The Tang Dynasty, as the heyday of China's classical feudal era, reached a peak in politics, culture, economy and military affairs, and was in the leading position among all the countries in the world during the same period.

The food culture of the Tang Dynasty was also diverse and inclusive. The most favored food culture in the Tang Dynasty was mutton, followed by beef, and then pork. In fact, people in the Tang Dynasty held a contemptuous attitude towards pork, believing that eating too much pork would make you sick and was not conducive to one's health.

I, mutton? Tang officials monthly supply

In the "Tang six canon" in the record of the nobles need to supply the number of heads of sheep each month, the number of different grades of officials have the supply of sheep is not the same. The monthly supply of sheep for an official of the second rank was 20, and for an official of the fourth rank, nine. In terms of dietary meat, the most important of the monthly offerings enjoyed by court officials was mutton, while beef and pork were quite rare.

There was a rumor that people would suffer retribution if they ate too much beef, and this was recorded in the Taiping Guangji (太平广记). Of course, these stories carry a kind of metaphysical color. According to Taiping Guangji, a county magistrate in the Tang Dynasty died after being tortured for more than 10 years by a disease that covered his body with poisonous sores as a result of eating beef for a long period of time.

Second, the Tang Dynasty lamb catering profile

1, the street lamb barbecue

In the Tang Dynasty society is popular with a love of lamb, for pork and beef is not very favorite. Tang Dynasty lamb has a variety of practices, and all have their own characteristics, which is loved by everyone is grilled lamb kebabs. The flavor of the popular Tang Dynasty kebabs was very delicious and popular among people from all walks of life. Our country to this day is still popular among the people of the roast lamb kebabs snack custom, which is handed down from the Tang Dynasty.

2, the Tang people love the ancient building child?

The Tang Dynasty eat mutton in a variety of ways. Aristocrats and ordinary civilians have their own distinctive ways of eating. However, on the whole, in order to conform to the eating habits of the Tang people as well as their taste preferences, in order to nourish as well as strengthen their bodies, most of the beef was served hot in winter, with sauces in spring, and hot in summer, the best way to consume mutton in this period was to serve it cold.

The Tang Yulin records a delicious way of eating mutton in the Tang Dynasty, called Gulouzi, or what is commonly known as mutton dahu biscuits. According to the name, it can be roughly understood that this diet comes from ethnic minorities, and it was also popular among Han Chinese people, which also shows the cultural inclusiveness of the Tang Dynasty and the absorption of Western cultures.

Gulouzi's production method in the "Tang Yulin" has a detailed record, ? When the ho family food times up a catty of mutton, layers of cloth in the giant Hu cake, separated from the pepper and black beans, moistened with crispy, into the furnace forced to wait for the meat half-cooked to eat, called ? The ancient building sub?

Simply put, it is the lamb as the base filling, and the lamb layer by layer on top of the huge Hu cake, baked over a hot fire, and then sprinkled with very tasty seasonings, so you can eat. Of course, in the Tang Dynasty, in addition to Gulouzi, there is another very popular mutton snack, that is, mutton pastry, which is made of mutton and flour and made with ginger juice as a pancake accompaniment. The cakes are hollow, tasty and full of the fresh smell of lamb.

3, social zero star and coquettish sheep lung soup

The Tang Dynasty food culture and sacrificial culture is closely related, every large-scale festival, people often eat lamb to worship the gods, such as the social zero star this dish is the Tang Dynasty period of the common people used to worship the gods of the earth when eaten. Qiao Lamb Lung Soup is a very popular nutritional tonic among the Tang Dynasty folk, a good blend of the nutrients of lamb and the freshness of bean juice in the form of soup, which, according to Qingyi Lu, was consumed by the children of the Tang Dynasty at the time of the Great Cold Season.

Ten days and a half months before the Dahan festival, people began to prepare the ingredients, most notably lamb lungs and dried beans. Of course, there are many other nutritious ingredients and condiments in this dish, and at the time of the Dahan Festival, people start to gather and drink wine, and the Qiao Lung Soup is one of the most attractive dishes in the banquet.

4, burnt ends of the red lamb branch staff

Tang Dynasty society popular burnt ends of the banquet, people gathered together to recite poems, while enjoying the delicious food, according to historical records, people know of the Tang Dynasty, the most famous burnt ends of the banquet is Wei Juyuan organized, when the Wei family burnt ends of the banquet is famous all over the world.

According to the record of "Qing Yi Lu", his family's roasted tail banquet a **** 58 recipes, each dish is delicious and valuable, in the 58 recipes, there are 8 dishes are directly related to mutton, such as the very famous red sheep sticks, this dish is a big dish at that time, which is roughly equivalent to what we now call roasted whole sheep. The dish often appeared as the finale of a roasted tail feast and was a favorite among diners.

Three, Tang aristocrats and commoners love delicious

Tang people think that lamb is delicious, but also has a very high nutritional value. In the "Taiping Guangji" recorded a lot of meat consumption in the Tang Dynasty, of which there are 47 records is about the consumption of mutton.

In these 47 records, most of them are about members of the royal family and aristocratic officials for the diet of mutton detailed records, there are about 19 is about the ordinary people of the Tang Dynasty consumption of mutton stories. The mainstay of lamb consumption in the Tang Dynasty was the nobility and the royal family, but the common people's preference for lamb was no less than that of the royalty.

In the New Book of the Tang Dynasty, there is a record of officials consuming mutton, and there was a deciphering room called Li Baozhen, who was a very famous mutton eater. According to historical records, he was used for a month for banquets and parties slaughtered more than 1,000 head of sheep, an average of more than 30 head of sheep every day, from this data we can also know that the Tang people for the degree of love for eating mutton, there is no doubt that mutton is the Tang Dynasty period of popularity is very wide national meat.

Four, summarize

Large quantities of mutton consumption needs to have a strong animal husbandry as the backing, the Tang Dynasty animal husbandry is relatively more prosperous. In the northwest, there were large-scale livestock farms, raising mainly sheep, but also other animals, such as horses and cattle. In addition to large official farms, nobles with power as well as money and minority princes also had large-scale private farms.

According to historical records, the very famous Princess Taiping during the Tang Dynasty had a large number of flocks of sheep raised in her home, and these flocks were the main source of supply for fresh mutton.