Why didn't the Tang Dynasty eat chickens, ducks and geese? This is an interesting topic. Because sometimes in the Tang Dynasty, chickens, ducks, geese and other poultry meat were not considered as meat-here is a short story: in the early years of the Tang Dynasty, it was forbidden for Yushi to eat meat in a place, but in the early years of the Tang Dynasty, Ma Zhouyou, a famous celebrity, went to a place and liked chicken very much, and was later sued. Emperor Taizong said, "I forbade Yushi to eat meat, for fear that states and counties would spend a lot of money. What's the point of eating chicken? " I'm afraid of extravagance and waste, so I'm forbidden to eat meat, but how can eating chicken count as meat? As for meat, I should add that fishing and hunting were very popular in the Tang Dynasty, and fishing was very common. At that time, there was a very famous dish-"Silver Carp Slices", which is actually today's sashimi. Hunting prey, such as deer, rabbits, wild boar and bears, often appears on the menu of the Tang Dynasty. Let's start with vegetables, such as tomatoes, potatoes, green peppers, sweet potatoes, onions, peppers and corn. Guess how much the Tang Dynasty ate?
The answer is zero, and none of this existed at the time.
Even the common Chinese cabbage (then called "fermented grains") and spinach (then called "spinach") are not common vegetables. Cabbage is because of its poor appearance, while spinach is just introduced and the price is too expensive. So what was the most common vegetable at that time? Okra is called "winter amaranth", and Du Fu has a poem: "Rice can be boiled white, and okra can be cooked again. Whoever slides is full and who is always soft. " It's not common now. It's only eaten in some southern provinces and cities. In addition, there is a very common vegetable called Xiè. Du Fu also wrote a poem: "Chai Men, a hermit, grows vegetables around his home in autumn. The surplus basket is dewy, not waiting for books. " Now this dish is also available, the name is "jiao Tou", but it is also rare, only in some provinces and cities in the south. Moreover, the practice at that time was rather monotonous, and it was basically boiled, steamed and roasted, and it was not until the Song Dynasty that it was fried.
Let's talk about spices.
At that time, there were quite a lot of spices, such as pepper, pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and dried tangerine peel. There are also some complicated seasonings, such as douchi, bean paste, onion, ginger and garlic. There must be some salt. The modern things such as monosodium glutamate and chicken essence were definitely not available at that time, and neither were peppers. Many ancient poems mentioned seasonings used in cooking at that time, such as "Steamed Dolphin with Garlic, Roasted Duck with Salt and Pepper". Boneless fresh fish, and cooked meat noodles "(steamed pork with garlic paste, roast duck with salt and pepper, sashimi, sheep with skin or pig head); Another example is "scales as white as snow, cinnamon steamed", and so on. It can be seen that the use of spices in the Tang Dynasty is very close to modern times, and there are many ways to do it. At that time, there was vinegar, and cooking with wine was not uncommon. In addition, there was sugar in the Tang Dynasty, but the more common name was "Feng", more precisely, it should be maltose, and some people added Feng to make drinks. This drink is called "Feng". At that time, the process of making glaze was exquisite and the quality of glaze was very high. As Li Shangyin said, "porridge is fragrant and apricot flowers are white"; As for sucrose, it is just emerging, or the production process that Xuanzang brought back from Tianzhu. Since then, sugar has gradually become popular.
Take the Chang 'an generation in Tang Dynasty as an example, and talk about what they eat all day.
Wei Jia (Wei Jia) is the most common breakfast in the Tang Dynasty. Simply put, it is noodle soup. Jia Sixie's "Qi Yao Min Shu Cake Method" has a detailed description of Jia Xiu's practice: "Jia Xiuru's big finger is broken by two inches and immersed in a basin. It is advisable to pat it to the edge of the basin by hand to make it extremely thin and cook it all with water. It's not straight, it's white and cute, and it's slippery. " Simply put, it is to tear noodles to the size of a thumb and cook them with seasoning. This is a common staple food in the Tang Dynasty and belongs to one of the "soup cakes" I mentioned earlier. Another common breakfast is "porridge". It is said that porridge, a simple and nutritious thing, is also the favorite of Tang people, such as Bai Juyi's "It's chilly in spring now, ask yourself what you want to eat." Su Wen Bai Hua wine milk rehmannia porridge. "Another example is Pi Rixiu's" Wheat in the Morning, Cloth in the Morning ". "One of them is porridge. At that time, the practice of porridge was varied, compared with contemporary ones. In the Tang Dynasty's medical work "Heart Sutra of Food Doctors", there is a special part about porridge, in which various practices are mentioned. Raw materials range from rice to white rice, millet, coix seed, barley, wheat and japonica rice, and auxiliary materials range from vegetables to meat to fruits to dried fruits.
Just say a few high-profile ones:
Sesame porridge (sesame porridge) At that time, I liked to add sesame seeds to rice. For example, Wang Wei's "Royal soup and stone marrow, fragrant rice into hemp" made porridge indispensable, so there was sesame porridge (sesame porridge). Eat cereal cold. During the Cold Food Festival, according to the Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty, there was cold wheat porridge in the recipes of civil servants. As for the folks, eat more cold porridge at the Cold Food Festival. Almond porridge. Cold porridge tastes bad, so eating almond porridge is very common. The practice is to "eat cold food for three days, make fermented cheese, cook japonica rice and wheat to make cheese, and pound almonds to make porridge." According to "Jade Candle Book", people now know that glutinous rice porridge and almonds are researched into cheese, but not as spells "("Nakano Ji "). Simply put, it is barley porridge, with chopped almonds and glutinous rice (maltose). Of course, besides noodle soup and porridge, there must be other options for breakfast, such as steamed cakes. Simply put, all steamed pasta can be called steamed cakes. (Of course, it also includes steamed buns, but it is not limited to steamed buns, and some of them are similar to steamed buns), which are directly steamed, steamed with oil, steamed with dried fruits and stuffing. Wu Chuhou, another poet in the Song Dynasty, mentioned in Miscellaneous Notes on the Blue Box: "In Renzong Temple, chastity is taboo (it should be called' chastity'), and the language is incorrect, which is close to steaming. Today, the whole court calls steamed cakes cooked cakes. " -think of Wu Dalang.
Pick a famous introduction:
Zitui Steamed Cake: This is also the seasonal food of the Cold Food Festival, and it can be eaten today. Another super-famous staple food with high appearance rate is Hu Bing. Bai Juyi has a poem, "Flax pancakes are like Kyoto, with crisp and oily noodles." It tells the story of Bai Da's poet copying a famous Hu Bing store in Beijing, and then making it and giving it to his friends. The method of making Hu cake is probably white flour cake embryo, smeared with oil, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and baked in the oven-considering that this thing comes from the western regions and is exactly the same as Naan, I think it is Naan. It's the same as sesame seed cake. I feel that Hu pancake should be similar to today's bag. In "Tang Yulin", there is a luxurious version of Hu cake: when the Hao family eats twice, they take a catty of mutton, cover it with giant Hu cake, and separate it with pepper and black beans, moisten it to crisp, and force it into the furnace. The meat is half-cooked, which is called "Gu Lou Zi". A kilo of mutton is wrapped in a big Hu cake, and the seasoning is black pepper and lobster sauce. Spread ghee and bake in the oven. It is called "Gu Lou Zi", which sounds generous enough.
Then there are pancakes.
Pancakes are also a seasonal food. It is mentioned in the Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty that officials will eat pancakes on March 3, but so far there is no detailed literature describing the pancake practice in the Tang Dynasty. However, in Wang Zhen's "Wang Zhennong Shu Gu Pu 'er" in the Yuan Dynasty, it was said that "(Buckwheat) was peeled, ground into flour, spread into pancakes and eaten with garlic." So at least the authentic pancakes in the Yuan Dynasty were made of garlic. Besides staple food, mutton was the first choice for meat in Tang Dynasty. At that time, the practice of mutton was not very rich. Take a few famous ones: raw mutton, handed down from the Sui Dynasty. Simply put, raw mutton is chopped and mixed with seasoning. Imagine what it tastes like. Astragalus mutton is a kind of medicated diet, which is to make soup with astragalus and mutton.
There is another kind, which can be counted as a famous dish among the famous dishes at that time-"there is negligence in mutton and yang", and the practice is also very wonderful. "Tai Ping Guang Ji" says: "Take the goose, remove the hair, remove the five internal organs, and brew it with meat and glutinous rice to reconcile the five flavors. Take a bite of the sheep first, then peel it and take out its internal organs. Put the goose in the crevice of the sheep. When the mutton is cooked, it's as good as herding sheep. Take the goose to eat. " To put it simply, it means killing sheep and geese, eviscerating and unhairing, then putting glutinous rice and meat into the goose's stomach, putting the goose into the sheep's stomach, then roasting the sheep until the mutton is cooked. But there is still room for mutton. Let's talk about beef. Although nominally forbidden to eat, since ancient times, we ordinary people have the ability to have policies and countermeasures, and I am not allowed to kill cattle, but the cow died unexpectedly, so I can eat it, right? Therefore, there are still some dishes made of beef, such as this one: Niu Baotou recorded in the Record of North Lake. "Southerners take tender cows' heads, cook them on fire, then remove the roots with soup (scalding), wash them repeatedly, add wine, black beans, onions and ginger, cook them until they are cooked, cut them into palm pieces, and mix them with Suzhou cake, pepper and oranges. They are all bottles and jars with mud." The practice is very complicated. You can roast the cow's head first, add all kinds of wine, lobster sauce, onion and ginger, cook it together, then mix with spices and seal it in a vat with mud, bury it, light a fire and bake it slowly. How does it taste? The author praised it as more delicious than bear's paw.
There is also a famous dish, "Roast Goose and Duck", which is said to be Zhang Yizhi's favorite and Wu Zetian's favorite, but it is cruel. Put the geese and ducks in a metal cage, roast them with charcoal fire, and then put the adjusted seasoning juice. As soon as the geese and ducks are hot, they start pouring seasoning juice until the geese and ducks are roasted to death, the taste is in, and the meat is just cooked. Let's talk about pork with little presence. At that time, the most common practice was to steam it and eat it with garlic.
In addition, it is important to mention "fish and silver carp", which is sashimi. Yes, Japanese sashimi was handed down from the Tang Dynasty, but it came back from Japan today. Sashimi is similar at home and abroad. Take fresh fish, or slice it, or shred it and dip it in seasoning. This was the top dish at that time, because it took a lot of knife work to cut fish. Du Fu's poem "A Drama for Long song in the Seventh Yard of Ganxiang" recorded the process of eating in detail: "Jiang Hou staged a drama for the severe winter, and it was windy in the past and present. Hedong is not suitable for fishing, and cutting ice may invade Hebo Palace. Jiao Ren, a fish, washed the fish and sharpened the knife, making the fish jealous. Silent snow, white bones with chopped green onion. I advise my stomach to be ashamed of being young. When the anvil falls, the white paper is wet and the gold plate is not empty. "
After eating meat, let's talk about food.
Let's start with okra, which is also available in the contemporary era. The most common way is to stew soup. Another famous dish is vinegar Qin, which is the favorite of Wei Zhi, a famous minister in the early Tang Dynasty. It is now vinegar-stained celery: finally, people in the Tang Dynasty like to eat it with "fruit", which is fruit. Oranges, lychees, pipa, longan, pears, peaches, dates, apricots, plums and cherries were all common fruits at that time. In fact, on the whole, people in the prosperous times of the Tang Dynasty naturally did not have the happiness of eating food today, and they could eat more food. This can be seen from Gu's famous "Han Xizai's Night Banquet" and Du Fu's "Two Ways": "The food listed in front of the host and guest in the case is just eight products, four high and shallow bowls and four small plates. There is a bowl of white spherical things, a bit like a hemp ball with rice grains rolled outside. There is a bowl of bright red, which is very eye-catching. If you look closely with a magnifying glass, it is just a few persimmons with pedicels. " The picture of Han Xizhai's night banquet depicts a very luxurious meal at that time, and what civilians eat can be imagined.
Du Fu's "Two Ways" describes many delicious foods, but they are all too beautiful and exaggerated. It is estimated that it is the product of Du Fu's imagination: "The red hump is brought by jade broilers, and the fragrant fish is counted by crystals. The rhinoceros has been tired for a long time, and the exquisite phoenix meat cleaver is rarely used. The fast horse from Huangmen can't stir up the dust and keeps bringing precious dishes from the royal chef. " The hump, the peak of the purple camel, is a precious food. There is a "hump roast" in Tang aristocratic food; Flat scale: refers to white scale fish; Rhinoceros horn: Chopsticks made of rhinoceros horn. This way of writing is only more expensive, not more delicious, and it is not realistic at all. It is estimated that Du Poet is not a professional diner.