If one day, you come to the Han Dynasty, what will you eat?
First of all, in terms of probability, you are a civilian, so you have two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. If you are an aristocrat, you will have three meals a day at this time. If the probability is extremely small, you can eat four meals.
By the Han Dynasty, the main cooking methods were basically available.
Frying, unlike today, means dry frying or adding water and burning until it is dry. If there is water left in the end, it is called boiling. Grilling and barbecue are probably the earliest cooking methods of human beings since the fire. Steamed, just like today. Stir-fry, boiled water or stir-fry, but according to the records of China civil history in Qin and Han dynasties, there is solid animal oil at this time, but it has not been fried yet. It's made of knife, sashimi and raw meat. At that time, there was no intermediary, so the accompanying fish was ginger. Xin Yannian said in a poem, "As far as I'm concerned, I want to be delicious, and I eat golden carp.".
Bacon.
The main condiments are salt, vinegar, sauce, sugar (caramel and sucrose were imported from India in the Tang Dynasty), onion, ginger, pepper, meat sauce, caviar and garlic. Hehe, people who are not spicy and unhappy suffer, but there is no way. Pepper comes from Nanyang, and it didn't appear until the discovery of the new continent.
On the staple food, most people drink porridge, including wheat porridge and rice porridge, and rice porridge is divided into glutinous rice porridge, yellow rice porridge, millet porridge and rice porridge. Of course, you can also drink bean porridge, which is made of rice soup and beans. And you can eat cake. Before the Song Dynasty, cakes were the general name of pasta, which was usually eaten with boiled water, or directly mixed in noodles, and then steamed or fried. In addition, you can also eat soup cakes, similar to today's Pien Tze Huang, but with dead noodles (pure dough) instead of a knife. In the Jin Dynasty, Shu Xi said it was torn by hand. . Of course, there are also dried rice, which are all granular, similar to today's big rice and yellow rice. In the Han Dynasty, I loved glutinous rice, so in the south, I often ate glutinous rice and yellow rice from the north. Generally, after cooking, like today, a jujube will always be added. After arriving in the western regions, there are also Hu cakes and Hu rice, which are also staple foods. Hu cake is similar to today's sesame cake. Hehe, Emperor Han Ling loved this in those days, was it later Han Shu? Five-element annals: In the Han Dynasty, "Lingdi liked Khufu, Zhang Hu, Hu Chuang, Zuo Hu and Fan Hu." Fan Hu is made of pickled melon, roasted fat and lettuce, which are rolled into two layers and cut into six sections two inches long.
Of course, you have to eat vegetables. Let's talk about vegetables first
"Winter sunflower", the main vegetable in Han Dynasty. Shuowen: "Sunflowers, sunflowers too." Chinese cabbage, spinach, taro, radish, leek, cucumber, gourd, lotus root, beans, etc. Everything is available today except potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and onions.
Through the western regions, soybeans and grapes came, and soybeans subsequently led to the emergence of bean products such as tofu and bean sprouts similar to today.
The meat is basically the same as today. Generally speaking, it is mainly the traditional "six animals" in China, including horses, cows, sheep, pigs, dogs and chickens. There were no taboos in the Han dynasty, and there were eggs in this era. However, dairy products were rarely eaten in the Han Dynasty. Fish and shellfish are also Han Chinese, and of course they like to eat them. In Shang Dynasty, fish was often eaten by ordinary people, but after the Warring States period, fish and meat were symbols of status (refer to the story of Meng Changjun).
Much like today's people, later, the nobles of the Han Dynasty regarded meat as something rotten to the body and advocated a healthy diet and vegetables. The poor people were very eager to eat meat, but it was more expensive, so it was also popular in water (animal offal).
After Emperor Wudi monopolized salt and iron, people who ate salt in the Han Dynasty were more expensive and had a light taste. If they were in the Han Dynasty, they would feel similar to today.
In the Han dynasty, it seemed popular for rich people to cook "preserved meat", drying everything and curing everything. All kinds of preserved wild birds (there were so many wild animals at that time, which protected the environment in the world), preserved meat, walking animals, fish, etc ..... I have been thinking about saliva. ......
No wonder, there is no refrigerator.
During the Han Dynasty (I forgot who the emperor was), Zhou Bazhen was once a hit. Have you tasted it?
-The earliest court banquet-Eight Treasures of the Zhou Dynasty
Boil: cook rice with meat soy sauce; Haruki: Braised yellow rice with meat sauce; Canned dolphins: roasted, fried and stewed suckling pigs; Cannons: roast, fry and stew ewes; Pearl Krabs: Roast beef, lamb and deer tenderloin; Stains: distiller's grains, beef and mutton; Boil: similar to spiced beef jerky; Liver net oil: roast pig liver wrapped in net oil.
There is a product in Songs of the South. Evocation can represent the famous dishes at that time. Guo Moruo once translated it into modern Chinese:
The family goes with you, and the diet is really particular. There are rice, millet, new wheat and Huang Liang. Sweet and sour, everything tastes good. Stewed beef tendon is a hot and sour soup made by chef Wu. Braised turtle, barbecued mutton. Boil the duck, stew the duck and add some vinegar. Braised chicken turtle is very refreshing. Fried flour cakes and rice cakes are dipped in honey. Frozen liqueur, a full glass of imported wine is really cool. There is sour plum soup for hangover.
Medieval cooking methods
China's ancient cooking methods, as seen from the Book of Songs and other ancient books, are nothing more than roasting with naked fire, boiling in a tripod, steaming in a tripod and roasting on a fire. Needless to say, the tripod is supported by a vessel foot and placed on the fire. Since the Warring States period, it has been boiled in a kettle and steamed in a tripod, but there is no foot. "Mencius Teng Wengong", "Xu Zi cooks with a kettle", we can know that the kettle was the most common cooker at that time. The most common cooking utensils in the Han Dynasty are the portraits of funerary wares and tomb bricks. There are at least two furnace eyes on the furnace, and there are kettles sitting on the furnace eyes respectively. The bottom of the pot goes deep into the stove, and the fire area is large, so the efficiency should not be bad. Generally speaking, the steamer is close to the oven door, and the kettle or jar is placed at the back, close to the smoke, and only the heat of the residual fire can be used. The main way to eat millet is steaming, which takes a long time and has great firepower; If the vegetable is cooked or fried, it will be processed in a pot.
Cooking with Han stove, the staple food is steamed rice, bean rice and wheat rice. If cooked in a kettle, it's like porridge soup. If it is cooked and dried, it is stored as dry food. As for the dishes, take the No.1 Han Tomb of Mawangdui in Changsha as an example. According to the food remains stored in 48 bamboo sticks and 5/kloc-0 pottery pots, it can be verified that there are cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs, rabbits, birds, chickens, ducks, geese and some finches, and fish such as carp and perch. There are also 3 12 bamboo slips, which record the names of funerary objects and food, and are already the names of cooking. Although it is baked, most of it is soup, and many of them are cooked together with two raw materials.
The types of meals recorded in the Book of Rites are millet, rice and sorghum, especially white millet and yellow sorghum. Meals include "stew" cooked by cattle and sheep, roast beef, braised beef, roast sheep, braised mutton, roasted mustard sauce, fish, pheasant rabbit and quail chicken. In addition, there are various ways to use ingredients, such as stewed scorpions with wine (that is, carved beards), wild chicken soup with wheat, and ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
These foods, except minced meat, are all cut into large pieces, called Xuan, and small pieces, called Wan, which are not cut into filaments. This cutting method, used to make soup, basically requires heat. Open flame baking is very fuel-intensive; The open fire only sets up firewood, and other measures can't be improved. After all, cooking soup on the stove can improve the structure of the stove to achieve the purpose of saving fire. Shaogou Han Tomb in Luoyang is a large-scale tomb group discovered earlier in recent decades, with a total of 55 pottery stoves/kloc-0 unearthed. Pottery stoves are all rectangular, consisting of furnace body, furnace surface, furnace door, fire hole, kettle, retort and so on. Other details are quite different. These tombs date from the mid-Western Han Dynasty to the late Eastern Han Dynasty. The pottery stove in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty was a simple boy, with only one eye on it, and he didn't know how to use the waste heat. In the late Western Han Dynasty, it was known that a kettle was usually placed on the fire eye to make use of the residual heat. Before and after Wang Mang, the number of small fire holes increased to two or three, some on both sides in front of the fire hole and some behind it. In the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, two small fire eyes were quite large, juxtaposed in front of the fire, depicting fish food and forks on the kitchen surface. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the small fire eye was bigger, often a fire eye, located in front of the fire eye, and fish and cookers were also painted on the stove surface. From this series of evolution, we can see that the position of the kettle has gradually moved from the back of the retort to the front, and the heat used has gradually changed from waste heat to the main heat directly used by the fire door. This change shows that Han people pay more and more attention to the use of kettles; Fish and cookers are scattered around the kettle, which also shows that cooking activities are no longer simply chopping and cooking in the kettle.
However, the shape of the Han pot is still deep, which is conducive to cooking and not conducive to frying. The spoon in the pot is also a crank tongue, which is good for stirring and holding soup, and can't be used for cooking at all. The most distinctive method of quick frying in China's cooking methods seems to have never been seen in the Han Dynasty. In terms of using heat, quick frying is almost the most economical and effective method. In ancient China, firewood was the main fuel. When children grew up, firewood was a symbol of negative pay, which showed its importance. China's natural ecology has been seriously damaged since ancient times because of the continuous logging by the ancients. Niu Shan, who tasted the beauty of vegetation in Mencius' Gao Zi, finally became Tongshan because of the hard work of the people in neighboring cities. In the Han Dynasty, in order to increase cultivated land, the public land was continuously opened, and the people were turned into fields. The local governor also regards increasing farmland as one thing. After 400 years of reclamation, the forest area in China will be greatly reduced. During the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the land in the north was constantly invaded by waves of foreigners. Before these foreigners were finally assimilated into China culture, they often turned large areas of farmland into pastures. The pasture is long and hidden, and the trees will not be rich. The agricultural activities of Han people in the north and foreigners in China are conducive to the development of extensive agriculture because of the vast war-torn land and sparse population, and the management of wandering farming must often burn hazelnuts on a large scale. Therefore, in northern Yuan Ye, the area of trees has not increased (relatively speaking) because of the decrease of population. Since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and even the Eastern Jin Dynasty, a large number of people from the north moved south, first settled in Jianghan, then explored the Yangtze River basin and its tributary lakes, and finally developed the coastal areas of Fujian and Guangdong. The population of the south has increased several times; The area of cultivated land and roads in cities and towns has increased, while the area of trees has decreased sharply.
Trees can also burn charcoal. A large-scale charcoal burning industry appeared in Han dynasty, and a large number of workers went deep into the mountainous areas to attack wood and burn charcoal for iron burning industry and general household fuel. According to historical records, my consort, the younger brother of Emperor Dou of China, used to be a charcoal burner, with as many as 100 people working together. However, in the Middle Ages, charcoal was already a very valuable item, and it was actually a gift from princes and nobles. Liu Xiaoqi has "Xie Donggong Charcoal Charcoal" and Wu Li also has "Xie Charcoal Charcoal", so ordinary people may not easily use charcoal as their daily fuel. Most people still rely on wood to pay for their fuel. Therefore, in Qi Shu Yao Min, elm can be planted as an object besides wood. "Every year, the work of peeling people and treating diseases refers to hiring people as firewood and hiring ten people. If the unemployed fight for it, there will be gains from selling firewood. According to the original note, a bunch of three sticks, 10 thousand bunches of three thousand penetration, pods and leaves, in addition, when poplar is planted, its evil branches are also sold as firewood. When planting willows, except rafters, every hundred trees are paid a load, and each load is worth100p. Compared with the price of elm, a load can have 33 bundles, which is about the load of a car. According to the same book, Tao Zhu's "Palace Book" was quoted. If you plant a thousand trees, there will be enough firewood. If you plant two hundred trees, you will get enough firewood for one year. According to these data, the cost of burning firewood is 20 thousand a year. At that time, the price of oak rafters was ten years 10 and twenty years 100. For example, firewood is quite expensive. Most people use dried animal manure and straw as wages. For example, Qi Shu is used as a sauce method. The fuel used is "take dry cow dung, make it round and tired, leave the central area empty, burn it smokeless, and those who make good use of coal can use more common grain, which is neither dust nor fire, far better than grass". Many people still remember China's present life, that is, the wheat husk is dried with dung in the north and the chaff is dried with straw in the south.
Grain was the main food of China people in Han Dynasty, and it was also the staple food of Han people.
There are historical data to prove it!
-1972 When the famous "Mawangdui No.1 Han Tomb" was excavated in the eastern suburb of Changsha, Hunan, China, important archaeological discoveries were made on the diet of the Han Dynasty. 138 melon seeds were found in the esophagus, stomach and intestine of the tomb owner's body. In addition, several sacks of agricultural products were found in the ear room of the tomb. Besides the leftover food, there are 36,438.
Archaeological results unearthed in Mawangdui clearly describe the diet structure of the upper class aristocrats in Han Dynasty to modern people. From ancient times to Han dynasty, soup was the most common main course of aristocratic families. Soup is generally made of mixed ingredients, and the common ingredients are liquid foods made of large pieces of cooked vegetables or meat or both. According to the bamboo slips 1 1, beef white soup has been identified as beef rice stew soup. It can be seen that the vegetarian diet is a very important and common soup for the nobles in the Han Dynasty. The bamboo slips also mentioned the scene that people made food with different animals in the Han Dynasty. In addition to common pigs, sheep, cattle and dog meat, Bamboo Slip No.98 also lists horse meat. Although it was a very popular dish in Han dynasty, no horse meat residue has been found so far. This fact shows that it was a valuable strategic material for China's transportation and military in Han Dynasty.
Archaeological findings have added another important dimension to the study of diet in Han Dynasty. Compared with bamboo slips, Han Dynasty murals have another special significance, because there are often feasting scenes in Han Dynasty murals. For example, a famous Han Dynasty mural "Fighting Tiger Pavilion" not only outlines the general banquet scene, but also expresses the significance of the event, which also proves that the content to be recorded in the mural is not only food, but also political events that were widely concerned at that time.
Due to the nature of Mawangdui Han bamboo slips and murals, we can learn about the diet of the upper class at that time in the Han Dynasty, but historical records usually do not reflect the diet of ordinary people in the Han Dynasty. After all, the politicians and figures in the tombs of the Han Dynasty were only a small part of the 60 million China people in the Han Dynasty. Therefore, we must try to find out the diet of most people in Han Dynasty. This paper expounds the diet culture of Han Dynasty from a historical perspective. This task is undoubtedly a considerable challenge for the author. After all, it takes a lot of time and hard academic research to find out the relevant archaeological evidence directly. Although the information is very limited, we can also make a superficial imagination from the cultural characteristics of ancient China and some historical materials.
As we all know, the ancient civilization in China was characterized by farming, and the farming economy in the Han Dynasty was an important basis for maintaining the order of the Han Empire. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that grain was the main food of China people in the Han Dynasty, and it was also the staple food of people in the Han Dynasty. Although in theory, meat is specially for the elderly and nobles over 80 years old. (Lv Simian > page 57 1-572), but meat is not as easy to get as the rich in the Han Dynasty. From the military logistics supply of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty attacking Xiongnu in the north, we can know that the main food supply of the Han army at that time was grain, and a soldier needed 18 dry rice for 300 days. (> 94 volumes 10 page) daily consumption reaches 0.6 liters. In 99 BC, when Li Ling's army was surrounded by Huns, he gave each soldier two pieces of dry rice and one piece of ice to make them stand out from the encirclement. Obviously, the Han government often hoarded a lot of dry food for military needs. In addition to the war, there are a lot of dry food as a political gift for the Huns to surrender to the Han Dynasty. In fact, it is recorded that onions, garlic and leeks are likely to be included in the recipes of the poor. In 33 BC, with the support of Emperor Han Yuan, Zhao closed the royal anti-season "greenhouse" and planted cooked vegetables such as onions and leeks. As a result, it saves tens of millions of money for the Han government every year. (> Volume 89, page 10) From the above, it can be seen that the grain of ordinary people in the Han Dynasty mainly came from cultivation in the farming economy.
An important feature of the Han Dynasty is openness. The open society makes it inevitable for China to contact foreign things, including food. According to historical records, these foods include grapes, alfalfa, pomegranate, walnut, sesame, onion, coriander, peas and cucumber from the western regions. The seeds of grape and alfalfa were introduced into China from Dawan around 100 BC. By the 2nd century AD, wines imported from the western regions were greatly welcomed. After the diversification of food, cooking technology has naturally improved. For example, people in the Zhou Dynasty only knew wheat rice but not cakes, and the appearance of cakes was postponed to the Western Jin Dynasty. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, many kinds of pasta appeared in China, including boiled noodles, steamed bread and sesame cakes. In some ancient tombs unearthed in Han Dynasty and Wei and Jin Dynasties, kneading scenes were found. Throughout history, it was the Han people who absorbed foreign ingredients.