Figure: bronze garlic bottle in the Han dynasty. Showed that garlic had been planted at that time.
The Han Dynasty "heavy taste", Zhang Qian "make the Western Regions, get garlic, caraway"
The Chinese began to introduce foreign vegetables in bulk, began in the Qin and Han Dynasties. One of the most prominent in the Han Dynasty, the famous diplomat Zhang Qian through the "Silk Road", brought back a number of new fruits and vegetables from the Western Regions, garlic, coriander (cilantro), alfalfa, hu melon (cucumber), hu beans (fava beans), etc., are introduced during this period.
From the introduction of vegetable varieties, the Han Dynasty, "heavy taste", popular garlic, coriander have a particularly heavy flavor. Among them, the biggest influence on Chinese food customs is garlic. Wei JiaSiFu "qimin yaojutsu" in "planting garlic" article cited "museum" said: "zhangqian make the western region, get garlic, caraway." After the introduction of garlic, it has become a delicacy on the Chinese table, with onions, leeks, ginger, the same, to become a meal, flavoring the best of both worlds.
The ancients had a lot of "eat garlic" story. According to the "Taiping Yuban - vegetables Ru Department of two" "garlic" article cited "Jin four kings of the uprising" records, Western Jin Dynasty "eight kings of the rebellion", Chengdu King Sima Ying hostage Jin Huidi Sima Zhi fled to Luoyang, on the way to eat, the courtesan served coarse rice, garlic, salt and black beans two kinds of under the The food was coarse rice, with garlic, salt and black beans as the next course. Si Ma Zhen, who had always been used to fine clothes and food, was so hungry that he ate two big bowls of coarse rice with garlic. This shows that garlic with meals in the Wei and Jin dynasties has become a folk custom.
After this, eating garlic is more common, regardless of noble and lowly, the ancients seem to be good at this mouth. According to the Book of Southern Qi - Zhang Rong biography, once in the Southern Qi Dynasty, King of Yuzhang Xiao Yi invited people to dinner, Zhang Rong ate barbecue meat, want to salt and garlic, but was embarrassed to say, wagging his index finger, half a day before stopping.
The addiction to garlic was probably greater in the Tang Dynasty. Garlic was used by the ancients as a meat dish, and monks were forbidden to eat it, but according to the "Record of the Five Ways of the Guangxin", during the reign of Tang Xianheng, there was a monk who didn't even have an appetite for fish and meat because he didn't have garlic.
Five Dynasties period, the court called garlic "musk herb", further increasing the value of garlic. To the Song Dynasty, "Pujiang Wu's Feeder Records - Vegetables" has been mentioned in the "garlic gourd", "garlic vegetables", "garlic square", "garlic dried One of the "dried garlic", that is, now in the spring when the garlic is ripe to make the next meal, the specific method is: "garlic cut inch section, a catty, salt one or two. Pickled out of the stinking water, slightly dry, mixed with sauce, sugar a little, steamed, dried, collection."
In addition to rice, garlic was also written in the late Han Dynasty, the "famous doctors," listed as a medicinal herb: garlic "flavor pungent, warm, non-toxic. It belongs to the spleen and kidney. Lord of cholera, abdominal uneasiness, elimination of grain, stomach, warm, in addition to the evil paralytic gas ...... "visible, the Han Dynasty physicians have been regarded as garlic treatment of cholera, gastroenteritis, poisoning of good medicine.
Garlic irritation and meat odor are very large, while the introduction of caraway at the same time is much milder. Caraway has a special flavor, after eating a mouth full of fragrance, and therefore get "coriander".
But the ancients attached more importance to the "detoxification" function of caraway, a few into the panacea. Ming Li Shizhen "Compendium of Materia Medica - Vegetables" "caraway" in the article, has listed nine medicinal functions of coriander, the first of which is the main treatment of "acne rash is not fast".
Sui-Tang people "heavy taste", Tang Taizong, "Nibala country dedicates Polynesian vegetables"
Sui-Tang period, China and a wave of vegetable planting fever. But with the Han Dynasty people "heavy taste" is different, the Sui and Tang Dynasty people pay more attention to the quality of the introduced vegetables and nutritional value, more "heavy taste". Among them, the most famous is lettuce and spinach.
Lettuce, lettuce, endive, white endive, lettuce, stork cabbage and other names, the earliest in the Tang Meng Meng, "food therapy herbs" has been mentioned. In addition to these calls, lettuce also has a "thousand gold dishes," the elegant name.
Why is it called Qian Jin Cai? Early Song people Tao Gu "Qingyilu - vegetable door" "thousand gold dish" article is this: "lopsided country emissaries to Han, sui people begged for vegetable seeds, pay very thick, so the name of a thousand gold dish, lettuce today." The original lettuce is the Chinese people pay a high price from the introduction of foreign varieties, so this name.
Lopsided country where? According to evidence for the Western region of the ancient country, Qin and Han Dynasty has existed. Because the "lopsided" word with the ancient "Wo", "and", some scholars speculate that the lopsided country is very likely to be known for the abundance of jade, located in the territory of Xinjiang today, the ancient Hotep country.
Lettuce once introduced, quickly popularized, the Tang Dynasty has been widely planted. The Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu wrote a poem entitled "Planting Lettuce": "Lettuce is a common vegetable, and the art of growing it is a matter of course." At that time, Du Fu planted a small plot of lettuce, but the growth was not good, so he used it to lament his life and wrote this poem.
Although lettuce is a popular vegetable, it was once regarded as a precious commodity in history. According to the Southern Song Dynasty Zhou煇 "Qingbo Magazine" "lettuce" article records, the Shaoxing seven years (1137 AD), Song Emperor Zhao Gaozong tour of Jiankang (now Nanjing), in the back of the road through the town of Dantu Xinfeng, put forward to take two baskets of lettuce, fortunately the attendant officials urgently do all. Lettuce thus greatly increased in value, become "treasures", here said "lettuce", is lettuce.
Compared with lettuce, spinach seems to be more popular with the ancients. Spinach, also known as Polynesia, Persian grass, red root vegetable, known as "parrot vegetable", Lu Xun called "red-beaked green parrot". Spinach was introduced to China in the time of the Tang Hui Yao has a clear record: "Taizong, Nibala country to dedicate Boleh Choy, like red and blue, solid as tribulus terrestris, fire cooked, can benefit the flavor." Combined with the Tang poet Liu Yuxi, "Ka Woo Records", "vegetable spinach prongs, this Western China, a monk from their son to ......," a phrase, it can be seen that the monks offered.
Nepal, spinach, are the ancient name of the country of Nepal, also written "quite ridge country". Spinach is not actually Nepal's specialty, its native Persia (now Iran), so there is a "Persian grass" said. Although spinach is not native to China, it was introduced in the seventh century A.D. and carefully cultivated by the ancient Chinese, resulting in the formation of "Chinese spinach", which is the counterpart of "European spinach": the fruit has thorns and retains more original characteristics, the leaves are narrow and notched, and it can be sown in all seasons.
Ming Dynasty people "heavy appearance": pepper "fruit just like a bald pen head, taste spicy color red, very impressive"
Song and Yuan, especially after the Ming Dynasty in the middle of the period, carrots, peppers, tomatoes ... ...another batch of foreign vegetables came to China. From this period onwards, the sea route became the main channel for the introduction of vegetables into China.
In the introduction of vegetables in the Ming Dynasty, the most influential is pepper. It can be said that chili peppers not only triggered a long-lasting catering revolution, but also changed the traditional eating habits of the Chinese people. Hunan and Sichuan cuisines, which are now popular throughout the country, have become famous because of the appearance of chili peppers.
Chili peppers have been known as "paprika" (番椒), "sea pepper" (海椒), "hot eggplant" (辣茄), "hot pepper" (辣角), "Qin pepper" (秦椒), etc. Ming Gao Lian's "Zunsheng eight notes" in the earliest mention of chili pepper: "pepper bushes, white flowers, fruit just like a bald pen head, taste spicy color red, very impressive." "Zunsheng eight paper" published in the Wanli nineteenth year (1591 AD), when the late Ming Dynasty, chili peppers are introduced to China at this time.
Chili peppers are native to Mexico, the Americas, the end of the 15th century, brought to Europe by Columbus. So how did chili peppers get to China? Traditionally, the western line from the "Silk Road" into the east line from the sea, from Southeast Asia into Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and other places. But recently scholars have proposed several new import routes, which is more reliable, is the earliest chili pepper from Zhejiang and its nearby coastal "landing".
The earliest record of chili pepper local records is the Kangxi decade (1671 AD), Zhejiang, "Shanyin County," and the earliest mention of chili pepper "Zunsheng eight paper" author Gao Lian, is also Zhejiang, which is not a coincidence, that Zhejiang planting chili pepper has not been uncommon.
Why the earliest to see the chili pepper in Zhejiang and Jiangsu people did not eat chili out of the hall of fame? In addition to geography, climate, preferences and other factors, or with the original value of chili pepper food is not enough to recognize. Originally, chili began as an ornamental plant introduced, in addition to Gao Lian "Zunsheng eight paper" said chili "color red, very observable"; Qing Kangxi "Hangzhou Prefecture," also said that chili "and a long, thin color pure Dan, can be pots and several of the players.
The introduction of vegetables as ornamental plants, which is also the Ming Dynasty, foreign vegetables into China in an interesting way and phenomenon, the appearance of good-looking plants are popular. Such as tomatoes, first called "tomato", people dare not eat, but also for ornamental purposes introduced. Ming Zhu Guozhen "Chung Block sketch" and Wang Xiangjin "Qunfang Spectrum", are treated as an ornamental plant, until the 1930s of the Republic of China, the tomato into the ordinary Chinese people's food basket, "the beginning of the food".
Central and western ancient "heavy stimulation", the Sichuan people eat pepper, must choose its very hot
While the Zhejiang people may be the earliest to eat chili peppers, but the most able to eat spicy is the Chuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Hunan, Eu a few provinces and regions, which are a few places of the ancients, "heavy stimulation! "
The more spicy it is, the more addictive it is.
Which, the earliest chili eat out of the hall of fame is Hunan people.
Hunan local history is the first to appear to eat chili pepper records of the party, the twenty-third year of the Kangxi (1684 AD), "Baoqing Fu Zhi", "Shao Yang County Zhi" and other journals have been recorded. Because of the chili pepper by the ancient Hunan people called "sea pepper", so some scholars speculate that the Hunan chili pepper is very likely to be imported from the sea of Zhejiang, such as imported from Guangdong should be called "pepper", thus confirming the chili pepper from the side of the landing of Zhejiang said.
The same spicy food famous Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou local records on chili is relatively late. Such as Sichuan, the record of chili pepper than Hunan more than half a century late. But chili pepper into the Sichuan, Chongqing, seems to spread overnight everywhere, at the latest in the late Qing Dynasty, Sichuan people can eat spicy, not afraid of spicy has been nationally famous. The late Qing people Xu Xin Yu "Shu traveled to hear and see the book" in the "chili" article is this: "chili a kind of, all provinces have, but the Sichuan people eat pepper, to choose its very hot, and every meal every dish, non-spicy can not be."
But the name "chili pepper" is the first people in Guangxi called out. In the Qianlong period of Guangxi local records collectively referred to the pepper as "pepper". Represented by the Guizhou people in the southwest, eat a lot of patterns of chili, in addition to when the "dish" to eat also when the "medicine" to eat, that chili can "eliminate the water and gas, miasma"; also when the "Salt" to eat, the Qing Kangxi "Si State Government Records," said: "pepper, commonly known as hot fire, soil seedlings used in place of salt." (The paper version of this article was first published "Beijing Evening News" supplement "five-color soil" literature and history version of Ni Fang six exclusive expert "one side of the hook sinking", now published on Thursdays; electronic version of the first Sina blog)