Pancakes from five thousand years ago: a brief history of pancake delicacies!
2019-03-12 09:04 The Paper Wang Renxiang
Pancakes are a delicacy for northerners. Traditional pancakes are actually burritos. Different meats and vegetables are rolled up in thin round pancakes and eaten directly with your hands. There are also various pies that are derived from traditional pancakes, which are improved pancakes.
Old Beijing custom painting of pancakes
The raw material used in ancient pancakes should be millet. Millet and multigrain pancakes were one of the common foods of ancient northerners. Pancakes have a long history, and many archaeological evidences show that pancakes have shown a diversified development trend in prehistoric China. Prehistoric people’s meals included not only noodles, but also pancakes and scones. Yangshao people have created cooking utensils such as pottery pans, and pancakes have a history of 5,000 years.
Later, pancake pans were unearthed in various eras, and many murals of pancakes from different eras were discovered, revealing the true existence of pancakes in history. While eating pancakes, we can think about its origins, from near to far, on a journey to trace the origin of pancakes, and see what kind of historical flavor the pancakes create.
Pancakes in the Qing Dynasty can be seen from Pu Songling's "Pancake Ode": "Turn your hands over and make a hundred or so hectares. They are as round as the full moon, as big as a copper jade, and as thin as the water of Shanxi River. "Paper, color like the feathers of a yellow crane" is a vivid description, this is Shandong pancake. Shandong pancakes are usually rolled with green onions and sometimes meat, and they are still made today. During the Qing Dynasty, Fuping, Shaanxi Province retained the custom of making pancakes to mend the sky. On the 20th day of the first lunar month, pancakes were placed up and down the house, which was called "Mending the Sky and the Earth". This was to pray for good weather. In the Mayi area of ??Shanxi during the Qing Dynasty, buckwheat pancakes were eaten on the 25th as the "Old Tiancang".
Liu Ruoyu of the Ming Dynasty said in "Zhuizhongzhi": "On the second day of February...every household uses millet flour and jujube cakes, fried in oil, or the noodles and thin pancakes are made into pancakes, which are called smoked insects. "Wanshu Miscellaneous Notes" also said: "Use noodles to spread pancakes and smoke the bed to prevent all insects from growing." This is a very strange method of fumigating insects, probably ants, bedbugs and the like. In 1967, a "family separation contract" from the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty was discovered in Dongyanglou Village, Shengzhuang Town, Tai'an City, which recorded "one plate of griddle and twenty-three catties of pancakes." When a household is divided, pancakes need to be divided, so we know that pancakes that can be stored are also considered a piece of property.
Buckwheat pancakes are clearly recorded in the documents of the Yuan Dynasty and should be a food custom in Shanxi. "Wang Zhen Nong Shu·Gu Pu 2" says: Buckwheat "peeles the shells, grinds them into noodles, spreads them into pancakes, and eats them with garlic." The pancakes are served with garlic, which is quite different from the onions used in Shandong. In the Yuan Dynasty, in addition to ordinary pancakes, there were already stuffed pancakes. For example, "The Complete Collection of Necessary Things for Home" records Qibao Roll Pancakes and Jinyin Roll Pancakes. Qibao Roll Pancakes are mutton patties, and Jinyin Roll Pancakes are egg rolls. Pancake, the latter is almost the same as the pancake fruit you can see today.
In the Song Dynasty, pancakes were used for some special festivals, such as Ren Day, Tian Chuan Day, and Qi Qiao Day. Pancakes were assigned special uses. Some customs should be inherited from the traditions of the previous dynasties, while others were initiated by the Song people. Zhang Jian of the Song Dynasty recorded the food customs of different seasons in his book "Enjoy the Heart", mentioning that "on the first lunar month, family banquets on New Year's Day, spring dishes on the first day of spring, pancakes on people's day", pancakes on people's day are also a long-standing tradition. See also "Miscellaneous Notes of the Year": "One day before the day, people sweep the dung broom. When people are not leaving, they cover it with seven pancakes and abandon it in the thoroughfare to send away the poor." Throwing a few pancakes is regarded as a gift. Praying for blessings when poor is also a very special practice. Mending the sky with pancakes can be seen in Li Gou's poem "Mending the Sky": "Emperor Wa has been dead for several years, and the summer and winter have been left to chance. Only idle women in the world can mend the sky with a pancake." How to mend the sky with pancakes will be discussed later. Talk about it again. Pancakes are used in the Qiao Qiao Festival, and are also seen in "Miscellaneous Notes of the Year": "On Chinese Valentine's Day, people in the capital also make pancakes for the Cowherd and the Girl to eat." During the Chinese Valentine's Day, people in the capital eat pancakes themselves and also offer sacrifices to the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl for fear of fear. They were hungry when they met.
Among the murals discovered in Song Dynasty tombs in Gao Village, Dengfeng, Henan Province, archeology saw a "Picture of Cooks Pancakes", in which there are three deacons and cooks, one rolling out dough and one using a pancake. Pancakes, one person picked up the baked pancakes and was about to leave. Judging from the appearance of the pancake pan, it should be flat and edgeless, but the pancake needs to be rolled first and then baked, which is slightly different from the pancake process.
Pictures of pancakes from Song Dynasty tomb murals in Gaocun, Dengfeng, Henan
The pancakes of the Liao Dynasty can be read in "History of the Liao·Li Zhi VI": "In the past,...the pancakes were commonly eaten in In the courtyard, it is called "Xuntian". "Eating pancakes in the courtyard is called "Xuntian". It should be a sign of bad luck. In the eyes of the ancients, pancakes have such great power.
Pancakes can be found in many documents of the Tang Dynasty. Some are found in descriptions of daily life, some are found in descriptions of seasonal customs, and some are found in some interesting legends. In the Tang Dynasty, northerners loved to eat pancakes, and every household could make them. "Taiping Guangji" cites "Hedong Ji" as saying "inviting guests to pancakes at night", and also cites "Landscape Slips" as saying: "The nephews gathered together at night to hide hooks and eat pancakes." At night, they played games and ate pancakes. , is a very pleasant nightlife. This means that pancakes are commonplace in daily life.
Literaturemen also love pancakes. "Tang Yan" says: Duan Wei, a Tang Dynasty man, "was addicted to pancakes. He tasted them as a literary skill, and each pancake was cooked and filled with its own rhyme." When a pancake is cooked, a poem is written. Pancakes also entered the palace meals. "Tang Liu Dian" records that Guanglu Temple prepared meals for hundreds of officials and said, "Pancakes will be added on March 3rd." This is the Shangsi Festival, and pancakes are regarded as a seasonal delicacy.
See also "Wenchang Miscellaneous Records" which says: "In the Tang Dynasty, there were Tusu wine, Wuxin Pan, and Jiaoya Xun on the Yuan Dynasty, pancakes on the Renri day, and silk cages on the Shangyuan day." People eat pancakes on the Sun day, too. Ancient customs.
The section "Tie Pancake" in Chen Yuanliang's "Sui Shi Guang Ji" of the Southern Song Dynasty quoted Li Bai's poem "A pancake can mend the sky and penetrate the sun." It can be seen that the Tang Dynasty also had the theory of the sky piercing the sun. But there is a question here. There may not be any doubt that Li Bai has eaten pancakes, but did he really write such a poem? Maybe he ate pancakes and wrote poems, but this is not seen in Tang poetry. So is the line "a pancake can mend the sky" really his poem? As mentioned earlier, in Li Gou's poems of the Northern Song Dynasty, there is such a sentence as "a pancake can mend the sky and wear it out". Did Chen Yuanliang mistakenly insert the poem, or did Li Gou borrow it from Li Bai's poem? A small pancake can fill up a hole in the sky, which is really a wonderful idea.
Pancakes generally entered the lives of people in the Tang Dynasty, which can be clearly seen from the pancake stories mentioned in relevant documents. Song Sun Guangxian's "Northern Dream Suoyan" contains such a story: In Chang'an of the Tang Dynasty, someone bought a low-lying land at a low price. He asked an old woman to cook pancakes on the ground and induced children to throw bricks and tiles into the low-lying land. The one who won the paper bid would win. One pancake. The children threw bricks and tiles to make pancakes, and soon the low-lying land was filled with bricks and tiles. The man built a shop and made a lot of money. Using pancakes to induce children to pick up bricks and tiles to fill in the depression was regarded by the ancients as a "wisdom" move.
The world’s love for pancakes also brings out the ghost’s greed. People in the Tang Dynasty loved telling ghosts, and pancakes also appeared in many ghost stories. In "Beimeng Suoyan", there are several rumors about "pancakes attracting ghosts". It is said that "making pancakes at night will attract more ghosts and gods". See also "Youyang Zazu", which says that one night at Longxing Temple in Lingzhou, more than ten monks were eating pancakes, and a ghost "begged for a pancake." When people say ghosts love pancakes, they are still talking about people. People and ghosts have the same taste for good food.
Jianbing existed in the Jin Dynasty and was given a specific meaning. The Sui Dynasty's "Shu Zheng Ji" said: "The people in the north make pancakes for the solar eclipse in the courtyard, and the clouds fill the sky." This sentence comes from the account in "Jingchu Sui Shi Ji" written by Zongmao of the Southern Liang Dynasty: "The people in the north make pancakes for the solar eclipse. , I made it in the court, and the clouds filled the sky, and I don’t know where it came from.” This day refers to the seventh day of the first lunar month. As mentioned before, later it was also said that pancakes are used to smoke the sky and smoke insects, and the custom has been passed down for thousands of years.
There is also a story about pancakes being put into riddles during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Emperor Gaozu of the Northern Qi Dynasty used "Zulu Geda" as a riddle, and some people guessed it was pancakes. Zulu Geda may be of Turkic origin, and translated into Chinese it means Qian Huo Shi Bing, or in Chinese, these four characters are derived from the combination of forward and reverse. Qian Huo and Shi Bing just form the word pancake.
A group of tombs from the Wei and Jin Dynasties were discovered in Jiayuguan, Gansu Province, and a large number of painted brick paintings were unearthed. Many of the pictures showed cooking activities at that time, including two images of pancakes, including a cook. He held up the pancakes with both hands and seemed to think they were cooked well.
Pictures of pancakes unearthed from the Wei and Jin Dynasty tombs in Jiayuguan, Gansu
There is no clear documentary record of pancakes in the Han Dynasty, but there are pancakes, and there should be pancakes among them. For example, we know that there was a bakery in Feng, the hometown of great ancestor Liu Bang. That place was close to the border of present-day Shandong, so the bakery might not have sold any pancakes. According to "Miscellaneous Notes of Xijing", Liu Bang, the founder of the Han Dynasty, made his capital Guanzhong. His father, the grandpa, who followed him to Chang'an, missed his hometown and was unhappy. Liu Bangling imitated the layout of streets and lanes in his hometown Fengdi in Liyi, built a new city for the Supreme Emperor, and moved the old ones here. Only then did the Supreme Emperor become happy. This was a very successful long-distance relocation and reconstruction project. The pancake shop was also relocated, and the chief designer became famous in history.
Dating back to the Han Dynasty, no clues have been found about the existence of pancakes. But going forward three thousand years, to the prehistoric era, another unexpected discovery was made. At the Qijia Cultural Site in Minhe Lajia Village, Qinghai, some cave dwellings dating back 4,000 years were unearthed. Some rooms had fireplaces built with stone slabs in one corner. These fireplaces should be used for pancakes. Millet noodles had already been made at that time, and millet pancakes might also have been available.
Archaeology has confirmed that residents of the Yangshao Culture have created pottery pans for pancakes. The earliest pancake pans were found in ruins 5,000 years ago and were fired from clay. A special-shaped pottery was excavated at the Yangshao Cultural Sites of Dianjuntai and Qingtai in Xingyang, Henan. The pottery was filled with sand, with a circular plane on top and three or four legs attached to the bottom. There were soot left on the bottom. The excavators called this kind of utensil a "dry food utensil" and thought it was "the ancestor of the iron griddle used to make pancakes." This inference is good. It is indeed a pottery pancake griddle, and the pancakes made at that time should also be millet pancakes.
Ancient pancakes
In some northern areas, pancakes are popular in some areas and are now sold and eaten. The standard frying pan for pancakes is called a pancake, with flat sides and three legs, or A flat iron plate with different squares and circles. The regular pancake pan is called a pancake pan, which is a sharp tool for pancakes and pancakes. "Shuowen Judu" says: "The noodles are round and flat, with three legs and about two inches high." It can be seen that in ancient times, the noodles were a cooking utensil specially used for pancakes.
As long as there are pancakes, there are pancakes. The origin of pancakes and pancakes can be traced back to the creation of pancakes. Archeology has successively discovered some ancient clasps and clangs. In addition to prehistoric pottery clasps dating back more than 5,000 years, there are also iron and copper clasps belonging to the Liao, Song, Jin, Xixia and Yuan dynasties.
Jianbing pancake discovered by archeology
Jianbing is a kind of pasta and it is also the most historical pasta. In the past, some scholars believed that the food tradition in ancient China was a grain food tradition, while the pasta tradition originated later and became more popular in the Han Dynasty. Some people also believe that pasta technology was introduced from foreign lands during the Han Dynasty. These claims are obviously too conservative.
We found that pottery pans for making pancakes existed in the Neolithic Age, which disproves the view that the ancient Chinese pasta tradition originated later.
Pancakes are also a very cultural pasta. They can satisfy hunger and mend the sky. They can accompany us during the holidays and are of great use. Pancakes are also constantly changing and improving, with new looks and new tastes. They are an indispensable role in our diet. Many special foods in ancient times have the function of nourishing the body and mind. They are assigned to different seasons, such as the Lantern Festival for the Lantern Festival, the rice dumplings for the Dragon Boat Festival, the moon cakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the dumplings for the Winter Solstice, the noodles for the Summer Solstice, and the pancakes for Renri and Qiqiao. , the sentiments of literati became the sentiments of the whole people, and these foods became distinctive historical and cultural symbols. Pancakes are the largest symbol among them. Don’t forget to eat them on the seventh day of the first lunar month, and don’t forget to mend the sky.