During the Qin and Western Han Dynasties, Sichuan's food culture did not have regional characteristics: during the more than 300 years from the Qin Dynasty to the end of the Western Han Dynasty, due to the economic development of Shu after the first immigration, the prosperity of Chengdu led to the richness of products and the prosperity of the catering industry. This is what Yang Xiong said in "Shu Du Fu": "Five flavors are mixed with sweetness, peony soup, abalone in Jiangdong, cattle and sheep in Longxi" and the introduction of rare wild animals. It can be inferred from these short sentences that classical Sichuan cuisine had begun to take shape at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, and the spirit of Central Plains cooking culture-"harmony of five flavors" has become the keynote of Sichuan, at least for the upper class. Then there is "mackerel in Jiangdong, cattle and sheep in Longxi", which shows that the ingredients of Sichuan cuisine are not simply selected locally, but obtained from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the west of Qinling Mountains by land and water transportation. However, we should note that the above description implies that at least the upper-class diet in this period had no regional characteristics, and if it did, it was also the unhealthy and uncivilized habit of "Yizhou Deer (Bad Committee)" inherited by the lower class before the Warring States Period. Before this, it can be inferred from the record of "Wen Jun as a servant" in Historical Records that the catering industry in Sichuan has also appeared. Generally speaking, just as Sichuan after Qin and Han Dynasties rarely shows the legacy of ancient Shu culture, Sichuan food culture in this period was basically completely assimilated by the advanced culture of Qin and Han Dynasties, and has not yet formed its own regional characteristics.

Sichuan cuisine in the late Han Dynasty and Wei and Jin Dynasties

The distinction between classical Sichuan cuisine, Sichuan cuisine and Central Plains and Jiangnan cuisine appeared in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and Wei and Jin Dynasties.

After the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Sichuan's economy and culture continued to develop, and the food culture began to show its own characteristics. The second section introduces the "kitchen figurines" in the tombs of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Zhongxian County, which illustrates the mature scene of Sichuan and Sichuan cuisine, especially the appearance of jiaozi. Jiaozi should be understood as a variant of wonton. In the Han Dynasty, wonton was called "drunken wonton", which was a kind of cake or soup cake. "Steamed cake, soup cake, scorpion cake, pith cake, golden cake and soaked cake" have been mentioned in the famous explanation of Liu Xi in the Eastern Han Dynasty, but we can't accurately understand the meaning of soup cake. We only know that wonton or jiaozi should be made of wheat bran-removed flour, which requires high-quality flour processing. Therefore, we can speculate that in the Eastern Han Dynasty at the latest, the agricultural processing technology in Sichuan was the same as that in the Central Plains. Steamed bread, or "steamed bread", as a kind of instant noodle food, should be one of the so-called "steamed cakes" in the above sentence of "Interpretation of Names". It appeared in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, but why should it be attributed to Zhuge Liang's invention in Shu Han? In addition to the celebrity effect, it may also be because Sichuan Hanzi steamed bread pioneered the addition of meat stuffing, which is slightly like a human head in shape and different from Liu's steamed cake. Wei Wu's "Four Seasons Food System" written by a man named Cao Cao in Wei and Jin Dynasties talked about Sichuan cuisine and its cooking at that time, saying: "Pixian fish, with yellow scales and red tails, can be used as sauce when it comes out of rice fields"; It is said that yellow croaker "has a large number, with a foot of 100 Jin, and its bones are soft and edible." It also mentioned "steamed catfish", which shows that steamed catfish dishes have long existed in Sichuan cuisine and Sichuan cuisine. In any case, it shows that the cooking level of Sichuan cuisine has been greatly improved in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period, and it was called "enjoying honey" by the Central Plains people, and then it was determined by the "respecting taste and spicy taste" of the long songs in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

During the Three Kingdoms period, Chengdu, as one of the capitals of the Three Kingdoms, stepped onto the political stage of China. The second migration movement promoted the continued development of Sichuan and Sichuan's economy and culture. During this period, Liu Chan, the late ruler, tried to "broaden the vocal music" and reflected it in the high-level diet accordingly. At this time, Chengdu has become "both beautiful and worshipful", "external access, internal reflection, more accessible than houses." A prosperous national metropolis. In the Western Jin Dynasty, Zuo Sizan praised Shu Du Fu, which was written by Zhong Shuren in Luoyang according to literature records and inquiries. The so-called "konjac dogwood, melon and taro area, sugarcane and ginger, sunny and fragrant." Therefore, Chengdu has a "four dishes, four dishes, one vote clear" banquet. Zhang Zai, a poet in the Western Jin Dynasty, also talked about the rich diet in the capital of Shu in his poem "Deng Cheng Bai Tu Lou": "You can enter at any time. A hundred schools of thought are wonderful, and each is different. " It is worth noting that the cooking style of "respecting taste and being spicy" conflicts with the spirit of "adjusting husband and five flavors". From this, we come to the conclusion that the classical Sichuan cuisine in Wei and Jin Dynasties has different characteristics from that in the Western Han Dynasty, so we think that the distinction between classical Sichuan cuisine and other cuisines in China should be in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and Wei and Jin Dynasties, not in the Qin and Han Dynasties.

Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties Sichuan cuisine

The Prosperity of Sichuan and Shu Food Culture in Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties;

The Sichuan-Sichuan War at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty caused a large number of people in Sichuan and Sichuan to move eastward, which destroyed the economy and culture to some extent. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the establishment of a unified empire resumed production and achieved unprecedented economic development. After the Sui Dynasty occupied Sichuan and Sichuan areas, it began a great economic recovery and cultural enrichment under the affluent life. Yang Xiu, King of Yue, who moved the capital to Chengdu in the Sui Dynasty, built large-scale buildings in Chengdu and expanded the walls of Chengdu, indicating that the population of Shu increased when the Sui Dynasty unified China, and the urban area of Chengdu was no longer habitable during the Shu and Han Dynasties. Yang Xiu's "progressive luxury" has played an exemplary role in Chengdu's catering and leisure culture. Later, since the Anshi Rebellion, Shu became the backyard of the Tang Dynasty, and Chengdu was renamed "Nanjing" briefly. Later, in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, Chengdu expanded its city twice through Wei Gao and Gao Pian, and became a large-scale city. During the turmoil in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, Sichuan has always been a place where aristocratic families and famous literati took refuge, which created conditions for cultural exchanges, including the improvement of food standards.

At this time, the dietary level of Sichuan and Sichuan reached a new height, which was reflected in the poems of the Tang Dynasty. For example, when Du Fu was in Kuifu, Sichuan, he wrote a poem "Cold Amoy of Sophora japonica Leaves": "Sophora japonica leaves are green and tall, and Chinese cooking is picked up. 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 also reed. " "Cold pottery" is a kind of cold noodles, which took shape as early as the Southern and Northern Dynasties. As the seasonal diet of the palace banquet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Du Fu can eat cool pottery in Kuifu, which shows that the delicacies in the banquet in Beijing have spread to the people in Sichuan. Du Fu once appreciated the cooking technique of "Scorpion waving frost knife left and right, squid golden and snow high" in Mianzhou, Sichuan. The prosperous Sichuan-Sichuan economy and commodity exchange have fully supported the regional food culture. In Chengdu Qu, it is described that "there are many restaurants near the bridge in Wan Li, and tourists are like weaving", while it is described that "making wine from Chengdu is more like Chang 'an". "Li Shangyin's sentence" Fine wine can be sent to Chengdu, but the stove is still Zhuo Wenjun "describes the rich diet in Sichuan at that time.

Especially in the Five Dynasties after the third migration, the economy and culture of Shu reached another climax. This is because the number of people who moved to Sichuan with higher cultural quality exceeded the previous two times, making Sichuan and Sichuan one of the two areas where the people of the Central Plains took refuge at that time.

"Qing" contains: "I still eat, and I have given a hundred volumes of" Food Code "to fat sheep. Its method: use red yeast cook the meat, close to Rolling Stone Town, go deep into wine bones and cut it as thin as paper. " From the Book of Qi Yao Min, we can see that only steamed pigs are used to come to cook the meat directly with wine. The production method of fat sheep seems to carry forward this method, and modern Dongpo meat also inherits this method. Pork is treated with wine. From Mrs. Hua Rui's palace poems, we know that there were various ways of catering at that time, including "boat banquet" There are as many as 100 volumes in Shi Ji, which should be the most extensive recipe from Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. Although it only reflects the cooking skills of the royal chef, it can spy out the colorful cooking culture of Bashu in the Five Dynasties. Today, we don't know the specific content of the lost Shu Meng Edible Classics. We can only spy on the novelty of banquet types and the exquisiteness and originality of eating style of senior people in Sichuan at that time from Mrs. Hua Rui's palace words.

Sichuan cuisine in Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties

During the Song Dynasty, classical Sichuan cuisine became an independent cuisine in China.

Sichuan continued to maintain economic and cultural prosperity in the Song Dynasty. During the Northern Song Dynasty, banquets in Chengdu were very popular. During the reign of Renzong in the Northern Song Dynasty, Song Qi learned about Chengdu, and there were more colorful banquets. Song Qi was the first person to introduce Sichuan's exotic local products and some cooking skills to the outside of Sichuan in detail. Later, Su Shi was the first to creatively carry forward Sichuan cuisine to the Central Plains, Jiangnan and Lingnan areas. We can learn about Su Shi's cooking practice from many poems and songs and notes of Song people.

Amateur cooking lover, Lu You, a native of Zhejiang, has been an official in Sichuan for a long time and has a strong interest in Sichuan cuisine. Tang 'an's glutinous rice, Xinjin's leek, Pengshan's roasted turtle, Chengdu's steamed chicken and Xindu's vegetables all left an unforgettable impression on him, and he still remembers it after leaving Shu for many years. In his later years, he sang an emotional poem "Returning the Taste of Wu" in the drama "Food" (Note 44). The poem "After-dinner Play" says: "Buy bones at the East Gate and add some orange sauce. Steamed chicken is the most famous, and beauty is not counted. " "Bo" means "pig" and "Bo Gu" means pork chop. The ribs are cooked or dipped in a sour sauce mixed with spices, such as orange sauce. In addition, the poem also praised Sichuan leeks, zongzi, turtle soup and other foods. There are more than 50 poems about Sichuan cuisine in Lu You's "Jian Nan Poetry Draft". His works let us observe the wonderful Sichuan folk food from another angle.

One of the great achievements of Sichuan cuisine in the Song Dynasty was that its cooking began to be delivered abroad, so that overseas Sichuanese and ordinary people who were not Sichuanese could eat local flavor food in special restaurants. This is the first time that Sichuan cuisine has become an independent cooking system. This is the so-called "Chuanmi" in the Northern Song Dynasty. These Sichuan restaurants mainly sell "noodles with meat, large noodles with meat, large and small dishes with meat, fried meat with meat, mixed fried events and rice." In the Southern Song Dynasty, "Sichuan rice divides tea". From the contents of the above two books, we can find that Sichuan cuisine is mainly aimed at the public diet, especially pasta, which is the main component of noodles, with some instant meat. Today's noodles in Shanghai and Hangzhou are probably the remains of Sichuan rice noodles, because we can't find the second place to record noodles in Tokyo Dream. According to Jisheng Food Store in Beijing, Southern Food Store and Sichuan Rice Tea Distributor actually became synonymous with pasta shops after Du Nan, so Kaifeng Sichuan Hotel appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty. We know that modern noodles are very different from modern Sichuan noodles. We didn't find the specific seasoning characteristics of these dishes, nor did we find their thick taste and spicy taste. From the explanation of Meng Lianglu, we know that Sichuan rice appeared because in the Northern Song Dynasty, in order to take care of the tastes of the literati living in Bianjing, "it is said that it is inconvenient for them to eat in the north." One hundred and fifty years later in Du Nan, these Sichuan restaurants opened in Lin 'an with Du Nan have "no distinction between north and south", which shows that these Sichuan-style pasta dishes are quite different from those cooked in the Central Plains.

In other words, it was not until the Northern Song Dynasty that Sichuan cuisine became an influential cuisine in China. We can conclude that the classical Sichuan cuisine began at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty at the turn of Wei and Jin Dynasties and reached its peak in the Northern Song Dynasty. It took nearly a thousand years to finalize the draft.

The Ming Dynasty was a period of great development of Sichuan food culture. The most famous Sichuan-style pork and many famous wines appeared or improved in the Ming Dynasty, and the modern Sichuan-style pork was shaped in the Ming Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, Sichuan paid special attention to food. The famous Guojiao 1573 Liquor, LU ZHOU LAO JIAO CO.,LTD Co., Ltd., Wenqu Liquor and Wuliangye appeared in the Ming Dynasty, and "Iced Powder", "Jiuchi Duck" and "Bang Bang Chicken" were also invented in the Ming Dynasty, and Wuliangye was invented in the Ming Dynasty. The famous "hemp seed" rattan pepper oil was produced in the late Ming Dynasty before the Qing Dynasty ruled Sichuan. In the Ming Dynasty, Sichuan produced a delicious food called "Fried Pig", which was improved from fried pork in the Song Dynasty. Fried pork is a reliable prototype of Sichuan-style pork, which was renamed Sichuan-style pork after Qing Dynasty.

The birth of modern Sichuan cuisine (1861-1905);

During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Li Huanan, a native of Luojiang, Sichuan, who went to Zhejiang as an official, paid attention to collecting the cooking experience of chefs and housewives in his spare time. Later, his son, Li Tiaoyuan, sorted out his own cooking experience and carved it into a book, The Book of Eating, The Record of Waking up the Garden. Awakening Garden Record is an important food book in Qing Dynasty, which is different from the abstracts of similar books in the same period and before. The selection of cooking materials and cooking operation flow are recorded in detail, which is of great help to the skill improvement of chefs and housewives in the future. We know that from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, China's culinary practitioners mainly came from two aspects: 1) court chefs; 2) Home cooking, after the Song Dynasty, the catering industry was involved in the development of cooking on a large scale, but until the late Qing Dynasty, the catering industry still failed to dominate the catering trend in China. In the above two categories of cooking, the role of family chefs in cooking development should far exceed that of court chefs. Family chefs are divided into two categories: 1) specialized chefs or concubines employed or enslaved by rich people; 2) Chinese food, which means ordinary people, also includes kitchen dishes run by mothers and wives in the families of some thrifty officials and intellectuals. It should be said that China's cooking culture is a flower growing on the fertile soil of daily activities of thousands of families, and the specialized chef is only a master after China's cooking professionalization. Since the prosperity of the catering industry in the Song Dynasty, the cooking experience of the catering industry has been passed down from master to apprentice, which determines that their loss rate is high and their influence is not great. From this height, we can understand the significance of ancient food classics, including the food classics and Qi Yaomin's book recorded by Cui Hao in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Therefore, the significance of Wake Up the Garden in promoting Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Sichuan cooking is extraordinary.

At this time, Sichuan's economy was still on the eve of take-off, and its cooking skills were simple and rough. Influenced by the diet of the lower class people brought into Sichuan by immigrants from Huguang, Jiangxi and Shaanxi. In fact, it is a mixture of flavors from all over the world, and its exquisite people are represented by "eight bowls of meat" and "nine bowls". The so-called eight bowls and nine bowls of meat refer to: hodgepodge, braised pork, ginger chicken, stewed crispy meat, roasted bamboo shoots, steamed pork with rice flour, salted cook the meat and steamed elbow. Among these nine dishes, what we see is mainly the style influenced by Shandong cuisine, which is actually the simplification of the Manchu-Han banquet among the people, while the characteristics of classical Sichuan cuisine are only kept on ginger chicken and meat with sand. The former makes full use of the spicy taste of Sichuan ginger, while the latter highlights the sweetness, and the hemp taste in classical Sichuan cuisine is at least no longer prominent. This is why the historian Meng believes that the early days of modern Sichuan cuisine were greatly influenced by Shandong cuisine. Li, a Sichuan writer, provided readers with several lists of ancestors' sacrifices in Talking about Mourning. A list of food purchases in the 21st year of Daoguang (1829) listed all the food raw materials and seasonings purchased in funeral ceremonies and banquets, and none of them were peppers or pepper products. Another list of banquets in the first year of Tongzhi (1862) listed the dishes in detail, and none of them contained spicy taste. Among them, the top one is "Beijing food"-a hodgepodge, which is a Beijing food developed under the influence of Shandong cuisine, but in fact, they are simplified versions of the folk Manchu-Han banquet. The Manchu-Han banquet was brought to Sichuan by the flag-bearers stationed in the garrison and Manchu officials, but it soon declined and disappeared because it did not conform to the direction of the rise of modern Sichuan cuisine from the lower class.

In Wake Up the Garden Record, 38 cooking methods of Jiangsu and Zhejiang chefs and Chinese dishes are systematically collected, such as frying, sliding, frying, frying, boiling, frying, boiling, baking, pasting, brewing, rolling, steaming, baking, stewing and spreading. Because these various cooking methods are closely related to the middle and lower levels of cooking, they obviously played a great role in promoting the modern Sichuan cuisine that rose later. Wake up the Garden Record has influenced modern Sichuan cuisine from the middle and lower Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisines.

Generally speaking, the brewing period of modern Sichuan cuisine can be determined as around 186 1- 1905, which began in Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods in Qing Dynasty. At this time, the climax of migration to Sichuan has ended, and the population of Sichuan has exceeded the mid-Southern Song Dynasty, reaching more than 44 million. After the Qing government put down Li Wei's uprising, in the peaceful environment for the next 50 years, Sichuan experienced general prosperity because it was far from the coast and was less impacted by the western capitalist economy, which once attracted the attention of German geographer Richthofen who was visiting China. Richthofen wrote in his newsletter: "In general, Sichuan seems to be full of satisfaction and happiness with living materials, which is not common in other provinces in China." During this period, at first, due to the war in the southeast, Xiajiang agriculture was abandoned, and Sichuan replaced Hunan and Hubei for the first time, becoming the largest grain-producing province of the Qing government. Therefore, the Qing government began to attach importance to Sichuan and sent Ding Baozhen, Zhang Zhidong, Qin Chunxuan, Liang and others to Sichuan. They launched the initial Westernization Movement and the New Deal in Sichuan, which led to the emergence of academic and cultural activities in Sichuan since the Southern Song Dynasty. It is precisely because of the advocacy of officials from northern Sichuan and Jiangsu and Zhejiang who came to Sichuan in the late Qing Dynasty, as well as the opening up of Chengdu and southern Chongqing, that the evolution of modern high-class Sichuan cuisine was strengthened.

In a word, the birth of modern Sichuan cuisine is inseparable from the rapid development of Sichuan culture in the late Qing Dynasty. It is mainly developed by the mixture of immigrant cooking cultures, and is encouraged by the upper demonstration culture, including the influence of cooking experts. From the flavor of Sichuan cuisine before the mid-Qing Dynasty, we can see from the analysis in the next paragraph that it is rarely influenced by classical Sichuan cuisine.

3. The first prosperity of modern Sichuan cuisine (1906-1937);

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the upper level of modern Sichuan cuisine is greatly influenced by Shandong cuisine and Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine, which can be roughly attributed to the exquisite dishes without spicy and spicy taste in Sichuan cuisine, accounting for about two-thirds of modern Sichuan cuisine. However, the stereotype of modern Sichuan cuisine is more strongly influenced by the diet of immigrants from several provinces. The most interesting thing is that, while modern Sichuan cuisine was brewing, peppers introduced from the United States in the late Ming Dynasty took root and sprouted in the lower diet of Sichuan for about 100 years, and they also became attached to it, which brought them the distinctive personality of Sichuan cuisine today.

The shaping period of modern Sichuan cuisine is from 1906 to 1937, that is, from the New Deal period in the late Qing Dynasty to the eve of the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. From the brewing period (186 1- 1905) to the shaping period (1906- 1937), the shaping of modern Sichuan cuisine was realized through the development of three roads, which encouraged and promoted each other and made the task of shaping in just 76 years.

By the end of the Qing Dynasty, according to Tsui Hark's "Clear Warehouse Notes: Special Cuisine of Provinces", "Cuisine has its own characteristics, such as Shi Jing, Shandong, Sichuan, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangning, Jiangsu, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou and Huai 'an. "It shows that modern Sichuan cuisine has established its position in the national diet at the initial stage of stereotypes. Fu Chongju's General Situation of Chengdu, published in Xuantong Yuannian (1909), has recorded various dishes in Chengdu at that time 1328 kinds from the end of Xianfeng (186 1) to the end of Guangxu (1908). In addition to worldwide classification, there are also schools classified by regions, including Chengdu, Zigong, Neijiang, Luzhou, Yibin and Leshan, and there are countless famous dishes and snacks in various counties. 1959, Sichuan Manchu Banquet, which was dictated by Kong Daosheng and Zhang Songyun and reviewed by Blu-ray, included 65 kinds of Manchu banquet menus in Chengdu. China's Famous Cuisine (No.7) published by China Light Industry Press 1960 is a picture book of Sichuan cuisine.