It is round. In the eyes of the ancients, it means reunion. Moon cakes are used to symbolize the moon. Eating moon cakes is for the sake of the moon, symbolizing the reunion and mutual reflection between people, symbolizing people's good wishes for family reunion, and symbolizing that people who are far away from home miss their hometown and relatives. On this day, people will sacrifice moon cakes and melons to the moon, hoping for a bumper harvest, happiness and reunion.
Everyone eats moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival. How did it come from?
Speaking of moon cakes, we must first talk about the raw material for making moon cakes-flour!
The raw material of flour is wheat, which can be ground into flour to make many foods. For example, there is a special category in China's cooking industry called "White Case". Roughly speaking, it is the general term for making snacks and pasta.
Wheat may be a fertile crescent moon that originated in the Middle East. The oldest wheat in the world was found in northern Iraq with a history of 8000 years. Wheat has been planted in China for 4000 years. Spring wheat was first planted, and winter wheat was planted in the spring and autumn period. Then it is ground into powder and fermented to steam cooked food. What is this called? Eat? .
In the Han Dynasty, due to the improvement of productivity, stone mills were widely used, and steamed pasta was also popular all over the country. At that time, flour products were collectively called? Cake? . Like noodles. In fact, the production of noodles has a long history.
The earliest physical noodles were discovered by scientists from China Academy of Sciences. On June 65438+10/October 65438+April, 2002, when they were conducting geological surveys in the upper reaches of the Yellow River and Lajia Village, Minhe County, Qinghai Province, they found an inverted bowl 3 meters underground in the sediments of the floodplain. There are yellow noodles in the bowl, the longest of which is 50 cm. By analyzing the composition of the substance, the researchers found that this bowl of noodles has a history of about 4000 years, which greatly promoted the history of noodles.
Noodles were recorded in different dynasties. There are historical records from the early Eastern Han Dynasty, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the end of Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty. But at first, the names of noodles were not uniform, except for the common water? Hey? Besides noodles, boiled cakes and soup cakes, there are water-based cakes, which are not supported. Hey? Wait a minute.
As for it? Noodles? It was not until the Song Dynasty that the word was officially used. In the north, wheat is the main producing area. Do people make it? Noodles? There are countless patterns, and the method of making noodles is also amazing. Can you roll, cut, dial, wipe, press, rub and pull?
During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang went south? Seven captures Meng Huo? Invented at that time? Steamed bread? Steamed bread is made of flour. Cheng Zhai Zaji? Kong Zhengming Meng Huo. People say: there are many evils in the wild. If a man sacrifices his head to God, he will send his troops with profit. Kong Ming is a sheep, a loaf of bread, and a head. This is the beginning of steamed bread.
These examples are just to illustrate the wide use of flour. What else is there? Cake? The name comes from flour!
The origin of baked (roasted) cakes
According to historical records, during the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, the king of Wu attacked the Zhou Dynasty and sent a man named Wen Zhong to attack. Wen Zhong made a sweet cake as dry food for marching. Convenient to carry to satisfy hunger! This is the predecessor of moon cakes! Made at that time? Taishi cake? That is, wrap the flour into a ball and spread it on a red-hot stone to bake the dough at the temperature of the stone, or bake it on the stone in the stove.
Lingdi is good at Hu pancakes. ? Hu cake is the earliest sesame seed cake. Is this noodles? Cake? The beginning of differentiation!
Zhang Qian brought sesame seeds and peach kernels back to the Western Regions after the Han Dynasty, and a kind of round cake filled with sesame seeds and peach kernels appeared in the Central Plains. Hu Bing? The production process has also been further improved, using the dark oven baking form in the Middle East (described in Wiki's previous article "Roast Duck and Roast Duck: Are We Brothers or Aliens"), and the biggest improvement is to add oil to the dough!
It can be said that oil plays a vital role in the formation of moon cakes! In addition to crispness, it also increases? Cake? The color and taste? Hu Bing? It has also been further loved by people!
Everyone should have heard of it, right? Close the moon and be ashamed of flowers? This idiom refers to the story of four beautiful women in China, Diusim and Yang Guifei. Both these beautiful women like the moon, and the story of Diusim also left a story about Yue Bai. In many paintings, you can see that in The Story of Diesim, there is a disc-shaped sacrifice on the stage of Yue Bai.
During the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the productive forces were further divided and the catering industry also developed rapidly. There are already people who specialize in making cakes. As a result, cake shops began to appear in the capital Chang 'an. History as a Mirror. Xuanzong contains: During the Anshi Rebellion, Xuanzong and Yang Guifei fled to Jixian Palace in Xianyang, with nothing to eat. At that time, the prime minister Yang went to the market to buy Hu cakes and presented them. At that time, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was being subverted by An Lushan and Shi Siming, two descendants of Hu people. Hu Bing? The name is not nice. Looking up at the bright moon in the night sky, Yang Guifei couldn't help but think of the ease and prosperity of the past, so she blurted out? Mooncakes? From now on? Mooncakes? The name gradually spread among the people.
In order to maximize profit and utilization, the cake put in the oven is made into a square or rectangle.
At that time, Chang 'an was famous for making sesame cakes, and the earliest promotion was a shop called Fuxing Square. For this reason, the poet Bai Juyi also wrote a poem called:? Sesame cakes are like Kyoto, and crispy noodles are freshly baked. I gave it to Ambassador Hungyang, and I tasted the fragrance, which seemed to be auxiliary. ? The practice of sesame seed cake is similar to modern sesame seed cake making technology. It is made of flour, sesame, spiced salt, clear oil, alkaline noodles and sugar, fermented with flour, shaped with drawing agent, painted with sugar color, stuck with sesame, and baked in a furnace.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the peasants in Huang Chao revolted and arrived in Chang 'an. Tang Xizong fled in a hurry and had no food. Maids-in-waiting used a little flour brought out of the palace to mix flour with wine sent by villagers. They first baked it in a pot, then baked it in a stove, and gave it to him, saying it was a disaster-relief cake. Nuo School barely ate half a piece —— In Qing Louis by Gu Tao, a Song Dynasty, Nuo School was lucky to eat in Sichuan. Some ladies-in-waiting presented square towels wrapped in flour, and the villagers presented wine. Instead, they made noodles with wine and spread cakes. They cried and said: this disaster relief cake. ? Beg for half a piece. ?
This method of baking first is the same as now. ? Disaster reduction cake? Without sesame seeds, it is probably the fire now. In the Northern Wei Dynasty, did Jia Sixie's Qi Yao Min Shu already exist? How to make a cake? It is similar to the practice of baked wheat cakes in the Tang Dynasty.
In the Song Dynasty, mooncakes were further shaped and made in the court at that time during the Mid-Autumn Festival? Palace cake? , commonly known as folk songs? Cookies? 、? Moon Group? . The great writer Su Dongpo has a poem:? Cookies are like chewing the moon, with crispness and elegance inside. ? In other words, eating cookies is like eating the moon, crisp and sweet! Make the size and taste of moon cakes vivid.
It was not until the Ming Dynasty that eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival gradually spread among the people. Woodboard painting is very popular. At that time, the clever baker had a whim. They often imprint fairy tales and folk stories related to the moon, such as the story of the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, Deusim Yue Bai and Xiao He chasing Han Xin under the moon, and then print them on the moon cakes as patterns, making them more ornamental and giving them more cultural connotations.
Therefore, moon cakes have become a popular Mid-Autumn Festival food. By the Qing Dynasty, the technology of making moon cakes had been greatly improved, and there were more and more varieties. With people's increasingly rich experience in making moon cakes, the types of moon cakes are constantly emerging in the market, and the technology is becoming more and more exquisite.