is it still accurate this time? When the meal was distributed, Ling Gong did not give it to Song. Song was angry now, put his index finger in the cauldron and dipped it a little, took it out and licked it and snatched it out.Ling Gong was very angry. If you want to rebel, you want to kill Song. Unexpectedly, Song Zhen was not a good man, so he took the initiative to take action and led Gui Sheng to kill Ling Gong.
Starting from this "a bloody murder caused by a piece of meat", we can also read a lot of information.
First, the two idioms we are familiar with, "the index finger is moving" and "the finger is touched by the tripod" actually come from this story; second, in the Spring and Autumn Period, turtles and other animals were still relatively rare in the Central Plains. The king of Zheng had to give it to the State of Chu to eat it, and ordinary nobles did not even have the chance to eat it; third, at that time, the nobles had adopted the separate meal system, and the tableware of Gongzi Song was not divided into the tableware. Fourth, Bronze Cauldron was a kind of cooking utensil at that time, similar to the current pot, and was given a symbol of power, so the monarch did not allow anyone to get involved. Because Gongzi Song did not use the food utensil "dagger", his fingers could only be smeared to avoid being too hot.
In the chapter of this book "North-South Fusion: Wei and Jin Dynasties", the author told a few more short stories. According to the "New Words of the World", during the Western Jin Dynasty, during the , the Wu people, Lu Ji, visited the mansion of Wang Ji, the foreign relative, and Wang Ji, took out the sheep cheese to entertain him. During the meal, he asked proudly: "What food do you Dongwu have to match it?" Lu Ji retorted: "The water shield soup from Qianli Lake is delicious, and you don't need salt and soybean as a condiment!" After the Western Jin Dynasty destroyed Wu, the Wu people became survivors of the country. So Wang Ji's inquiry was somewhat provocative. Lu Ji's answer to water chestnut seems incomparable to feta, but it reflects the huge difference in diet between the north and the south.
"New Words of the World" also talks about a Wuren Zhang Han . Zhang Han and Lu Ji were both resident of the Wu Kingdom and became officials in the Western Jin Dynasty. However, Zhang Han is smarter than Lu Ji, and he had a premonition of chaos in the world. Taking advantage of the autumn wind blowing one time, he said that he missed the vegetarian food in his hometown (茭晴 ), water chestnut soup and bass , so he decided to resign and return to his hometown. Later, Lu Ji died in The Eight Kings Rebellion , and Zhang Han lived his old age in his hometown, leaving behind the allusion of "Thinking of Waterfall and Perch". Because of the dense water network in the south of the Yangtze River, rice rice soup and fish have been a dietary tradition that has been passed down for thousands of years. This delicious water shield sea bass soup is still a famous dish in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai.
"New Words of the World" also says that after the Eastern Jin Dynasty 's clothes and the emperor moved south, the Taiwei Lu Wan went to see the Prime Minister Wang Dao . Director Wang also invited him to eat cheese. Lu Wan was probably not resistant to lactose and became ill after returning home. The next day, Lu Wan also wrote to Director Wang and said, "I ate some cheese yesterday, but I was in a bad mood all night. Although I am a native of Wu, I almost became a ghost from the north!" Lu Wan was actually Lu Ji's cousin. Although Director Wang was not a member of Wang Ji's tribe, he was also a large northern tribe. He came into contact with the diet from the northern grasslands earlier, and brought this diet to the south during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. So eating cheese and drinking milk today actually has our own historical traditions.
In addition to combining historical stories, the author's writing style is also very beautiful, and it can be said that he has a complete range of colors, fragrance and taste. In the chapter "Elegant and Secular: Song and Yuan dynasties", there is exactly one article called "Full, Scent, and Taste". For me, who loves eating mutton, I really finished reading this article with a drooling sound.
Based on the records of notes and novels such as " Tokyo Dream Hualu " and " Dream Lianglu ", the author pointed out that the Song Dynasty lamb products include dozens of types such as boiling sheep, sheep in the furnace, sheep purse, cooking sheep, ordering sheep head , fried sheep white intestine, sheep crumbled , sheep tongue stick, sheep head yuan fish, sheep hoof bamboo shoots, batch cut sheep head, steamed soft sheep, cooking sheep four soft, sheep simmering sheep, sheep vinegar and beautiful blood, etc. There are dozens of types such as fried, sautéed, fried, boiled, roasted, simmered, steamed, dotted, fried, honey, etc.
Meat dishes can be cut into pieces, slices, strips, shreds, diced, granules, and powdered, and can also be carved; the seasonings include fennel , onion, ginger, garlic, sauce, oil, vinegar, wine, etc., which can be made of steamed lamb, almond stewed lamb , etc.
In short, as a female history who is proficient in cooking, the author's writing can be said to be easy to understand and integrates knowledge and action. It is an excellent work for the introduction to ancient Chinese food culture.
Manuscript Source: Linwu Gongzi
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