When you are full, people will pursue delicacy. Song people were very particular about diet. Rich people, "the food there is delicious, the next meal is new, vegetables are scarce, and there is no shortage of products", or even "not worth it, but you can enjoy new ears." I don't hesitate to spend money to taste the freshness.
Like today's small white-collar workers, ordinary urban white-collar workers in the Song Dynasty were not used to cooking at home, but went out to eat or order takeout. According to statistics, Tokyo's Dream of China mentioned more than 100 shops, of which restaurants and various restaurants accounted for more than half. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival depicts more than 100 buildings and houses, among which it can be clearly identified that there are 40 or 50 restaurants, accounting for almost half. Notes of Southern Song Dynasty, Old Stories of Wulin, The Sound of Gyeonggi and Meng Lianglu also contain a large number of restaurants and food lists in Lin 'an.
Even the urban underclass can find cheap food in restaurants. According to Meng Liang Lu, "There are even shops selling dirty blood noodles, vegetarian noodles, bamboo shoots and vegetarian soup rice, and restaurants also sell fried tofu, fried fish, fried fish, cooked vegetables and fried eggplant. These shops are what inferior people want.
Every morning in Lin 'an, small vendors who "buy and sell fine-colored vegetables and vegetables with different products" "crowded the market and sang hundreds of songs, which was very pleasant, like the weather in Bianjing" (dream of Liang Lu). Vegetables are common ingredients on the table of Song people. Scholars have pointed out that the varieties of vegetables planted in the Song Dynasty are very rich, about forty or fifty kinds, which are similar to the vegetables on the market today.
If it's the middle of winter and it's freezing, it seems that northern residents can only rely on hoarding vegetables for the winter. However, the poet Mei wrote a poem "Smell the fragrance and sell leeks", saying that "everything is frozen and not born, and it is the first time to sell vegetables." It turns out that vegetable vendors use the heat and temperature of manure to cultivate fresh leek and Polygonum hydropiper: "It is known that manure is warm and can sprout spring." In modern terms, isn't this the "anti-season cultivation" technology? With the development of science and technology and economy, Song people have more choices at the dinner table than ever before.
The emphasis on food led to the birth of various foods in the Song Dynasty. There are a long list of delicious food, snacks and snacks in Tokyo Dream, Meng Liangji, tea restaurant, noodle restaurant, vegetarian restaurant and Wulin old stories. There may not be so many items on the menu of five-star hotels now. It is no exaggeration to say that Kaifeng and Hangzhou in the Song Dynasty were simply paradise for eating goods.
Ham, Dongpo meat, hot pot, fried dough sticks, sashimi, etc. We can now taste that all of them were invented or popular in the Song Dynasty, and complicated cooking techniques such as boiling, roasting, frying, frying, boiling, stewing, marinating, steaming, waxing, honey and onion picking also matured in the Song Dynasty.
The staple food structure of people in the Tang Dynasty was mainly cakes and rice. Of the two, cake occupies the main position. In the Tang Dynasty, Zhao Lin said in Shuo Wen Jie Zi Ji that "cakes were important in the world" at that time, which was a true reflection of most people eating cakes in the Tang Dynasty.
The contents of cakes mentioned in the Tang Dynasty are much wider than today. All kinds of shaped pasta except batter can be called cakes. The most representative cakes eaten by Tang people are Hu cakes, steamed cakes and soup cakes.
Hu cake is a big cake baked in an oven. Han dynasty was introduced from the western regions, which was very popular in Tang dynasty. There is a kind of sesame seed cake in Hu cake. When baking, sprinkle sesame seeds on the cake. Bai Juyi once praised the baked wheat cake in the poem "Send the baked wheat cake to Yang Wanzhou": "The baked wheat cake is like Kyoto, with a crisp and smooth surface and a new furnace. Give it to the hungry Ambassador Yang. Does it look helpful? " In just four poems, the flavor characteristics and popularity of sesame cakes are vividly written.
Steamed cakes are pasta steamed after fermentation, such as steamed bread and steamed buns. There are many kinds of steamed cakes eaten in the Tang Dynasty, which can be made of wheat flour or mixed with various ingredients. All kinds of steamed cakes are not only the regular food on the table of ordinary people, but also the royal elegant hall. Bai Juyi mentioned "wine and steamed cakes, doughnuts, etc." In the article "Social Day Wine Cake", it is explained that steamed cakes are food given to ministers by the emperor.
Soup cake is pasta cooked with soup, such as noodles and noodles. Among them, there is a kind of cold noodles called "Sophora japonica leaf cold scouring", which is made of Sophora japonica leaf juice and flour, cooked and cooled in cold water, with a cool and unique taste. Du Fu once wrote in the poem "Cold Amoy of Sophora japonica Leaves": "The high green Sophora japonica leaves are collected for chefs in China. The new noodles are close to the market, and the juice is mixed with me. If it is overcooked, there will be no trouble with adding vegetables. Everything is fresh, and fragrant rice is a bud. Teeth are colder than snow, so advise everyone to vote for this pearl. "
Although the status of rice in the staple food of the Tang Dynasty is slightly lower than that of bread, it is still an indispensable main force. In some areas, it is even more popular than cake. People in the Tang Dynasty ate all kinds of rice, mainly rice, small rice, small rice and so on. Rice is the most widely eaten food. Especially in the rice producing areas south of the Yangtze River, it has always been the most important staple food. Rice with corresponding dishes is not only a favorite food, but also a beautiful artistic conception pursued by poets. For example, "fragrant rice is ripe and autumn vegetables are tender, and monks eat Ting Yun" (Lu Guimeng); "Watch boiled red and boiled white fish, and stay in the shop at night" (Wang Jian); Poetry is a reflection of real life. From the poet's poems, we can see the value of rice and its important position in the diet life in the Tang Dynasty.
Xiaomi Mi is Xiaomi Mi, and its edible range is mainly in northern areas, especially in rural areas. At that time, most of the rice sold in some small restaurants was corn rice. Small rice is rice cooked with rhubarb rice (that is, millet, sticky). In the staple food of people in the Tang Dynasty, there were various ingredients such as flax rice, black rice and mixed rice.