If you want to go back to the Song Dynasty for a big meal, don't go at noon, because many restaurants in the Song Dynasty didn't sell lunch.
Turning to the eighth volume of Dream of China in Tokyo, there is a saying: "By noon, every family has no wine, so leave the hope behind. "Noon is from noon to noon, that is, from 11 am to 3 pm. Wangzi is the flag planted at the door of the restaurant. Take this flag down to show that it is closed and no longer open.
Today, the period from 11: 11 a.m. to 3: 11 p.m. is just the time for lunch. Public and private dinners are usually held during this period. Large and small restaurants are thriving, which is a good time to make money. But why did the restaurants in the Song Dynasty not sell lunch and just close when the business was best?
the reason is simple: most people in the song dynasty didn't have the habit of inviting guests to dinner at noon.
From the Eastern Zhou Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, China people have been carrying on an old tradition: they only eat two meals a day, one breakfast and one dinner. I don't eat breakfast early, but I usually eat at around 9 am. It's not too late to eat dinner, usually washing dishes around four o'clock in the afternoon. What about the lunch? No, most people don't.
From the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the old tradition of two meals a day was slowly broken, and foreigners who settled in Chang 'an and a small number of China nobles began to have lunch. However, they are non-mainstream, and most China residents still stick to the eating habit of two meals a day.
In the Song Dynasty, more people ate lunch. It can be said that more than half of the city residents began to eat lunch. For example, in The Water Margin, Wu Song worked in the county government, got up early every day to go to the yamen to be on duty, and came home at eight or nine o'clock. His sister-in-law Pan Jinlian was sure to make breakfast for him. One day, Wu Song came back late, "until Japan and China didn't return." When he got home, Pan Jinlian asked him, "Why didn't my uncle come back for breakfast when I got up early?" "Wu Song said," It's just an acquaintance in my office who invited me to breakfast. "Pan Jinlian hurriedly made a lunch for Wu Song again.
Later, Wu Song killed Pan Jinlian and sent him to Mengzhou as an exile. He was graciously treated by "Jin Yanbiao" in the prison camp: "Get up at dawn and bring a big bowl of broth and a big bowl of rice; After sitting in Japan and China, four kinds of fruits, a cooked chicken, many steamed rolls and a note of wine were sent; There are many meals at night. "The Water Margin" is a work in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, but this description is very close to the customs of the Song Dynasty-some citizens in the Song Dynasty have started to have lunch, from two meals a day to three meals a day.
Fan Chengda, a good friend of Lu You, a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, once invited a guest, and the invitation said, "I'm lucky to have dinner at noon on the 22nd, but he's late, so I'd like to present it. The doctor recommended Fan Chengda Zazi in the Cave of the Clouds. This passage means that I want to arrange a dinner at noon on the 22nd, so please don't be a stranger and be sure to come. It can be seen that in the Song Dynasty, people already invited guests to dinner at noon, just like us modern people.
However, the power of tradition is too strong. The Song Dynasty ruled for more than 311 years. During this period, the group that changed from two meals a day to three meals a day was always confined to nobles, wealthy businessmen and some citizens. In the vast countryside, small and medium-sized cities, grassroots officialdom with low salaries, and even in the court, the old rule of two meals a day was still retained.
Fang Hui, a scholar in the Southern Song Dynasty, summed up the eating habits of ordinary people at that time in one sentence: "People often eat lily fights, and five people are enough for one meal, so stop eating two more meals, and don't be careful in the afternoon. "Together, it is a unit of capacity. In the Song Dynasty, it is equivalent to 61 milliliters now, which can hold one or two meters of rice. Fang Hui means that the average family only eats two meals a day, morning and evening, and each person eats about five or two meters of rice per meal. If they are really hungry at noon, they can eat some snacks to satisfy their hunger.
The word "dim sum" was very popular in the Song Dynasty, and its meaning is quite different from that of today. The snacks mentioned by modern people mainly refer to biscuits, candy, chocolate and other snacks, while the snacks mentioned by people in Song Dynasty mainly refer to meals. Why do you want to add meals? Because you only eat two meals in the morning and evening, you will be hungry in the middle, and you need to give some food to your hungry stomach. In fact, dim sum is not a noun originally, but a verb-object phrase: point is a verb, meaning comfort, and heart is an object, meaning stomach (people in the Song Dynasty called the stomach "heart bone mouth", which is still used in the Central Plains today). Together, dim sum is to comfort the hungry stomach with some informal meals.
in the song dynasty, the word dim sum included too much food. I didn't finish cooking a pot of rice porridge in the morning, but I came to a bowl when I was hungry at noon. This bowl of leftover porridge is a snack. I didn't finish steaming a carp at night, and I felt hungry after working overtime at night. I finished the remaining half of the fish, which was also a snack. Walking passengers missed the traditional dining time at 9: 11 a.m. and 4: 11 p.m., and were hungry in the middle. They rested in a roadside restaurant, and the proprietress brought out a plate of meat buns, which also belonged to snacks. In a word, all the food eaten outside breakfast and dinner can be called snacks.
After talking about the origin of dim sum, let's talk about the eating habits of people in Song Dynasty.
As mentioned earlier, many people in the Song Dynasty only ate two meals a day, morning and evening, instead of lunch. In fact, so did some officials. In the Song Dynasty, middle and high-level cadres received salaries and bonuses, food subsidies, clothing subsidies, office subsidies and post subsidies, and their income level exceeded that of any previous dynasty. However, this kind of high-salary and high-welfare treatment can only be enjoyed by middle and high-level cadres. If grass-roots officials are not corrupt, their income level is "not enough to substitute farming", even less than that of farmers. Since the income of grass-roots officials is too low, they must live frugally. In order to save fuel, they never make a fire to cook at noon, just eat two meals in the morning and evening like many ordinary people.
In Yi Jian Zhi, a collection of short stories in the Southern Song Dynasty, it is mentioned that a mayor of Sanya Town, Lushan County, southern Henan Province, "can't give his wife and children a salary", and his salary is not enough to support his wife and children. He wrote a poem complaining: "Two years languishing in Sanya, how can he support his family without rice and money?" Two meals a day is only lotus root, look at the lotus in your mouth. It means that I have been the mayor for two years, and I am so poor that I only eat two meals all day, and these two meals are vegetarian. I am not willing to buy one or two meats, which is more difficult than the monks in the temple.
The mayor has to eat two meals a day, and some people choose not to eat lunch. For example, Zhang Tianjue, a good friend of Su Dongpo, "read four or five volumes of Buddhist books every day, and eat one liter of rice and five ounces of noodles in the morning and evening" in order to preserve his health in his later years (Volume 2 of Rongzhai Four strokes and Zhang Tianjue Jane). Look at Buddhist scriptures every day, eat one meal in the morning and one meal in the evening, adding up to only one liter of rice and five sides.
According to Song Gaozong, the capitulator who framed Yue Fei, he only ate two meals a day after he ascended the throne. He said to the ministers, "I don't like women's colors very much, and my diet is very frugal. I eat a sesame seed cake every morning, a bowl of noodles at night, and I don't eat at noon. When I am hungry, I practice calligraphy, and I will endure it." I don't know if Song Gaozong's words are true or not. If they are true, I think friends who want to lose weight can learn from him, but don't skip the lunch. They should skip the evening meal, eat well in the morning, eat well at noon and don't eat at all at night.
Maybe many friends will think that Song Gaozong's words are too false. As an emperor, how can he skip lunch like many grassroots officials and poor people? However, I think Song Gaozong probably didn't lie, because there was a rule in the court of Song Dynasty: the imperial dining room could only prepare breakfast and dinner every day, and lunch was not allowed unless the emperor specifically ordered it. (see the square field four seven in Song Yao Hui Compilation)
Why is there such a rule? The reason is temporarily unknown. I guess one reason is that the Emperor of the Song Dynasty kept to the old ways and didn't want to change the eating habits that lasted for one or two thousand years, and the other reason is to save money-the imperial dining room doesn't cook lunch, at least it can raise a fire less and save fuel and labor. That said, the emperor is rich all over the world and has everything he wants. Why should he save money? Besides, what's the use of saving so little money? Please note that every move of the ancient Ming monarch was an example to all subjects in the world, and the emperor took the lead in frugality, which was beneficial to the whole society to develop a fine style of hard work and simplicity.
In fact, not only the Emperor of Song Dynasty only asked the Imperial Chef to cook two meals a day, but also the Emperor of Qing Dynasty. According to the textual research of Mr. Zhang Naiwei's "The Story of the Qing Palace", only one breakfast and one lunch were served in the imperial kitchens of the Qing Dynasty every day. Breakfast was prepared at the second quarter of the morning, that is, at 6: 31 in the morning, and lunch was prepared at the second quarter of the afternoon, that is, at 12: 31 at noon. What about dinner? No need to do it. According to the records of "Qing's Banknotes/Diet", Kangxi once said to the minister, "I have three meals a day and drink at night. I have two meals a day, and when I left the Great Wall, I ate one meal at a time. It means that ordinary people were used to eating three meals a day at that time, but as an emperor, he only ate two meals a day, even one meal a day when he sent troops to fight.
At first glance, it seems that the emperors of the Song Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty were very hard-working and plain-living, but in fact, it was not. No matter in the Song Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty, most rulers had to eat several meals a day. For example, Empress Dowager Cixi ate at least five meals a day, while Emperor Xuantong had a weak stomach, and sometimes ate six meals a day. The emperor of the Song Dynasty nominally had two meals a day, but in fact he had to eat other things besides two main meals in the morning and evening. The Emperor of the Song Dynasty called breakfast and dinner "dinner", lunch "dim sum" and meals eaten at other times "pan suo".
For example, having one meal in the morning and another at four or five o'clock in the afternoon is two meals. If you don't eat at noon, you will feel hungry, and you don't want to fight hunger by practicing calligraphy like Song Gaozong, so you ordered eunuchs to go to the street to buy some snacks as snacks (Song Zhenzong, Song Renzong and Song Xiaozong all have a preference for snacks outside the palace). If you work overtime at night and sleep late, you will still feel hungry, and then order the eunuch or a concubine to open a small stove and make a bowl of supper. This is called pansuo. Dinner, dim sum, and pan-rope add up to five or even six meals a day! So don't think that the chef only cooks two meals a day, and the emperor only eats two meals. That's all for show to outsiders.