Lu You: A Culinary Scholar of Food and Poetry

People all know that Lu You is a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, but few people know that he is also an expert in cooking. Among his poems, there are hundreds of poems about food, and he also describes the food in Wuzhong (now Suzhou) and Sichuan at that time, many of which are unique views on diet. Lu You is a very good cook and often cooks in person. On one occasion, he used local materials and made a sumptuous banquet with bamboo shoots, bracken and pheasant, which made the guests "poop" and was full of praise. He is also very conceited about his own scallion noodles, thinking that the taste can be comparable to that of "Su Tuo" (fried cake) enjoyed by immortals. He also used Chinese cabbage, radish, sweet potato, taro and other home-cooked dishes to make sweet soup, which was followed by residents in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Lu You said in the poem "Dongting Spring" that there is a saying, "The world is meaningless, how can you change jade?" The "jade" here refers to the "golden jade" praised by Yang Di as "the delicious food in the southeast". "Fish fillets" are cut thin; Limulus means chopped pickles or pickles, and it also means "finely chopped". "Jinyu" is mainly made of ground white bass mixed with finely cut golden inlaid vegetables. "Four Spring" is a kind of soup made of China spring silk, and it is also a famous dish of Wu. These dishes praised by Lu You in his poems were really famous dishes at that time. Lu You is no less than Su Dongpo as an amateur cook. Among his poems, there are hundreds of poems about cooking. For example, there is a poem that records that he can cook (noodles) vegetables (soup), and it is "the sky is full of vegetables, which is hard to know", that is to say, the noodles made of onion oil are just like the sky is full of vegetables (that is, crisp). He wrote the practice of "sweet soup" in the preface of "Eating Meat All over the Mountain": "Take shepherd's purse, yam, taro and vegetable stalks as omnivores, and cook them with delicacies without soy sauce." Poetry Day: "Always live in a thatched cottage by the lake, and talk about food and wine in the village." The sweet soup method handed down in recent years is even more incredible for Wu. ".This shows that Lu You is good at cooking and loves cooking. It is precisely because Lu You appreciates these famous dishes in his hometown that when he travels to Sichuan, he often expresses his homesickness by missing the dishes in his hometown and writes the poem "Ten Years in the South of the Yangtze River". Lu You can not only cook, but also cook. He has been an official in Sichuan for a long time and has a strong interest in Sichuan cuisine. Tang 'an's glutinous rice, Xinjin's leek, Pengshan's roasted turtle, Chengdu's steamed chicken and Xindu's vegetables all left an unforgettable impression on him, and he still remembers it after leaving Shu for many years. In his later years, he sang an emotional poem "Returning the Taste of Wu" in the drama "Food". The poem "After-dinner Play" says: "Buy bones at the East Gate and add some orange sauce. Steamed chicken is the most famous, and beauty is not counted. " "Bo" means "pig" and "Bo Gu" means pork chop. The ribs are cooked or dipped in a sour sauce mixed with spices, such as orange sauce. In addition, the poem also praised Sichuan leeks, zongzi, turtle soup and other foods. When choosing fresh and high-quality cooking materials, Lu You wrote: "Frosted vegetables are light and sweet, and spring seedlings are tender and smooth. You can cook it when you come back, without adding half a baht of salt cheese. " He summed up the choice of vegetables without seasoning, which tasted fresh. And emphasize that fresh raw materials are right on the one hand; But judging from the sentence "no need to add half a baht of salt cheese", it goes to the other extreme. He denied the proper function of salt and overemphasized the "original flavor". Lu You in his later years was basically a vegetarian. He thinks eating is frugal and healthy. His favorite vegetarian dishes are cabbage, mustard, celery, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, wolfberry leaves, water chestnut, tofu, eggplant, shepherd's purse and so on. I grow my own vegetables, too, and have little to do with meat dishes. At the same time, he also personally said that it is family style to be so frugal, "not for retiring from office, but". "What's more," there is often no food next door. "If you eat vegetables like this, you can also be" abstinent, and a meal is purple hump ". "In particular, I am addicted to shepherd's purse and often refuse to give up. He is also very particular about the practice of shepherd's purse, and advocates cooking it as soon as it is picked, ensuring freshness, without adding salt and cheese, and highlighting the true taste. When evaluating Job's tears, there is a poem that says, "When you first visit Tang 'an to cook Job's tears, you will never lose your carving of Hu Mei. As big as amaranth, as white as jade, as slippery as a spoon, and fragrant. "Coix seed is as big as amaranth (chicken head meat) and its white, smooth and fragrant characteristics are very distinctive. Lu You also thinks that eating porridge can strengthen the body, invigorate qi and prolong life. He wrote in the poem "Eating Porridge": "Everyone in the world is old, and I don't know how many years it is today. I have a simple wanqiu (immortal name) method, which only gives porridge to immortals. "The reason why he can live to be in his eighties is probably related to his eating porridge and basic vegetarianism in his later years. Lu You also advocates local flavor, such as "the fat and crisp spoon of perch is beautiful, and the newly cooked oil (Qiao Mai) cakes are fragrant. Since ancient times, people have been light and rich, and each has returned to his hometown. " Another example is "the mountains and rivers of the motherland are infinitely good, and the elders in their hometown do not suffer from poverty. When a light cloud comes out of the hole, it will smell like hometown. "It makes sense. It can be seen that Lu You is a culinary scholar who specializes in food and poetry. Gourmet scholar Lu You