When you are full, people will pursue delicacy. Song people were very particular about diet. Rich people, "the food there is delicious, the next meal is new, vegetables are scarce, and there is no shortage of products", or even "not worth it, but you can enjoy new ears." I don't hesitate to spend money to taste the freshness.
Like today's small white-collar workers, ordinary urban white-collar workers in the Song Dynasty were not used to cooking at home, but went out to eat or order takeout. "There are often more shops in the brokerage market than houses, so it is convenient to buy food and drink", because there are too many food stores in the cities in the Song Dynasty. "Teahouses, hotels, noodle shops, fruit, oil sauce, rice, fish and wax shops are everywhere" (Meng Liang Records). According to statistics, Tokyo's Dream of China mentioned more than 100 shops, of which restaurants and various restaurants accounted for more than half. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival depicts more than 100 buildings and houses, among which it can be clearly identified that there are 40 or 50 restaurants, accounting for almost half. Notes of Southern Song Dynasty, Old Stories of Wulin, The Sound of Gyeonggi and Meng Lianglu also contain a large number of restaurants and food lists in Lin 'an.
Even the urban underclass can find cheap food in restaurants. According to Meng Liang Lu, "There are even shops selling dirty blood noodles, vegetarian noodles, bamboo shoots and vegetarian soup rice, and restaurants also sell fried tofu, fried fish, fried fish, cooked vegetables and fried eggplant. These shops are what inferior people want.
Every morning in Lin 'an, small vendors who "buy and sell fine-colored vegetables and vegetables with different products" "crowded the market and sang hundreds of songs, which was very pleasant, like the weather in Bianjing" (dream of Liang Lu). Vegetables are common ingredients on the table of Song people. Scholars have pointed out that the varieties of vegetables planted in the Song Dynasty are very rich, about forty or fifty kinds, which are similar to the vegetables on the market today.
In Bianjing in the Northern Song Dynasty and Lin 'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, special vegetarian restaurants also appeared to provide people with all kinds of vegetarian food. If it is not rich in vegetables, it is difficult to form an independent vegetarian market. However, I am more interested in the question: In the Song Dynasty a thousand years ago, if it was in the middle of winter and it was freezing, were there any vegetables in the market? According to the "Tokyo Dream Record", Bianjing "beginning of winter five days before, Xiyu Garden winter vegetables. The capital is cold, and there is no food in winter. From the palace to the folk, it is eaten for a period of time in winter. So the car was loaded with horses and camels to fill the road. " It seems that the residents in the north can only rely on hoarding vegetables for the winter. However, vegetables can still be bought in the market in winter. The poet Mei Yao Chen wrote a poem "Smell the fragrance and sell leeks", saying that "everything is frozen and not born, and it is the first time to sell vegetables."
It turns out that vegetable vendors use the heat and temperature of manure to cultivate fresh leek and Polygonum hydropiper: "It is known that manure is warm and can sprout spring." In modern terms, isn't this the "anti-season cultivation" technology? People in the Southern Song Dynasty also used this technique to cultivate a vegetable variety called "Yellow Bud": "Take giant vegetables from the winter solstice and cover them with grass, that is, remove the rotten leaves for a long time and make them yellow and white, hence the name." Technological progress and economic development have given people in the Song Dynasty more choices at the dinner table than ever before.
Song people also paid special attention to food hygiene. Therefore, in Bianjing, "Anyone who sells food and drink is packed with fresh and clean food boxes, and the eaves of the cars are smart and lovely, and they dare not neglect their food" (Dream of China in Tokyo). The same is true in Lin 'an, "Hang Cheng customs, people selling vegetables in department stores, decorated with car covers, new and exquisite dishes and food boxes, to show off people's eyes and ears and learn the weather of Bianjing, and because of the fact that Emperor Gaozong crossed the river and often announced to buy the market, he dared not be simple and not to taste rashly" (Dream of Liang Lu).
The emphasis on food led to the birth of various foods in the Song Dynasty. There are a long list of delicious food, snacks and snacks in Tokyo Dream, Meng Liangji, tea restaurant, noodle restaurant, vegetarian restaurant and Wulin old stories. There may not be so many items on the menu of five-star hotels now. It is no exaggeration to say that Kaifeng and Hangzhou in the Song Dynasty were simply paradise for eating goods.
Ham, Dongpo meat, hot pot, fried dough sticks, sashimi, etc. We can now taste that all of them were invented or popular in the Song Dynasty, and complicated cooking techniques such as boiling, roasting, frying, frying, boiling, stewing, marinating, steaming, waxing, honey and onion picking also matured in the Song Dynasty.
No wonder American sinologist Anderson said in "China Cuisine", "China's great cooking method also came into being in the Song Dynasty. The food in the Tang Dynasty was relatively simple, but in the late Song Dynasty, an exquisite cooking method with local characteristics was fully proved. The rise of local squires has promoted the refinement of food: the royal banquet at the court is as luxurious as ever, but it is not as creative as the diet of businessmen and local elites. " During the period of 1998, American Life magazine once selected 100 events that have had the most profound impact on human life in recent 1000 years, and restaurants and snacks in the Song Dynasty were selected as the 56th.