Chinese food culture
In the Chinese traditional culture and education in the yin and yang five elements of philosophical thinking, Confucian ethics and morality, Chinese medicine nutritional regimen, as well as cultural and artistic achievements, food aesthetic style, national character traits of the influence of a number of factors, to create the history of China's culinary arts, the formation of the vast and profound Chinese food culture.
From the perspective of history, China's culinary culture has stretched over 1.7 million years, divided into four stages of development: raw food, cooked food, natural cooking, and scientific cooking, and introduced more than 60,000 kinds of traditional dishes, more than 20,000 kinds of industrial food, colorful banquets, and colorful flavors and styles, earning it the reputation of the "Kingdom of Cooking".
From the connotation, China's food culture involves the development and utilization of food sources, the use of food utensils and innovation, food production and consumption, catering services and hospitality, catering and food industry management and management, as well as food and national security, food and literature and art, diet and the relationship between the realm of life, etc., deep and broad.
From an external point of view, Chinese food culture can be categorized from various perspectives, such as era and technique, region and economy, ethnicity and religion, food and utensils, consumption and level, folklore and function, etc., displaying different cultural tastes and embodying different values of use, which are colorful and varied.
From the qualitative point of view, the Chinese food culture highlights the nutritional support to help enrich the theory of Yingwei (vegetarianism, emphasis on medicinal diets and tonic), and pay attention to the "color, aroma, taste" are complete. Five flavors and the realm of harmony (distinctive flavor, the mouth is precious, there is a "tongue dish" reputation), odd and positive changes in the cooking method (kitchen rules for this, flexible), smooth God and happy food concept (literary quality, education in the food) and other four major attributes, has a different food culture from overseas countries, the innate beauty of the.
From the influence, Chinese food culture directly affects Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore and other countries, is the axis of the Oriental food culture circle; at the same time, it also indirectly affects Europe, the Americas, Africa and Oceania, such as China's vegetarian culture, tea culture, soy sauce and vinegar, pasta, medicinal cuisine, ceramic tableware and soybeans, etc., have benefited billions of people around the world.
In short, Chinese food culture is a broad vision, deep, multi-angle, high-grade long regional culture; is the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in more than one million years of production and life practices, in the development of food sources, food development, food conditioning, nutrition and health care and food aesthetics and other aspects of food creation, accumulation, and influence on the neighboring countries and the world's material wealth and spiritual wealth.
Chinese food culture characteristics
China is a civilization is a country, but also a long history of food culture. I live in the world, eat and drink for more than 20 years, some insights and insights, now the food culture is summarized in the following characteristics, I hope you see:
First, a variety of flavors. Because of the vastness of our country, the land is vast, the climate, products, customs and habits are different, for a long time, in the diet also formed a lot of flavor. China has always had 'southern rice and northern noodles', the taste of 'southern sweet, northern salty, sour, western spicy' points, mainly Ba Shu, Qilu, Huaiyang, Guangdong and Fujian four major flavors.
Second, the four seasons are different. All year round, according to the season and eat, is another major feature of Chinese cooking. Since ancient times, China has been seasoned according to the seasonal changes in seasoning, with winter flavor mellow and thick, summer light and cool; winter more stewed simmer, summer more cold frozen.
Third, pay attention to the sense of beauty. Chinese cooking, not only exquisite technology, but also the tradition of paying attention to the aesthetics of the dishes, pay attention to the food color, aroma, taste, shape, and the coordination of the device. The performance of the beauty of the dishes is multifaceted, whether it is a carrot, or a cabbage heart, can be carved out of a variety of shapes, unique, to achieve color, aroma, taste, shape and beauty of the harmony and unity, to give a person a high degree of unity of the spirit and the material of the special enjoyment.
Fourth, pay attention to the interest. China's cooking has long paid attention to the taste of interest, not only on the color, aroma and taste of the meal snacks have strict requirements, but also on their names, taste of the way, the rhythm of the meal, entertainment interspersed with certain requirements. The name of Chinese cuisine can be said to be out of the magic, elegance and vulgarity **** appreciation. The name of the dish is based on the main, auxiliary, seasonings and cooking methods of realistic naming, but also based on historical stories, myths and legends, celebrities, food interests, dish image to name, such as 'family blessing', 'generals across the bridge', ' Lion's Head', 'Barking Chicken', 'Dragon and Phoenix', 'Hongmen Banquet', 'Dongpo Meat '......
Fifth, the combination of food and medicine. China's culinary technology, and health care has a close link, thousands of years ago, there is a 'medical food with the same source' and 'medicinal meals with the same function', the use of food raw materials of medicinal value, made into a variety of delicious dishes, to achieve the purpose of some disease prevention and treatment. "
Ancient Chinese people also emphasized eating with the cosmic rhythms of coordination and synchronization, spring, summer, autumn, winter, night and day to eat different nature of the food, and even the processing and cooking of food to take into account the seasons, the climate and other factors. These ideas have been formed as early as the pre-Qin, in the "Rituals - Monthly Orders" has a clear record, and is opposed to the reversal of the seasons, such as the spring "line summer," "line fall," "line winter" will be Day disaster; of course, also opposed to the consumption of anti-seasonal food, Confucius said "do not eat from time to time", contains a two-fold meaning of a regular meal, the second is not to eat anti-seasonal food, and the contemporary sense of the opposite, some eat anti-seasonal food is for the purpose of the show of broad. Western Han Dynasty, the palace began to use greenhouses to grow "green onions, leeks and vegetables," and the Western Jin Dynasty rich man Shi Chong's house also has a greenhouse. This ideology of adapting to the rhythms of the universe is indeed unique to Chinese food culture. The only remnants of this consciousness that have survived to modern times are holiday food customs (some of which are found in traditional Chinese medicine, but they have not received much attention).
The "yin and yang, five elements" theory is the world model set by traditional thought, and is also considered to be the law of the universe. Since human beings are one of the "three talents", food is indispensable to human life, and the cooking of food must follow this law. Therefore, not only did they classify flavors into five, which gave rise to the theory of "five flavors" (in fact, there are more than five flavors that a person can perceive, but two or three thousand years ago, it was not uncommon to be able to distinguish five), but they also cut the foot off the foot of the foot by classifying the numerous (which had already been recognized) grains, livestock, food, and foodstuffs as "five flavors. (which was already recognized at that time) of grains, livestock, vegetables and fruits into a fixed pattern of "five grains", "five meats", "five vegetables" and "five fruits" respectively. and fruits, respectively, into the "five grains," "five meats," "five vegetables," and "five fruits. This is absurd. What is even more surprising is that "all drink, Yang Qi; all food, Yin Qi" ("Rituals - Suburban Special Adoption"). And that only drink and food and the yin and yang of heaven and earth are harmonized with each other, so as to "communicate with the gods", up to heaven, thus achieving the effect of "unity of heaven and man". Therefore, when offering sacrifices to heaven, we should strictly follow the theory of yin-yang and five elements. This statement was later inherited by Taoism, became a starting point for their dietary theory, such as eating food is to increase the body's yin qi, such as "grains and cereals to fill the body and can not benefit the life," "food qi life" and so on, to cultivate, to obtain yang qi should try to eat as little as possible, the best! The best realm is not to eat, take the "grain" realm.
The beauty of harmony is the highest aesthetic ideal of traditional Chinese culture. To the center and, the status of the heavens, all things are nurtured" ("Li Ji - Zhongyong"). What does "center" mean? It can't simply be summarized by the word "middle". The word "center" means to be in the right place, in the right degree. It's kind of like the Henan word for "center." "Harmony" is also a culinary concept. There is a famous line in the ancient text Shangshu - Saying Life, "If you make a good soup, only the salt and plum", which means that the key to make a good soup is to mix the salty (salt) and sour (plum) flavors, which is a metaphor for ruling a country. In Zuo Zhuan, Yan Ying (the wise prime minister of Qi) also talked with Duke Jing of Qi about what is "harmony", pointing out that "harmony" is not "sameness", and that harmony is based on the harmonization of different opinions. Therefore, Chinese philosophers believed that all things in the world find their place in the state of "harmony" in order to reproduce and develop. This aesthetic ideal is based on the harmony and unity between the individual and society, and between man and nature. This idea of realizing the "beauty of harmony" through tuning was inspired and influenced by ancient cooking practices and theories, which in turn influenced people's entire culinary life, especially for the pursuit of art living, living art of the ancient literati and scholars.
The opposite of "neutral" is extreme, extreme in cooking is not considered authentic, those "salty too much, spicy too much, sour too much" of the food, although by some people in the body in an abnormal state of people's pursuit, but in the long run it is harmful to the body. It is harmful to the body. Extremism in social and political life is even more detrimental.
As mentioned above, the dietary life of the Chinese people embodies the characteristics of traditional culture, although some of them are incomprehensible or not very scientific for modern people (in recent centuries, the word "science" has almost become a religious belief in China, and it is only a yardstick for measuring right and wrong in all fields, while it itself cannot be questioned), but the dietary life of the Chinese people is a very important part of the traditional culture. But is the word "science" all that can be said about dietary life? If we focus on "culture", then the study of Chinese food life is not only a necessary part of the study of Chinese culture, but can even become a key to the study of Chinese culture.
At present, food culture is still a vague concept. Some researchers say in general, it includes what to eat, how to do, how to eat the three aspects of the problem; some researchers believe that the food culture of the birth of six sciences, namely, cooking, food manufacturing, therapeutics, food folklore, food literature, food manufacturing; some researchers also advocate the addition of dietary aesthetics, dietary business, dietary appliances and so on. Some researchers also advocate the addition of food aesthetics, food commerce, food utensils and so on. I am not well educated and have not been able to cover so many disciplines. My understanding of food culture mainly refers to the relationship between food and human beings, people and their social significance. Therefore, although I also discuss food, delicacies, food processing, cooking, food customs and even eating environment, eating utensils, tableware and so on in "The History of Chinese Food Culture", I introduce and comment on their relationship with people and their social significance, and mostly omit the pure process of craftsmanship, which has little relationship with people, except for the necessary knowledge, in order to emphasize the material and spiritual value that food life brings to people. The food life for people to bring the material and spiritual double enjoyment, as well as the Chinese food culture in these two aspects of the deliberate pursuit.