The topic of "What did the people eat" in the Ming Dynasty made many European readers drool: The Portuguese China Chronicle described the people in the Ming Dynasty as "excellent in eating and drinking". In addition to staple foods such as rice, wheat and vegetables, they also live in this era and feel very happy. All kinds of corvees have been abolished, and little tax has been paid. One stone of rice costs only1000p and ripens twice a year.

Of course, there are also some emperors who have special hobbies in diet, such as Emperor Jiajing, who makes an alchemy every day and insists on being a vegetarian, but when he really eats vegetarian food, he can't swallow it, so eunuchs have to secretly add meat oil and pig blood to the vegetarian dishes of Emperor Jiajing. Another example is Qin Long, who likes donkey intestines best, but the eunuch said that eating donkey intestines would kill a donkey in one day, and he soon stopped eating them.

The first part is: seven things to open the door since ancient times, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea. It can be seen that from ancient times to the present, from princes and nobles to ordinary people, eating is always a top priority. Only when you have a full stomach can you have a chance to think about other things. Therefore, people who lived in the Ming Dynasty, the foods introduced to China in the Ming Dynasty included corn, potato, sweet potato, peanut, pepper, tomato, pineapple and beans.

There is little difference in the types of ingredients between the Ming Dynasty and the present, so the upper-middle class people in the Ming Dynasty ate almost the same as most ordinary people now. Of course, the upper class aristocrats naturally eat better than the people now, so they are very concerned about the production and life of the people. The Ming Dynasty implemented the policy of reclamation, and the cultivated land reached more than 7.8 million hectares, which was not broken even in the "prosperous time of Kanggan" in later generations. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty also introduced cash crops. Since the opening of the curfew in the Song Dynasty, people in China have had three meals a day. But whether there are three meals depends on the economy and mood. For example, I often get up late and skip breakfast.

The dietary customs in Ming Dynasty can be roughly divided into two periods. In the early period before Jiajing, the consumption standards of banquets, banquets and other daily life of people from all walks of life in Ming Dynasty all followed the feudal etiquette and strictly restricted, and there were few things that violated the etiquette and exceeded the system. However, what is reflected is that the diet in the Ming Dynasty was rich and belonged to the gentry landlord class. There are three meals a day, refreshments or snacks in the evening.