The Origin of Old Beijing Fried Noodles: History

Noodles have been a common food in many countries around the world for at least 2,000 years. But there are different opinions about the origin of noodles. China, Italy and some Arab countries have all been considered as the origin of noodles. The "Nature" magazine on October 13, 2005 published the scientific and technological archaeological discoveries made by researcher Lv Houyuan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and others, proving with facts that China may be the real country of origin of noodles.

Experts discovered these noodles at the Lajia site in Minhe County, Qinghai Province, northwest China. When unearthed, the noodles were well preserved and served in an inverted sealed bowl. The bowl was buried deep in 3 meters of sediment. among things. Since the Lajia site was excavated in 1999, a large number of carbon 14 dating, cultural relics and geological phenomena have shown that the Lajia site in Qinghai Province belongs to the Qijia culture of the late Neolithic and was destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake and flood 4,000 years ago. Destroyed and buried. Because of this unexpected event, the Lajia site preserved many remains of prehistoric human life and disaster scenes that other archaeological sites are difficult to preserve. Researchers discovered a bowl containing noodles that was overturned due to earthquakes and floods. It was sealed by the sand that came with it, forming a rare and precious preservation environment.

The noodles were slender in shape and yellow-brown in color. They were placed in the bottom of an inverted bowl. When the researchers turned the bowl over, they found more noodles in the bowl. These noodles were about 30 feet long. More than 50 centimeters and about 3 millimeters in diameter, it looks similar to the traditional Chinese food ramen. In order to determine the composition of these noodles, the researchers analyzed the phytolith and starch morphology of these ancient noodle samples, and compared the phytoliths and starch morphology of more than 80 plant fruits such as barley, highland barley, wheat, sorghum, oats, millet, millet, and setaria. Characteristics of siliceous body and starch morphology, they later found that these ancient noodle samples preserved a large number of typical shell phytolith granules and starch granules of millet and millet, and concluded that these noodles were made of millet and millet. . Experts further explained that people at that time first ground these two crops into flour, made them into balls, and then stretched them into the shape of noodles. The researchers also said that millet lacks stickiness, and if it is used alone to make dough, it cannot be stretched into thin and long noodles. The ingredients of this kind of noodles are different from the raw materials of wheat noodles commonly used today. It can be seen that China's ancestors had a relatively complete process 4,000 years ago to thresh, crush, and grind the fruits of these plants into enough to make them. Flour for making noodles.

In China, the earliest records of noodles are from the Eastern Han Dynasty. Because folk hygiene conditions were poor in ancient times, people often suffered from gastrointestinal diseases due to unclean diet. Boiling noodles with water is relatively hygienic and can greatly reduce the occurrence of diseases. In ancient China, the names of noodles were different in different periods: in the Eastern Han Dynasty, they were called "boiled cakes"; in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, they were called "soup cakes"; in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, they were called "Shui Yin"; in the Tang Dynasty, they were called "Leng Tao". Abroad, the common view is that noodles were first invented in the Middle East and later spread to Italy through the Arabs. Through the Italians, noodles were further spread to Europe and the world. Since noodles are extremely difficult to preserve as soft pasta, no direct evidence of early noodles has been found in the world for a long time, and there is a lack of opportunities to study the materials and processing processes of early noodles. Judging from the existing evidence, the discovery of this bowl of noodles can show that the Chinese invented and made noodles much earlier than other places in the world. However, more evidence is needed to prove whether the noodles discovered at the Lajia site are the ancestors of Arabic noodles or Italian noodles.

Although it is just a bowl of noodles, the environmental-technological archaeological methods used in this study are indeed at the leading international level. As a new discipline at the intersection of natural science and social science that is developing rapidly in the world today, various new methods of natural science are increasingly enriching archaeological research and broadening the research field of environmental-technological archeology. This bowl of noodles has unique significance for the study of Neolithic agricultural archeology and ancient food culture.