But the problem is that some costume dramas that don't pay attention to history at all, no matter Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, have to cook with their mouths open. I don't know that era, there was no cooking at all.
In fact, the ancient cooking methods were mainly cooking and barbecue. Some historians say that the ancients were masters of Lu Xian, which is true. The ancient people's barbecue technology was superb and popular until the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang dynasty, the tradition of eating barbecue was still preserved, which was called "roasting", which means burning and barbecuing.
People in the Tang Dynasty are good at eating. According to historical records, there was a famous dish called "Xingyang Duanhu" in the Tang Dynasty, which was said to have been upgraded from the barbecue technology of Hu people.
First, prepare a goose, put glutinous rice and various seasonings into the goose's stomach, then put the whole goose into the sheep's stomach, sew it with a narrow intestine and bake it on the fire. When the mutton is cooked, the goose inside is cooked. The dignitaries only eat geese, and the mutton will be rewarded to the servants.
In addition, there was a large-scale barbecue menu in the Tang Dynasty called "Roast Tail Banquet", which not only talked about the way of roast chicken, ducks, geese, quails and various birds, but also talked about the way of grilled fish, shrimp, sheep tongue, deer tail, bear's paw, leopard fetus and other ingredients. Japan sent envoys to the Tang Dynasty to learn barbecue techniques. At present, there are still barbecue shops in Kyoto, Japan that barbecue ingredients in the way of the Tang Dynasty.
Besides barbecue, the most common way to eat in ancient times was steaming or boiling. Of course, you can also eat it raw. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, it was popular to eat sashimi with seasoning. Japanese still eat sashimi, which is also influenced by Tang Wenhua.
Although the simplest cooking-scrambled eggs was mentioned in the Book of Qi Yaomin in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it really became popular in the Southern Song Dynasty. Song and Yuan Dynasties recorded a lot of stir-fried dishes in the Notes Collection, but all of them were fried meat, including fried seafood. There is no record of cooking.
In the Ming dynasty, cooking became the mainstream, and it improved in the Qing dynasty, which has continued to this day. The reason why cooking was not popular before the Song Dynasty was that historians thought it was related to iron pots and oil.
Before the Song Dynasty, iron pots were not popular and gave people less oil to eat. No pan, no oil, pure dry. In the Song Dynasty, the technology of oil pressing was improved, iron pans were popularized, and cooking gradually became a trend. By the Ming Dynasty, western oil was continuously imported, so cooking was more convenient.
Ordinary people can eat oil, but not necessarily meat. It's not bad to try frying vegetables. Some scholars believe that Cantonese cuisine is close to Japanese cuisine and uses less oil because it continues the food culture of the Tang Dynasty. No one has verified which is true and which is false. Perhaps scholars have a point.