We have always thought that sashimi is a traditional Japanese delicacy, and we think that people eat it well. But no one knows that sashimi is our traditional Chinese food civilization, which was learned from Japan in the Tang and Song Dynasties. The ancient Chinese people spoke concisely and concisely, and called sashimi "鍍". Have you ever heard of its popularity? Popular means delicious. What does it mean to be delicious? "Zhi" - barbecue. "荍" means - raw meat, sashimi.
Confucius said, "You will never tire of fine food, and you will never tire of fine food." Confucius said that the thinner the slices of sashimi are, the more delicious they will be. Let’s look at the lyrics written by Xin Qiji of the Song Dynasty, “Don’t say that the sea bass is worthy of being eaten. When the west wind blows, the eagle returns at the end of the season.” It means that when the autumn wind blows and the sea bass is on the market, it’s time to eat sashimi. I won’t do it. I'm alive, I'm going to eat sashimi. But when we read ancient words, we don’t know that “脍” means sashimi. The Japanese learned it completely from China
and preserved it. What about us? After throwing it away, now no one knows what the word "脍" means. Why do you need wasabi when eating sashimi? Sashimi is cold, cold
and difficult to digest. We use mustard to balance it so that we don’t have diarrhea after eating. Wasabi made in Japan? Wasabi is not produced in Japan, but is produced in China.
When you eat sashimi, you see there is a green leaf under each piece of sashimi, which is called perilla leaf. "Compendium of Materia Medica" says that perilla is produced in China and can relieve stasis and diarrhea. poison. After eating aquatic products such as fish and shrimp, if you have stomach upset, allergies, vomiting or diarrhea, you should quickly boil perilla leaf water and drink it. The main ingredients of Huoxiang Zhengqi Water that we often take are: Huoxiang, Angelica dahurica, and Perilla. This perilla leaf should be wrapped in sashimi and eaten with wasabi, but this is not enough. There is also a red pickled ginger, which is made from ginger soaked in vinegar and sugar. What is ginger used for? Everyone knows that it warms the stomach. If you feel nauseous after eating, drink some ginger soup and it will melt away. There is white thread on the sashimi plate. Do you know what that thread is? What silk? It is shredded white radish, which is called Dagen by Japanese and white radish by Chinese. These four traditional Chinese medicines, which are used to clear away heat, eliminate food, and remove accumulation, are eaten together with sashimi. This is the civilization of our traditional Chinese medicine diet. The Japanese have kept this tradition intact.
This author also verified that the Japanese came to China in the autumn to study. Because we ate sashimi without wasabi in the spring, and there was no wasabi at that time. The scallions and green onions we dipped them in. In addition, when we eat sashimi, we also drink a kind of tea called Genmaicha. This tea is a kind of green tea, but green tea is cold in nature, so we fry it with rice until browned and then fry it together. This is the food culture of the Tang and Song Dynasties.
Since the Han and Wei dynasties, there have been more and more records of eating sashimi. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there is a Yuefu poem ("Yu Lin Lang" by Xin Yannian) "Ask me for clear wine, a jade pot carried on a silk rope. Please ask me for precious delicacies, a carp on a golden plate". In addition, the most famous one is that in the Northern Wei Dynasty, Jia Sixie's "Qi Min Yao Shu" had a dish called "Jin Yu Yu". Jia Sixie recorded that seven ingredients were used: garlic, ginger, salt, white plum, orange peel, and cooked chestnuts. Meat and Japonica rice (金馑) are served with sashimi (馍).
"Shuowen Jiezi" says: Wan, finely chopped meat. Later, the word "鲲" appeared, probably to distinguish fish fillets from other meat fillets. But these two words are often used interchangeably. Looking up the annotation of the word "鲲" in the "Modern Chinese Dictionary", it only says that it is the name of a kind of fish, and does not mention that the word "鲲" once referred to sashimi in ancient documents.
Li Bai and Du Fu loved to eat sashimi
In the Tang Dynasty, the consumption of sashimi became more popular. Li Bai's poem "There are small officials in Shandong who meet Qilang to fight for wine". The most moving narration is in "The Pisces gave me to Yu on the reverse journey, because the carp drank wine and left behind poems." In the sixth year of Tianbao in the Tang Dynasty (AD 747), Li Bai passed by Zhongdu (today's Wenshang County, Shandong Province). A small official named Feng Qilang came to visit the poet with Lu wine and two fish. Li Bai was moved and personally Instead of drinking wine and talking happily, he wrote a poem when parting:
Lu wine is like the soul of a tiger, and the scales of a fish are purple and golden.
The powerful officials in Shandong were so handsome that they carried this gift as a gift to people far away.
When wine comes to me, I will drink it, and I will go to the mountain as a place to part ways.
The double gills are sipping, the fins are spread, and the silver plate is about to fly away.
A few frost blades swung in the air, and the red flowers fell into the white snow.
After serving you a meal with chopsticks, I will get on my horse and return drunk with a golden whip.
In the winter of the first year of Qianyuan (AD 758), the poet Du Fu also wrote a poem related to eating fish and cartilage, "Jiang Qishaofu in Naxiang set up fish and carp, and played and presented long songs". The whole poem A little longer, here is an excerpt from the poem about the fish-eating turtle:
It is not easy to catch fish when the river is frozen, and cutting the ice may invade the Hebo Palace.
A man who eats food is attacked by a fisherman, and when he washes the fish and sharpens his sword, the fish becomes jealous.
The snow fell silently, and the spring onions were chopped into pieces.
I would rather advise you to be ashamed of your youth if you have a chubby belly, and make the old man happy if you cook a fragrant meal.
The white paper was wet when I dropped the anvil, nor did I realize the gold plate was empty when I put the chopsticks down.
Compared with Li Bai, Du Fu's poem describes the sashimi making process in more detail. The poem explains that the live fish used to make sashimi come from the glacier, and the way of making sashimi is to cut it quickly and thinly, and put the fish on the mat. White paper, absorb the moisture.
In addition, "Lingbiao Luyi" (volume 2) written by Liu Xun from Xiongxian County, Hebei Province when he was an official in Lingnan (Guangdong region) also contains text about eating raw fish fillets in Lingnan region : Catfish:
Like a white fish, but the body is slightly shorter and the tail is not flat. There are many fish like this in the Qingyuan River, but they are not found in the sea. The people in Guangzhou get a lot of it as clams, which are not fishy and are beautiful, and all the fish can't get past them.
Eating sashimi was popular in Kaifeng during the Song Dynasty
"Tokyo Menghua Lu", an important book describing Bianliang, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, gave a detailed account of the prosperous life in the capital of the Song Dynasty. The description is extremely detailed. "Tokyo Menghualu" also has vivid records of people eating sashimi during festivals:
On March 1, outside Shuntian Gate in the west of the state, Jinming Pool and Qionglin Garden were opened... There are no houses on the west bank of the pond, but there are poplars hanging over the water and tobacco paving the embankment. There are few tourists, and many fishermen must buy a sign in the pond. Fang Xu fishes. When a tourist catches a fish, he buys it at twice the price. Chopping vegetables by the water and recommending them in fragrant bottles is a momentary delicacy.
Also: Food on the pond: boiled rice, cold water mung beans...sliced ??fish, herring...etc.
The author of "Tokyo Menghua Lu" is Meng Yuanlao. In the book, Meng Yuanlao said that he had traveled with his father since childhood and lived in the west of Kaifeng City during the Chongning period. After the Jingkang disaster, Elder Meng fled to the south of the Yangtze River and wrote "Tokyo Menghua Lu" to miss the prosperity of his old capital. Jinming Pool was a royal garden in the Northern Song Dynasty. Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty built a palace in the pool and it became a spring outing resort for the royal family.
From the lines of Meng Yuanlao's words, we can recall the intoxication of the Song Dynasty people when they drank wine and tasted fish fillets (rotary cut fish fillets) along the Jinming Pond. This is a record of eating raw fish in Kaifeng, Henan. In the Song Dynasty, eating sashimi had a very elegant cultural connotation. (The Japanese have inherited all elegant things, as well as Han and Tang elegant music. The music scores of Kucha music are available in Japan, so many ancient Japanese songs have a Han and Tang style: Memory of the Forbidden City, Painted Skin)
During the period of peace in the Southern Song Dynasty, there was also a local chronicle "Jiatai Wuxingzhi" (compiled by Tanbu of the Song Dynasty) which recorded in more detail the method of eating sashimi in Jiangsu and Zhejiang during the Southern Song Dynasty:
< p> "Wuxing Ji" says: Tang Zhaode was operating the knife and moving the anvil, his wings followed the wind, and his red heddles were wisps of feathers. The good people ridiculed him and said: "If you meet Wu, you will have a fine flower shop. If you don't meet Wu, you will waste vinegar and gourds." Jiangdong calls garlic and calls it gourd, and Su Dongpo says: Wuxing
It is enough for a cook to make a fool of himself by cutting the perch in the Songjiang River. In the local area, gourds are used as a grand delicacy. Every time you meet a guest or celebrate a wedding, Yanji will set it up here. The dishes are arrayed, and there is no special taste. Dozens of gondola craftsmen serve as cao.
The wisps of white are paved into flowers, grass, phoenixes, or poems, which are extremely wonderful. They are also very good at making harrows. They are called golden rake and jade carp. There is also bone soup, which is boiled with bones every time. It has a very light taste and has its own real taste. There is a cup of food each. "Compendium of Materia Medica"
It is said: If the brain can eliminate meat, if you eat it, you must use this soup more often. The ones made by Changxing are especially thin, just like cicada wings, and cannot be matched by other places.
Wuxing is the ancient name of Huzhou. In the Sui Dynasty, it was renamed Huzhou because Wuxing was located in Taihu Lake.
The quotation mentioned that when people in Huzhou prepared sashimi in the Southern Song Dynasty, they would arrange the sashimi in various shapes on the plate, and even put poems and verses on it, just like the art of calligraphy, painting, and flower arrangement. It can be seen that sashimi has been a dish as early as the Song Dynasty. It has broken through the framework of ordinary food and even has certain cultural connotations. The article also emphasizes that the fish fillets cut by chefs in Changxing, Huzhou, are as thin as cicada wings, which shows their exquisite knife skills.
Huang Zunxian's records of the Japanese eating sashimi in the late Qing Dynasty can reproduce the scene of Chinese people eating fish in the Tang and Song Dynasties. For example, the Japanese pay attention to knife skills when eating sashimi, and the fish fillets are "as thin as cicada wings" , the decorative patterns before eating the fish are "dressed", and after the fish is eaten, the head and tail of the fish are used to boil the "soup and soup". The various practices are almost the same as those recorded in the literature of the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The difference is that Japanese sashimi uses sea fish, while in China, most fish is river fish.
A short cookbook "Tasty Seeking Truth" published in Guangzhou during the Republic of China contains a recipe for "mixed fish fillet": use mackerel to remove the skin, cut into thin slices and place on a plate, mix well with cooked oil, and serve immediately Warm it with rice wine until it is about to boil, pour it on the dried fish fillets, and serve until it is half cooked.
It is done. The dry wine side dishes are made with crispy peanuts, fried sesame seeds with meat, shredded tea melon and shredded ginger, fried eggs, fried vermicelli, ginger, minced chrysanthemum pepper, white oil and cooked oil and mix well. It is sweet, smooth and smooth.
In 1946, when Mr. Jao Tsung-i compiled "Chaozhou Chronicles", he recorded that Chaozhou people like to eat raw mackerel fish: the mackerel fish has a fresh taste and is a daily delicacy with the largest sales volume, or it can be cut into thin slices. It is eaten raw with sauce and is called yusheng, which is the favorite of people in the state.
Today’s Lao Yusheng is not much different from the fish fillet spread in Guangzhou or the fish fillet in Chaozhou. The difference is that in Guangzhou, rice wine is poured on the fish fillet before eating. However, the method is no longer as sophisticated as it was in ancient times, and the cultural characteristics and connotations of eating fish no longer exist. It can only be said that this is probably a legacy of eating fish in the Tang and Song Dynasties.