China traditional diet culture.
1. The development of agriculture is the basis of the development and prosperity of food culture, and food is closely related to agriculture. Without agriculture, diet would be a cook without rice. What is "agriculture"? Ban Gu's History of Food in Han Dynasty: "Breaking ground and planting grain is called agriculture", which is what we call narrow agriculture today. In fact, China was not limited to this in ancient times, but noticed that agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and by-products were all developed in an all-round way according to local conditions. Vegetables were planted in Yangshao culture 6000 years ago. A clay pot unearthed in Anbanpo, Xi 'an contains mustard and cabbage seeds. During the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, animal husbandry and horticulture developed on a certain scale. Guanzi, written in the Warring States Period, often mentioned five grains (millet, millet, wheat, rice and hemp) together with six animals (pigs, cows, sheep, horses, chickens and dogs) and "Sang Ma". At that time, the income ratio of grain, horticulture and animal husbandry was 60: 20: 20, excluding the fishery in Sang Ma, so it was diversified.
In the Han dynasty, there was a prosperous scene of "a prosperous population, cattle and horses spread to the wild" Due to the needs of the war, the Western Han government attached great importance to animal husbandry, especially raising horses. Emperor Wu even used force to plunder the blood horses in the Northwest Dawan. After Wei and Jin Dynasties, rice was widely planted in the south. In the Tang Dynasty, all our crops today can be planted except a few crops, such as sweet potato, tobacco and especially tea. "Jianghuai people take tea as their profession", and a generation of "Cha Sheng" Lu Yu (Tea Classic) came into being. Fish farming is also relatively developed, and fish farming in rice fields has also appeared in Lingnan. After Ming and Qing dynasties, agriculture became more refined, and what we call ecological agriculture appeared today. "Five crops are abundant" and "six livestock are prosperous" are really combined in Jiahu area. An agricultural proverb says, "If you don't make money by raising pigs, look back at the fields".
At the same time of our own development, we have also introduced many crop varieties from abroad, including grain and vegetables. According to statistics, only the varieties of grain raw materials introduced into the Central Plains from the Western Regions in the Han Dynasty are grapes, pomegranate, alfalfa, sesame, walnuts, garlic, peas, broad beans, watermelons, melons, cucumbers, spinach, lettuce, parsley, celery, carrots, lentils, green onions and golden peaches. The food crops imported from overseas in Ming and Qing Dynasties are: sweet potato (sweet potato, native to America. Columbus discovered the New World and spread it to Europe and Southeast Asia. 1953, Chen Zhenlong, an overseas Chinese living in the Philippines, took great risks and broke through the Spanish colonial controller's ban on the export of sweet potatoes. He secretly wound potato vines around the ship's lanyard, coated the surface with sludge and escaped inspection. He first planted them successfully in Fujian.
/kloc-in the 7th century, Xu Guangqi, a great scientist, was successfully introduced in the suburbs of Shanghai because of his father's death. Xu also wrote "Sweet Potato Sparse", summarizing the advantages of planting sweet potatoes (corn, introduced from the southeast coast or the western regions in the 6th century/kloc) and peanuts (native to America, introduced from Nanyang Islands in the early 6th century/kloc). An agricultural proverb in Shanxi says, "No grain is plentiful, no worries, as long as there are two acres of yam eggs." )。 The vegetable varieties introduced from overseas in Ming and Qing Dynasties are: pepper, tomato (named after Xifan), kidney bean, cabbage, sunflower (introduced from Nanyang in the17th century) and cauliflower (introduced from Europe in Guangxu period). Today, we have 160 kinds of vegetables, which are second to none in the world. The introduction of exotic crops has greatly enriched the variety of Chinese mainland cuisine, improved the variety structure of crops, and enriched the material life and food culture.
2. The structure of diet is more food and less meat, that is, the way of catering, which refers to the collocation of staple food, non-staple food and beverage in diet. Dietary structure is influenced by many factors, such as economic development, national habits, social changes, religious beliefs and so on. Although northerners like to eat onion and garlic for a long time, Sichuanese like to eat sour and spicy food, Cantonese like to eat light food, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang people like to eat sugar, but for thousands of years, the Han people have basically formed a dietary tradition of taking grain as the staple food and other meat, vegetables and fruits as non-staple food, which has continued to this day. This is very different from the distinction between meat-based and ownerless non-staple food in the west (ethnic minorities in northwest and north China mainly focus on meat and cheese). This diet conforms to the principles of nutrition and hygiene. Meat is good, but grains, vegetables and even wild vegetables contain nutrients that meat does not have. Chinese medicine believes that wine and meat are fat and sweet.
In ancient China, food processing was highly valued. For example, the cereals in the pre-Qin period were mainly whole grains, beans and wheat. The pasta after the appearance of stone mill is easy to digest and absorb. Flour can be made into cakes, and can be made into steamed bread, steamed buns and other foods through fermentation. Another example is that soybeans are made into pulp from grains, which is a great contribution to mankind. Tofu was discovered by Liu An, the king of Huainan in Han Dynasty, in the process of alchemy. According to the research, the protein absorption rate of soybean granules is only 65%, and it can reach 92% to 96% after being made into tofu [Xiaokang 16 three indicators were not reached by 2000: the per capita net income of farmers was 85%, the rural health security was 80%, and the per capita protein intake was 90% (73g)]. Tofu can be used in all kinds of dishes, suitable for all ages. Nowadays, everyone in the world does not eat the king, and the Japanese especially admire it.
3. The diet culture has been continuously developed and improved in the inheritance. Among the vast literature works in China, food literature occupies a place. There is also the Shennong Classic:> Seven volumes, which record the cooking experience in the pre-Qin period; There are no fewer than dozens of related works in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and before, and only five are named after the Book of Food. The Book of Qi Yaomin is an encyclopedia and a microcosm of China's ancient food culture. It tells about the storage, brewing, processing and cooking of food, and discusses the whole process of food production completely and systematically. Shu Yao not only takes into account the high-grade dishes such as "roast suckling pig" of emperors and nobles, but also takes into account the needs of ordinary people for middle and low-grade vegetarian dishes: after the Tang and Song Dynasties, the cooking skills of the north spread to the south with the sound of the oars of the Grand Canal, and more and more works reflected the cooking skills of the south. Zanning, a monk in the Northern Song Dynasty, introduced the method of bamboo shoots intake, emphasizing the "original flavor" of bamboo shoots. His own way of eating is to take out fresh bamboo shoots and mountain spring water from the bamboo forest, stew them slowly with bamboo shoots and sit in the forest to enjoy them. He believes that only in this way can we eat "original flavor" and "real taste". A secretary of "Shanjia Qing Palace" in Lin Hong in the Southern Song Dynasty described the dietary materials and production methods of mountain residents. This paper focuses on vegetable food, including cultivated crops. Starting from the vegetable basket, there are more than 40 cooking methods. "Rinse rabbit meat" was first seen in this book, and then "rinse mutton" appeared on this basis.
Ming, love falls, natural disasters occur frequently, and hungry people lose. There are many books about famine relief. For example, the Herbal Medicine for Saving Famine written by Imperial Clan Zhou in Ming Dynasty contains tens of thousands of kinds of plants, and draws pictures to point out their edible parts and methods. The author said that the purpose of writing this book is to prevent people from being poisoned by eating some wild plants when they are hungry. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica also analyzed and explained the edible and non-edible of many wild plants, so as to avoid accidental poisoning.
4. The traditional diet is rich in recipes and rich in cooking styles. Not to mention, the menus recorded in A Dream of Red Mansions, The Book of Songs and Songs of the South can be used for banquets, and the menus in Li Sao and Evocation can also be used for banquets. There are three kinds of food lists preserved in the Han Dynasty (one is Seven Hairs written by Mu Cheng, and the other is a silk book unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha). Traditional diet pays attention to color, fragrance, taste and shape, and the manufacture of utensils requires elegance. Traditional diet is often accompanied by music and dance, which is of great aesthetic value. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, food production had been very elaborate. For example, a dish of Jiafu in A Dream of Red Mansions, "Eggplant", is made by peeling tender eggplant, cutting it into cubes, frying it with chicken, adding diced chicken breast, diced mushrooms, diced new bamboo shoots, diced mushrooms, diced spiced tofu and diced dried fruit, stewing it with chicken soup, collecting Tonga sesame oil, mixing it with distiller's grains oil, sealing it in a porcelain jar, and frying the chicken breast when eating.
Qi Yaomin's Book only makes one kind of sauce, and introduces the preparation methods of more than ten kinds of vinegar from meat to vegetarian, 2 1 kind, involving nearly1kind of raw materials. In Song Dynasty, the urban economy was prosperous, and the Japanese night market was full of vitality. "Old Stories of Wulin" recorded 4 kinds of "engagement" at that time, including 2 kinds of vegetables, 9 kinds of porridge, 30 kinds of miscellaneous meat, 80 kinds of cold drinks, 56 kinds of steamed food and 54 kinds of wine. In addition to daily food, crisps, cheese, milk, sugar and flowers are also added to the food family. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Wu put all the menus of hotels in Lin 'an (Hangzhou), the capital of that time, into his dream, with a total of 335 items. The porridge recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica is even more varied, including 48 kinds of porridge such as Baihua porridge, tea porridge, lotus seed porridge and lily porridge.
Due to the differences of local customs and geographical environment, eight recognized cuisines have been formed in the long development of traditional food culture: Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Guangdong cuisine, Fujian cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine, Zhejiang cuisine, Hunan cuisine and Anhui cuisine.
Shandong cuisine-originated in Shandong, the center of Qilu culture. Its perfect combination with etiquette is the first of the eight major cuisines. Among them, the most famous is "Confucian cuisine", which combines the cuisines of the court, government and Shandong folk in past dynasties and becomes the representative of northern cuisine in Song Dynasty. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, it became the main body of the palace diet. Confucian cuisine is characterized by a wide range of materials, from delicacies to ordinary melons and fruits; Fine production, exquisite knife work, proper seasoning and working at high temperature; Pay attention to dishes with rich nutrition, high calorie and high protein; Pay great attention to the name and shape of dishes, which is a major feature of Confucian cuisine. Such as "Chao Chao Yi Guo Duan", "Imperial Shrimp" and "Yin Ren Pei Shi" all have the characteristics of "the first public house in the world", and "Man Han Quan Banquet" is the best in Shandong cuisine and has become a representative variety of royal banquets in Qing Dynasty. The "Full Banquet" included about 100 famous dishes from north and south.
Sichuan cuisine-originated in Pakistan and Sichuan. It is characterized by heavy oil and is famous for its spicy taste. Sichuan cuisine pays attention to seasoning and is good at renovation. A piece of tofu can make more than a dozen flavors in the hands of Sichuan chefs. Sichuan cuisine is known as "one dish, one style, one hundred dishes and one hundred flavors".
Cantonese cuisine-Guangzhou, Chaozhou and Dongjiang is composed of three local cuisines, with the word "miscellaneous" as its characteristic. The selection of materials is wide and varied, and birds, animals, insects and snakes can enter; Taste light, crisp, mostly sweet; Strong seasonality, known as "seasonal food." With the coastal trade in the late Qing Dynasty, Cantonese cuisine became famous in Europe and America.
Jiangsu cuisine, also known as Huaiyang cuisine, is centered on Suzhou, Yangzhou and Hangzhou. Known for its lightness and elegance, it is the representative of "Southern Cuisine". The selected materials are mostly fresh rivers; The taste has both north and south flavors, strong but not greasy, light and a lot; Pay great attention to the eating environment, eating utensils and eating habits. I often hold banquets by boat. Dining places combine handicrafts, carved gardens, bonsai, music, architecture, calligraphy and decoration. Make people get spiritual cultivation while eating.
Zhejiang cuisine-represented by Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shaoxing, has strong characteristics in the south of the Yangtze River. Most of the ingredients are fish, fresh river, meat, poultry and bamboo shoots. The ingredients are thick and delicious. Many dishes have meanings: "More than a year", "Give birth to your son early" (red dates, peanuts, longan and litchi), "Fried stew" (Qin Gui), "Song Sao fish" and "Dongpo meat".
Fujian cuisine-famous for seafood, good at making medicated diet. Pay attention to mellow taste. Fujian local dishes. Hunan cuisine-Hunan local cuisine, mainly pepper and smoked wax food. Different from the spicy taste of Sichuan cuisine, it is spicy but not hemp, and its taste is strong and exciting. Hunan people are also bitter, such as bitter gourd. Anhui cuisine-Anhui local cuisine. Stew in casserole, stew slowly, and choose more meat and fish, such as raw garlic and coriander with meat, which is heavy in oil and salty and spicy. Smoked, pickled and waxed foods are also its characteristics. In addition to the eight major cuisines, cooking in Hubei, Shaanxi, Henan and Shanxi is also very distinctive.
Many ancient literati were good at cooking. Confucius put forward the dietary standard of "seven don't eat"-"eat while eating (rice turns sour), and don't eat when fish is hungry and meat is rotten (fish is rotten and meat is rotten); Don't eat if the color is evil (food changes color); Smelly (bad taste) do not eat; Do not eat because of poor cooking skills; Don't eat from time to time (undercooked or before dinner time); Don't eat if the cutting method is wrong (the knife is not good); Do not eat its sauce (improper use of seasoning). " It also advocates not eating dirty and evil things such as animal viscera, insects and snakes. Su Dongpo experienced ups and downs in his official career and tasted all kinds of delicious food in the north and south. The roast meat he cooked is "cook slowly, boil less water, and he will be beautiful only when the fire is enough", and "Dongpo meat" has been passed down to this day. Contrary to Dongpo, Lu You likes vegetarianism and wrote dozens of poems praising vegetarianism. Li Yu, a playwright in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, emphasized that "freshness" is the original taste of food, and he hated "violent stewing of natural things".
In addition, China's holiday diet is also very particular. Jiaozi on New Year's Eve, Yuanxiao on the 15th day of the first month, Zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival, moon cakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival, Laba porridge and other famous brands not only have unique flavors, but also contain many touching legends and stories, which are also a wonderful flower in traditional food culture.
Excerpt from Professor Wang of China Institute of Traditional Diet Culture.