Was the ancient noodle called "soup cake"?

In ancient times, people called pasta cakes, steamed cakes and boiled cakes or soup cakes. Soup cake is the predecessor of noodles today. Soup cakes appeared in Wei and Jin Dynasties. People boil the rolled dough in water and serve it immediately, similar to today's noodle soup. Shu Xi's "Cake Fu" in the Western Jin Dynasty records: "It is extremely cold in the middle of winter, and at the meeting in the early morning, the nose is frozen and frost forms outside the mouth, and soup and cake are the most important." It means that in the early morning of winter, when you are in a meeting, because of the cold weather, your nose seems to be frozen in your nose, and the exhaled air turns into frost. At this time, the best way to stop shivering and replenish physical strength as soon as possible is to eat soup cakes.

It can be seen that people have long eaten soup cakes to keep warm and keep out the cold in winter. Noodles have existed for a long time. In the famous Book of Qi Yaomin, there is a "water cake", which is a kind of boiled noodles, about a foot long and as thin as leek leaves. During the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, there were also cold noodles with unique flavor and interesting names. Tang Tao, a poet of cold scouring, likes to eat cold lake very much, calling it "colder than snow passing through his teeth", which means that it seems colder than snow passing through his teeth. ?

In the Northern Song Dynasty, there were more kinds of noodles. The vegetarian meals in monasteries in Kaifeng include mutton noodles, meat noodles and vegetarian noodles. In the Southern Song Dynasty, noodles had become a common food for people. From the Yuan Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the varieties of noodles gradually developed their own characteristics.

For example, Li Yu's essays in the Qing Dynasty recorded me with "spiced noodles" and "babao noodles". Spiced noodles are made of five kinds of flour. Bazhen noodles are made by chopping eight kinds of vegetables and meat and mixing them into noodles. Both kinds of noodles are well-made and have unique flavor. In addition, noodles similar to today's instant noodles appeared in ancient times, such as the famous snack "Xue Mian" in Shaanxi, which was a necessary food for ancient Shaanxi people to go out to study and do business. The process of making water noodles is to knead flour with water into dough, spread it into dough, then bake it on an iron plate until it is 70% or 80% mature, cut it into shreds with a knife and put it in the shade for later use. When you want to eat, take it out and put it in boiling water, scald it, fish it up, add Chili oil, salt and vinegar, put some pepper noodles and sprinkle a little chopped green onion, and you can eat it.

In the Qing Dynasty, a kind of food more similar to instant noodles appeared: fried egg noodles, called "Yifu Noodles", was said to have been created by Yi Bingshou, a famous calligrapher during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. It is to mix eggs and flour to make egg noodles, cook them, dry them, then fry them, store them in a dry place, and cook them in water when you are hungry. This noodle is golden yellow after frying, and the soup is rich and tender after cooking, which is very close to the manufacturing technology of modern instant noodles?