Around 2000, archaeologists found carbonized grains of wheat from 4,000 to 4,500 years ago in three Longshan cultural sites in the east, west, north and south of Shandong Province, indicating that wheat had spread to the Central Plains at that time.
The discovery of wheat grains in Erligang Shang cultural site in Zhengzhou proved that wheat was already an important food crop at that time. The original meaning of the word "Lai" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is wheat, so we take its image when heading. The word "wheat" is mentioned in many places in the Book of Songs, such as the famous "Shuowang Shuowang", "There is wheat in the mountains, but he stays in the countryside" and "There is hemp in the mountains". In the Spring and Autumn Period, wheat has become a common crop in the Central Plains. "Zuo Zhuan Cheng Gong Eighteen Years" records that "Zhou Zi has a younger brother but no wisdom, and he can't tell the difference between husked wheat, so he can't stand." It can be seen that it was a joke to confuse soybeans with wheat at that time, so there was an idiom "Don't distinguish between hulled wheat". In the Han Dynasty, wheat was further popularized and even became an important war preparation material. In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu, refused to make personal expedition on the grounds that "the military assets were not full, so he had to follow Mai".
The Image of "Lai" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions
Before the Three Kingdoms period, there was no record of wheat in Jiangnan. The reflection mentioned that Sun Quan once hosted a banquet for Fei Yi, the ambassador of Shu, saying, "Iraq should stop eating cakes and write wheat characters.". This is the earliest record of processing wheat into pasta in Jiangnan. Later, Shu Yong, a writer in the Western Jin Dynasty, once again proved that wheat was processed into flour and then made into flour cakes. In the Tang dynasty, the status of wheat was further improved, and its position in the north was second only to that of millet. In the Southern Song Dynasty, with a large number of people from the north moving southward, the wheat fields in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan, Fujian and Guangxi were "endless". During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the status of wheat was further consolidated. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, half of northerners' staple food came from wheat. During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, Dongguan County Records recorded that the planting of winter wheat at that time was already "a thousand hectares of wheat waves".
How did pasta become popular?
Pasta has existed in China since the Western Han Dynasty at the latest, which greatly improved the eating quality of wheat. The appearance and popularization of pasta are closely related to the development of stone grinding technology. China's rotary grinding came into being at the end of the Warring States Period, and it was quite mature in the Eastern Han Dynasty, especially in some unearthed grinding workshops (sometimes there were fans-wheat seeds were separated from wheat husks by wind), which truly reproduced the scene of wheat processing at that time. In the Han dynasty, basically as long as the food related to "cake" was wheat pasta, even boiled noodles were called soup cakes.
Eastern Han pottery workshops (including cymbals, grinders and fans) collected by Hong Kong Cultural Museum
However, in the process of wheat localization in China, the localization of pasta lags far behind the localization of wheat production. That is to say, although the Han Dynasty had the technical conditions of wheat pasta, the tradition of eating wheat grains in ancient times prevailed for a long time.
The so-called granular food is eaten like rice for a long time, and it is eaten as "wheat rice". In the Tang Dynasty, after Wu Zetian proclaimed himself emperor, Xu Jingye confronted him. Military adviser Wei said, "Heroes in Zhengzhou, Bianzhou, Xuzhou, Bozhou and other places are unwilling to be proclaimed emperor by Wuhou, steaming wheat and waiting for my teacher." In the Song Dynasty, Su Shi wrote a poem: "Steamed mountains and broken wheat, bamboo sticks sing long." For the lag of wheat pasta, the academic community has not given a convincing explanation so far.
There are three factors that affect the popularity of pasta: first, before the Tang Dynasty, large flour processing workshops were mainly concentrated in the homes of princes and nobles; During the Tang and Song Dynasties, large flour processing workshops often contradicted agricultural irrigation, and the results were often subordinate to the latter. Secondly, even in the Tang and Song Dynasties, some varieties of wheat were not suitable for pasta because of its high viscosity, and granular food was more suitable. Finally, under the influence of ideas, the ancients thought that the edible benefit of wheat was far less than that of millet and rice, while Chen Jiamo, a medical scientist in the Ming Dynasty, thought that wheat flour was "only for temporary use", and some even misrepresented that wheat was "toxic". Even now, the natural environment, livelihood patterns and eating habits in different regions will still be affected by population pressure, technological progress and other modern measures. From the 1970s to the present, Tibetan residents have changed from "unwilling to eat" to "loving to eat" wheat, which is the result of this comprehensive factor. All these have caused the process of wheat localization in China, and the process of pasta is much slower than that of wheat planting.
Pasta became popular in the Central Plains in the Song Dynasty, and there were dozens of "steamed buns" (steamed buns were stuffed at that time) in the notes of the Song Dynasty. According to historical records, the baked wheat cake sold by Wu Dalang in Water Margin is actually steamed bread, which is a kind of solid pasta without stuffing, similar to the current steamed bread. Nowadays, many pasta skills have been included in the national intangible cultural heritage, such as Wenxi huamo in Shanxi, dough sculpture in Lanxian County, Shanxi Province, and steamed buns in Nanxiang, Shanghai.
Shanxi Wenxi huamo
Since ancient times, China has established its country by agriculture, and it has been the basic national policy of past dynasties to value agriculture and millet. From an exotic crop, wheat has now become one of the staple foods related to national transportation, and political factors should not be underestimated.
The Book of Rites of the Han Dynasty records that in the third month of the lunar calendar, the son of heaven would pray for wheat harvest when offering sacrifices at the ancestral temple; In the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the son of heaven should encourage wheat planting so as not to miss the farming season. During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao attached great importance to wheat production. When he passed a wheat field in the March, he ordered not to trample on it, and offenders would be executed. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, some emperors also "took the lead" and planted wheat themselves. For example, Emperor Xuanzong personally planted wheat in the garden and led the princes to harvest it. Song Renzong has a similar initiative. Under the example of the emperor, local officials naturally did not dare to neglect and actively advised the people to grow wheat. Even some places that used to think it was impossible to grow wheat were successful, such as Lingnan area, which was considered impossible to grow wheat in the Tang Dynasty. However, when Chen Yaozuo was the magistrate of Huizhou in the early Northern Song Dynasty, he taught the people to grow wheat, and the result was a bumper harvest. Since then, Huizhou has been a place where "many people breed wheat". It can be seen that the top-down administrative power has played a positive role in the process of wheat localization.
CCTV's "China on the Tip of the Tongue" shows all the flavors handed down by our ancestors to this day, among which the pasta extended from wheat tempts the world. There are so many varieties of pasta that rice can't compare with them. As Jia Pingwa said, there are table tennis noodles in Weinan, sticky noodles in Chang 'an, dried noodles in Qishan, Lamian Noodles in Xingping, Daoxiao Noodles in Sanxian, Lamian Noodles in Dali and so on. , the shape and taste are different, leading all the way.
Standing in front of the Huang Yun-like wheat wave, we can't help but sigh: Wheat has given us too much.