Qin Zhou is the formative period of China's food culture. By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, all our existing grain varieties (except some exotic varieties) were basically available in the Central Plains. The difference is that rice and wheat were the main crops at that time, and now some of them have been lost. In ancient books, people often refer to these main grain crops as "five grains", but their meanings are often slightly different. These crop varieties mainly include millet, millet, wheat and rice.
(1) Main grain varieties in China during the Zhou and Qin Dynasties
Millet, today's millet, commonly known as millet, is a drought-resistant and easy-to-survive crop, which once occupied an important position in early dry farming in China and was the main food for the people at that time. The ancients always regarded it as a grain length. "White tiger boy. Country ":"Why does the king have a country? Seek happiness and reward for the world. People don't stand on the ground, and the valley doesn't eat. The land is vast and sparsely populated, and it is impossible to respect the world. There are plenty of crops, so don't sacrifice one by one. Therefore, the closure of land and the establishment of society indicate that there is soil. Millet is the length of grain, so it is also a sacrifice. " Therefore, the person who teaches human crops is called Hou Ji, and the country has become synonymous with the country. The fine variety of millet is called Liang, which is the top grade of Liang.
Millet, that is, rhubarb rice. It looks like millet, yellow and sticky, and it is the main material for making sticky food. In the life of the ancients, it is second only to Xiaomi, so Xiaomi and Xiaomi are often mentioned together. Xiaomi's grain is also called Xiaomi, and later Xiaomi became the general term of grain.
The status of wheat and ancient wheat is far from outstanding today. Wheat is divided into barley and wheat. In ancient times, barley was called Xun.
A general term for reeds and beans. "Xiaoya? Xiao Wan: "There are cymbals in the Central Plains, and Shu Ren adopted them. "As a staple food, beans are not easy to digest, so they are food for ordinary people.
Hemp, that is, hemp seed, will hurt the stomach if eaten too much, so it is also food for the poor to satisfy their hunger. Nowadays, pockmarked seeds have already dropped out of people's staple food and become feed for livestock.
Rice, which originated in the south of China, found the earliest rice seeds with traces of artificial cultivation in Daoxian County, Hunan Province, which pushed the history of rice cultivation in China to more than 10,000 years ago. The Hemudu site in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province has found a large number of rice seeds and rice hulls more than 7,000 years ago, indicating that rice has been the staple food in southern China since ancient times. Rice was planted late in the Central Plains, starting around 3000 BC, and it is also a relatively advanced staple food in the Central Plains.
Zizania latifolia, also known as Diaohumi and Anhumi, is a very distinctive and famous staple food. It is the fruit of bamboo shoots, an aquatic herb, which is beige and black, so there is a poem in Du Fu's poems that "the waves float and the rice sinks and the clouds are black". Scarecrow is a bastard, and Miscellanies of Xijing has been published for five years: "I will remember Gu Ao, I will lose my father less, and I will be filial to my mother. Mother likes to eat finely carved rice, and it is often the children in Shuai Shuai who bow their heads and choose. Return to China, divert water to dig rivers, grow your own food, and save every time you win. " Cooking with wild rice, commonly known as carved rice, is fragrant and smooth, and is favored by scholars. Mei Cheng of the Western Han Dynasty described aristocratic food as "the food of Chu Miao, the food of Hu An" in "Seven Hair". The phrase "if you don't understand it, it will be scattered in one bite" shows that the rice is smooth and soft, but the entrance will be scattered. Wang Wei's "fragrant rice and green rice", Li Bai's "Kneeling into carved rice, the moon is bright and plain" and Du Fu's "recalling carved rice and smelling soup brocade" all reflect that these great poets have a special liking for carved rice. The processing method of wild rice is also very strange. First, put the wild rice into the leather bag, mix it with the broken porcelain pieces, and rub it repeatedly on the board to make the bran fall off. This treatment was rare even at that time. After the Song Dynasty, there were fewer and fewer wild rice, because the yield of wild rice was low, the maturity was inconsistent, the seeds were easy to fall off and it was difficult to harvest. After the wild bamboo shoots were parasitized by smut, they stopped flowering and fruiting, but grew bacterial gall, which is today's Zizania latifolia, which is delicious. Therefore, later farmers planted Zizania latifolia as a vegetable, which led to its extinction. Today, people can only appreciate the delicacy of carved Hu rice from ancient poems.
(2) Zhou Qin cuisine
According to the cooking methods, the dishes in the pre-Qin period in China can be divided into six categories:
Zhipin
During this period, even with the invention of pottery, people's eating styles became more and more diversified, but the way people cooked meat was still barbecue. Cannon, coke, roast and simmer are all barbecues. The difference is that cannon and coke pay attention to fire, such as roasting whole sheep we see today; Pay attention to small fires, such as today's mutton kebabs. Cooking is to wrap the prey in mud and throw it into the fire to eat. Barbecue plays an important role in pre-Qin meat. There are many chants about roasted meat in The Book of Songs, such as: "If there is a rabbit head, it must be burned", "Toast to friends, lick turtles and carp" and so on, all about this eating custom. At that time, there were many raw materials for roasting, besides cattle, pigs and sheep, there were all kinds of game. At this time, people already know how to season, and after soaking in seasoning, the aroma of baked goods with five flavors is more delicious. In addition, it can be used with various sauces, which are usually made of meat. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, barbecue foods gradually decreased, while processing techniques such as frying and stewing became the mainstream of cooking. Nowadays, roast duck, suckling pig and whole sheep are all abuses of ancient baked goods.
Surimi or meat paste
Meat paste made of meat as the main raw material. It appeared in Xia and Shang Dynasties at the latest. The method of making glutinous rice in Zhou Dynasty is to dry the meat first, then chop it into pieces, mix it with Liang Qu, salt and wine, and put it in an urn, so that it can be brewed for 100 days. In the pre-Qin period, sugar was not only edible, but also used as seasoning. When eating roasted meat, bacon, preserved vegetables and other foods, put beans on the table and accompany them.
Gymnema sylvestre
Thick juice cooked with meat and vegetables. Generally speaking, the thick juice cooked by meat is called Zhuang, the thick juice cooked by vegetables is called soup, and the thick juice cooked by meat and vegetables is called soup. Soup is a kind of food after the appearance of pottery, which was widely eaten by people in the pre-Qin period. Book of rites? Naize said: "Soup food, from below the vassal to Shu Ren." The difference is that most people eat quinoa soup cooked with wild vegetables and the like.
thin slice
Refers to the food made by adding seasonings to raw meat cut into thin slices and filaments. This is the most commonly used way to eat fish in ancient times. Of course, other meats can be preserved as long as they are fresh and tender. For example, "Li? There is a record in Neize that "if you take beef, you will kill new people." It is absolutely unreasonable to cut it thin, and it will be eaten later. "During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was easy to become a delicacy on the aristocratic table, so there was an idiom' popular'. Sashimi is now also called "fresh" or "sashimi". As a traditional food custom, it still remains in people's recipes, especially in the food culture of ethnic minorities in China. In Hezhe people often entertain guests with sashimi. Sashimi is called "talaka" in Hezhe language, which is made of a big and fleshy mandarin fish, fat head, grass roots and sturgeon. When making sashimi, first take two pieces of meat from the fish bones, cut them into shreds, and then slice them from the fish skin. Then mix with shredded potatoes, shredded mung beans, vermicelli and boiled vermicelli, add Chili oil, vinegar, soy sauce, salt, etc., and you can eat.
Bacon and wax
Bacon and wax are the general names of ancient dried meat. Preserving temporarily inedible meat is also a scientific processing method for people. Wax refers to large pieces of meat dried with salt (small animals are whole pieces); Bacon refers to air-dried meat cut into small pieces. If you beat the dried meat loosely, and add spices such as cinnamon and ginger, it is called "Mao", which is the predecessor of today's dried meat.
seat
Sugar refers to sliced pickles. Vegetables in the pre-Qin period were mainly wild vegetables collected from the wild. In addition to cooking or making soup, the processing method is mainly to pickle glutinous rice. This is similar to today's kimchi. Kimchi was a very common food at that time. The main types are leek, Changben (Acorus calamus root), Cynanchum bungeanum (Man Jing) and Zizania latifolia (Malva).
salted fish
Fish made by fermentation. Its practice is: put the fish in salt, seasoning, steamed rice flour and so on. Jar, sealed, ferment and eaten. Catfish are still preserved in the present southern minority areas. The pickled fish in Dong area is the aftertaste of this dietary custom. The fermentation period of catfish varies in length, usually at least one year, but also more than ten years. The longer the time, the purer the taste.
Diet culture in Han dynasty
The development of China's food culture in Han Dynasty should be attributed to the exchange of Chinese and western food culture in Han Dynasty. The west here refers to the western region. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian opened the Silk Road to the Western Regions, and the food raw materials and cooking techniques from the western regions also flowed into China. Grape, pomegranate, sesame, walnut, watermelon, melon, cucumber, spinach, fennel, celery, kidney bean (pea, broad bean), lentil, alfalfa, lettuce, garlic, green onion, etc. Were introduced into China during this period. The introduction of these fruits and vegetables spices has greatly enriched our people's food baskets, and the cooking methods have also been enriched by the increase of spices and condiments. For example, baked Hu cake, which is today's sesame seed cake, became popular in China after the Han Dynasty. Another example is fried oil cake, which is originally Hu Cai.
The birth of tofu is another great invention of the catering industry in the Eastern Han Dynasty. This invention is of great significance in the history of food culture in China and even in the world. It found a shortcut for the processing of bean food with rich nutrition but difficult to digest, such as soybean and black bean, and turned it into a cheap and digestible delicious food. China has also become the birthplace of tofu culture all over the world. Especially in China, a big agricultural country, people's diet is dominated by vegetables and miscellaneous grains, and high-quality protein is very scarce. Tofu and bean products make up for this deficiency and have far-reaching historical and practical significance for improving the physique of the Chinese nation. Legend has it that the inventor of tofu was Liu An, the king of Huainan in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Zhu in the Southern Song Dynasty said in a poem: "It is exhausting to plant pea seedlings. If I had known Wang Huaizhi's skill, I would have got spring cloth. " And he said to himself, "Tofu has been passed down from generation to generation and is the king of Huainan." Liu An, the king of Huainan, is a gourmet. Recipes such as "Food of Huainan King" and "Classic of Huainan King's Cuisine" have been circulated. According to unofficial history legend, tofu was accidentally invented by a warlock summoned by Liu An, king of Huainan, during the process of alchemy. Whether this legend is true or not, the fact that China people could make tofu in the Eastern Han Dynasty has been confirmed by archaeological discoveries. 1960 a large area of stone relief was found in the No.1 tomb of Dahuting, Mi County, Henan Province, including the stone carving of Tofu Square. Since then, tofu making has spread rapidly in all directions. The Japanese believe that the Japanese tofu making method was brought to Japan by a monk in the Tang Dynasty when he traveled to Japan. Jian Zhen has thus become the ancestor of Japanese bean products industry, and western countries also admit that this technology was introduced from the East.
Before the Han Dynasty, all edible oils were animal fats. In ancient times, people called the fat of horned animals grease, and the fat of hornless animals ointment. Compared with paste, fat solidifies more firmly than paste. The emergence of vegetable oil in China began in the Western Han Dynasty. In the early days, there were mainly Nessler's oil, apricot oil and sesame oil, but they were still relatively rare. Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the varieties of vegetable oil have been increasing and the output has been rising. Vegetable oil has been widely used in cooking dishes and fried foods. During the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, vegetable oil was freely available in the market, and even sold. Vegetable oil has become the main edible oil, and the diet variety is also rich.
Noodles, rice cakes and Lantern Festival legends are all related to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.