It's the season to eat bamboo shoots. For Nanjing people, both bamboo shoots and lettuce are so fragrant and refreshing; But for the ancient foodies, they not only ate, but also recorded in various historical materials.
"Bamboo shoot" is the nickname of "Bamboo Baby"
Shuowen said: "Bamboo shoots are also bamboo tires." Bamboo shoots are buds that bamboo grows from the soil. In the eyes of China people, bamboo shoots "rooted in the earth, thirsty for sweet springs" and "escaped from the earth" symbolize vigorous vitality, so people are used to describing the vitality of a thing with "like mushrooms after rain"; Furthermore, it is associated that eating bamboo shoots can also gain infinite vitality like it. There is a detailed record in Compendium of Materia Medica that bamboo shoots can "quench thirst, benefit waterways and benefit qi, and can be eaten for a long time." Conducive to the separation of lower qi, clearing away heat and resolving phlegm, and invigorating the stomach.
According to relevant experts' research, as early as 3000 years ago, people in China began to eat bamboo shoots; There are also many records of ancient people eating bamboo shoots in historical documents. "Bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots, you can cook." The definition of Erya, the earliest ancient dictionary in China, tells the historical origin of bamboo shoots and China cuisine. At that time, people called bamboo shoots "bamboo shoots", which was not only an intuitive name, but also vaguely revealed people's treasure of "bamboo baby".
China's first collection of poems, The Book of Songs, has a poem: "What is dimension? Wei Sun and Pu. " It describes a grand banquet scene. It is said that Han Hou met with Queen Zhou and left Beijing. According to etiquette, court officials gave a farewell dinner, served hundreds of pots of wine, stewed new turtles and steamed fresh fish, and the banquet was extremely rich. The vegetables for the distinguished guests are tender bamboo shoots and tender cattails. There is a more luxurious way to eat Zhou Wang's own bamboo shoot dishes. According to Zhou Li, "Add beans and bamboo shoots will spoil the fish." "Bean" refers to the wood used to hold meat in ancient banquets. "Powder" means curing, and "powder" means sauce. Therefore, at the banquet of Emperor Zhou, "beans" were filled with pickled bamboo shoots and fish sauce. In fact, because the oxalic acid content of bamboo shoots is relatively high, it is easy to cause gastrointestinal discomfort when eaten alone, but it will make the taste more intense with fish sauce after pickling.
Eating bamboo shoots is becoming more and more popular. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, there was a famous dish "white soup with venison, abalone and bamboo shoots", and "seven hairs" written by Mei Cheng in the Western Han Dynasty included "bamboo shoots and fragrant cows". Bai Juyi, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty, also wrote a poem called "Eating Bamboo Shoots": "Put it in the kitchen and cook it with rice at the same time. Purple flowers are old, but plain muscles are new. Add meals every day, and don't think about meat after that. I have been a guest in Luo Jing for a long time, and this smell is often not enough. And eat Thai baht, the spring breeze blows bamboo. " Bai Juyi is an official in Beijing all the year round. For him, bamboo shoots are not tired of eating every day and he doesn't even want to eat meat.
Among the ancients, the literati who loved bamboo shoots the most were the "Seven Sages of Bamboo Forest". Bamboo represents noble morality, so eating bamboo shoots is also a fresh and refined elegant thing. Scholar-officials in the Northern and Southern Dynasties advocated talking clearly and pursued a life that was detached from things and indifferent to fame and fortune. Bamboo shoots satisfy their imagination of food.
Ancient scholars said that bamboo shoots are more delicious than meat.
Han, a professor of ancient literature, pointed out that the Song Dynasty was a peak of China's food culture, which was also reflected in many of his poems and works. The highly respected bamboo shoots appear from time to time in the writings of literati.
Li Guang's Memories of Bamboo Shoots in Song Dynasty described the vivid scene of bamboo shoots unearthed in detail. "In late spring, cuckoos crow and grow thick and hemp. Borrow soil to raise horns and expose the cat's head through the fence. " That is to say, when the cuckoo crows, the thick bamboo shoots are densely exposed to the ground, as thin as a horn and as thick as a cat's head.
In the spring of the sixth year of Xining in the Northern Song Dynasty, Su Shi, then the judge of Hangzhou, wrote a poem "Yu Qian Lv Yun Xuan" when traveling with monk Huijue, from which the well-known poem was born: "It is better to live without bamboo than to eat without meat. No meat makes people thin, and no bamboo makes people vulgar. " Later, Su Shi relegated Huangzhou, and in "Arriving in Huangzhou at the First Time", he left a chanting of bamboo shoots: "The Yangtze River knows the beauty of fish surrounding the country, and good bamboo makes the mountains feel bamboo shoots. Good food knows fish and bamboo shoots, delicious and delicious, not to mention Dongpo? "
Huang Tingjian, a famous writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, is also a senior foodie. He wrote in "Begging for Bitterness from Lao Bin": "Bitter bamboo shoots in the South Garden are not as good as meat, and the dragon said that the harvest was unfair." In his opinion, bitter bamboo shoots are more delicious than meat, and I think eating bamboo shoots has become a habit.
Besides Su Shi and Huang Tingjian, Yang Wanli of the Southern Song Dynasty also had a quip about eating bamboo shoots. He wrote in "Cooking Bamboo Shoots in Du Qian in the Morning": "There is no need to curse bamboo shoots for bamboo. Eat bamboo shoots instead of meat." Huang Like is quite a sword. He eats bamboo shoots and doesn't eat meat. "Early bamboo shoots are gradually listed, and green leeks are out of the garden at the beginning; I am very happy to be here, and I will try my best to screen chickens and dolphins. " This is Lu You's "Spring Festival Evening Learning Wall". When bamboo shoots were served on the table, the poet picked up chopsticks and was in a happy mood, even chicken and pork that were rarely seen at ordinary times were out of sight.
Han analyzed that the ancients lived in poverty and could not hoard many ingredients. In many cases, they can only eat foods that change with the seasons. For them, being able to taste the freshest bamboo shoots in time is the most kind and considerate gift given by God. Feng Shixing's Eating Bamboo Shoots describes such a state. "Brocade basket early fresh jade color, it is said that cooking has virtue. It's no help to never add rice, and the waves say that ice and spleen are bitter and inconvenient. I didn't have a careless day, but I had money at four o'clock. Don't even ask about the smell of cold Confucianism. You must plan to turn Feng Ling into a thin fairy. " Peel off the shell of the bamboo shoots, and the white and tender bamboo shoots can be cooked at will. This fresh vegetable tastes delicious. Don't accuse it of being nutritious, and don't say it will hurt your stomach. As long as there are no bamboo shoots, you are too lazy to move chopsticks. If it is available all year round, the price doesn't matter! Don't say that poor scholars are poor. If you eat this often, you must be slim and straight!
Emperor Qianlong came to Jiangnan six times to eat bamboo shoots.
In addition to the original flavor of bamboo shoots, in the process of cooking bamboo shoots, ancient foodies also racked their brains.
According to Lin Hong's "Shanjia Qing Palace", fresh and tender bamboo shoots are wrapped in seasoning batter and fried to golden yellow, which is called "golden yellow"; Some people slice bamboo shoots and cook porridge with white rice, which is also delicious. This is called "boiled jade". Yuan Mei, a gourmet in Qing Dynasty, mentioned "Yulan Pian" in Garden Notes, that is, taking winter bamboo shoots as raw materials, it was named because it looked like the bud of Yulan. "Baked bamboo shoots in winter, slightly with honey. Suzhou Sun Chunyang's family has two kinds of salt and sweetness, and salt is the best. "
There is also a big bamboo shoot eater in history, that is, Emperor Qianlong, who once again refreshed the skyline of eating bamboo shoots.
According to Yuan Hongqi, a researcher at the Palace Museum, it takes about one and a half months for Emperor Qianlong to visit the south of the Yangtze River, and he often leaves around the 15th day of the first month, that is, he goes to the bamboo shoots in the south. At that time, winter bamboo shoots, spring bamboo shoots and green bamboo shoots appeared one after another and stayed in the West Lake Palace in Hangzhou. In eight days, they ate fried chicken with bamboo shoots, fried wild bamboo shoots with pickles, green bamboo shoots with sauced meat, green bamboo shoots and green pepper balls, and so on.
Yuan Hongqi analyzed that green shoots refer to lettuce, also called lettuce, which can be burned, fried, stewed and cold. Known as "golden vegetables", late spring and early summer are a good time to eat green shoots. Jiangnan has a warm climate, and lettuce ripens earlier, more than a month earlier than other places. Emperor Qianlong's southern tour is just the right time to eat bamboo shoots.
Nanjing Daily/Zijinshan Daily reporter Wang Feng
The picture is from vision china.