Every morning, the quick-frozen steamed bread can be put into the bag as soon as it is steamed. At noon, a refrigerated box lunch in the convenience store downstairs can be eaten with a little heating. In the middle of the night, a bowl of instant noodles that can be eaten in a few minutes can make people who stay up late full of energy.
Convenience food has entered every aspect of life without accident.
Speaking of convenience food, it must be instant noodles from Japan. However, the earliest instant noodles were made by people in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
First, the chess face conforms to the "black technology" of the social economy at that time.
(1) The inevitable product of social development
In ancient times, the high-intensity labor of the society also made the ancient people start to think about how to have a full meal in their spare time in very little time.
Although the ancient small-scale peasant economy made every farmer have food in his hand, the process of turning food into food was not simple.
The production of pasta is time-consuming and laborious, and it is difficult to become people's staple food in cities with gradually developed commercial economy and fast pace.
Imagine that if it takes nearly half an hour to cook a bowl of noodles in a noodle restaurant on the roadside, it is estimated that few people are willing to eat it.
In addition, the marching rations were not well solved at that time.
Due to the backward production technology, it takes a long time to prepare a meal for officers and men of the ancient army.
This is intolerable, especially when the army needs to move quickly to pursue the enemy.
So soldiers usually carry something convenient to eat as their dry food.
However, these things generally have the problem of nutritional deficiency. The contradiction between nutritional needs and drinking convenience has not been solved for a long time.
In ancient times, especially in the northern region, people's love for pasta made various kinds of pasta emerge one after another.
But it is delicious and rich in taste, which can't solve the problems of complicated production process and long time.
In addition, once the noodles are cooked, it is difficult to keep them for a long time. Since the pre-production time is too long, it is better to concentrate on mass production this time and cook it when you want to eat it.
This may be the birth of chess face.
(2) Convenience food
As early as the Book of Qi Yao Min, some convenient foods, such as sliced porridge and twisted porridge, have appeared.
This kind of food can be misleading just by looking at its name.
In fact, a piece of porridge is a chess face.
According to historical records, the method of making this kind of chess piece surface is to knead the dough into a slender noodle, the thickness of which is similar to that of chopsticks. Then cut it into noodles like go.
After steaming, put it on a mat to dry in the shade.
If you want to eat chess pieces, you just need to boil them in water and add ingredients, and it's done.
Compared with modern instant noodles, the biggest difference of chess pieces noodles is that they are not dehydrated by fried noodles to prolong their storage time, but dried.
This is also an ancient "healthy food".
The making of chess pieces is simple and takes a short time, but in terms of taste and pattern, various patterns can be made.
The principle of instant noodles is the same as that of instant noodles now, and the cake is exactly the same, but the seasoning added inside is different.
It can be sour or spicy, sweet or salty, and even some traditional Chinese medicines can be added for dietotherapy, or precious ingredients can be added or marked on noodles to show their dignity.
Second, the gorgeous transformation of chess.
(1) "main force" of military logistics
To say that chess pieces have made the greatest contribution to the ancient history of China, it must be an important supply for the army.
As mentioned earlier, the biggest advantage of chessboard surface is that it takes short time to make it on site, and the taste can be selected according to your own preferences. Under difficult conditions, any seasoning can be a chess partner.
It is convenient to eat, can provide a lot of materials for the troops, and is easy to store.
All these requirements can be met by chess pieces.
For thousands of years, the chessboard has been following the troops on the land of China in four directions.
Countless soldiers survived because of it, and countless wars won because of it.
Because of the great role of chessboard in military war, the state even set up a special agency to be responsible for the supply of chessboard in the army.
According to the Book of the Old Tang Dynasty, when the southerners captured Jiaozhi County, the court not only immediately mobilized troops to prepare for the invasion, but also ordered Jiangxi to make a large number of chess pieces as food for the army.
An example can fully illustrate the importance of playing chess.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, in order to supply logistics materials to the huge army, Wang ordered the production of millions of pounds of chess pieces.
It is estimated that such a huge reserve can last for several months even if the army eats chess pieces every day.
By the time of the Mongol Empire, the army was fighting everywhere, and there was a great demand for convenient rations.
In addition to Mongolia's own milk powder, chess pieces in the Central Plains have also become one of the main rations of the Mongolian army and are deeply loved.
With the gradual improvement of chessboard status, chessboard has a brand-new role-as a tribute in the national sacrifice ceremony.
(2) Regular customers on people's dining tables
In the Song Dynasty, the urban economy was highly developed, and restaurants in the streets and alleys mushroomed. Northern pasta also followed these noodle restaurants into people's lives.
During this period, silk chicken rice noodles, three fresh noodles, fish tung skin noodles, salt fried noodles and so on began to appear.
These noodles look completely different. In fact, they are all chess pieces, various ingredients and various soups.
In order to adapt to the urban economy, pasta began to evolve into different ingredients and unique tastes.
Among them, chess pieces have gradually become a delicacy for the host to entertain guests.
Street vendors have also invented a new way to eat pasta, putting the cooked noodles into cold water to drain the water. As soon as the guests arrive, stir the noodles with the side dishes and you can eat them.
Among them, there is a kind of pasta called "Hose Chess", which is very different from the pasta at that time. Make the dough into a shape similar to a chess piece, cook it with eggs and lamb breast, add filaments of various vegetables, and season it with salt and vinegar.
Shaped like a chess piece, but like a hose, it churns in the soup, full of color, flavor and taste.
(3) A chef must have
As the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang lived a very frugal life. In his menu, there is a staple food-chess face, which seems to be completely inconsistent with the status of the emperor.
As a grass-roots farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, who worked hard on the battlefield, maintained a simple life even when he became the founding monarch. I can't get used to the delicacies in the imperial dining hall, and even eat the baked wheat cake and duck blood soup in the palace.
It is not surprising that chess pieces will appear in the emperor's lunch box.
In the Qing dynasty, chess pieces began to enter the imperial restaurant and became an indispensable delicacy at the banquet.
The production methods become more diverse, more delicious and more particular about materials.
Every banquet, the chef needs to prepare hundreds of pounds of chess pieces and prepare different pasta according to the rank of the minister. In addition to easy preparation, the chessboard surface has the ability of grading.
(4) unexpected "dietotherapy"
In Puji Fang, there is such a description of the chessboard surface: "Tong Qi Pill (prescription is clear) can cure the pain of various movements, and women's meridians are blocked, edema and bloating: Gansui, Daphne genkwa and Petunia.
On the right is the end, buckwheat noodles and the end are mixed together to make a cake, cut into pieces, cooked and served.
In Puji Fang, the surface of chess pieces plays the role of carrier of medicinal materials.
Some diseases such as edema, abdominal distension and body pain can be treated only by adding herbs such as Kansui and Petunia on the surface of chess pieces. Low preparation cost, little side effect and remarkable curative effect.
Chessboard has become the best medicine for ordinary people.
Chessboard is the most convenient food for people to satisfy their hunger, a frequent visitor to street restaurants and the most important treasure of every soldier. As the earliest convenience food in the history of China, it has made indelible contributions to military war, social production and economic activities.
In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, chessboard also became a tool for offering sacrifices and distinguishing status. And this is precisely the highest praise for his wife.
Chess is the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancient working people in China.
Cleverly divide the production of a bowl of noodles into two parts, complete the production of dough in advance, and shorten the time for noodles to serve. The appearance of chessboard promoted the development of urban economy and ensured the combat effectiveness of the army.
When we begin to enjoy instant noodles, we should lament the wisdom of labor civilization and be able to put the northern pasta culture condensed for thousands of years into such a bowl.