The origin of Chinese barbecue culture

Fuxi is the "head of the three emperors" who is a representative figure of Chinese civilization. According to the "Three Character Classic", "from Xi Nong to the Yellow Emperor, it was called the Three Emperors" World". The creative spirit is the cultural spirit of Fuxi. In ancient times, there were many fish in rivers, lakes, and seas, many birds in the sky, and many beasts on the ground, but people would not catch them. People hold a tree trunk and wait at the water's edge, watching the fish swim over and hitting it with a stick. Only by this method can they occasionally catch a few fish. Fuxi dried wild hemp, dried it, and twisted it into ropes. Then he used thinner ropes to make nets and taught people how to fish. He used thicker ropes to make nets and taught people how to catch birds and animals. This is much better than just eating wild fruits from the trees, but eating raw fish and birds does not taste good. What is serious is that some of them are not cooked well, and you will get sick after eating them. When Fuxi brought fire from heaven, he taught people to use fire to roast birds and fish and eat them. From then on, people became healthier by eating delicious barbecue. In order to commemorate Fuxi, people called him "Pao Xi", that is, "the first person to roast animal meat over fire."

If modern people are in nature, they have no other cooking utensils but only fire and raw food. At that time, how to solve the problem of eating? Probably we have to adopt a more primitive method. This is not about recalling and recreating, but about getting the fun of food in the picnic, and at the same time, it can make people think about the food culture of their ancestors. The arduous exploration in history, thus expressing sincere admiration for the ingenuity of our ancestors.

The cultural attribute of barbecue is the rebellion against the usual diet in the original taste of the materials it contains and the vulgarized instant effect. On the other hand, it is recognized by the food memory codes of human ancestors in the fishing and hunting era. Today, nothing can induce childhood and adults with childhood complexes more than barbecue. In fact, barbecue has always been a fascination for humans in the past. It is all a temptation of form and taste. Now we have entered an era of barbecue with multiple values. In the land where the Yellow River flows, barbecue starts from realism and expands its cultural and economic territory with an aggressive attitude. , is also dividing in two directions, one is still maintaining barbecue in the streets, and the other is hotel-style intensive barbecue. The "wild spirit" always contains the wildness and romance of the fishing and hunting era, and is constantly extending, while the bonfire is roasting. The scene of eating, exuding an attractive fragrance and a joyful atmosphere is irresistible to people.

You can also study the time when the raw materials used in barbecue appeared in China. For example, chili peppers are native to the tropics of Central and South America. region, it was introduced to Europe in 1493, and to Japan from 1583 to 1598. There is no specific time when it was introduced to China. The earliest record of chili peppers in China can be found in "Zunsheng Eight Notes" (1591) written by Gao Lian of the Ming Dynasty, which includes: " There are many peppers with white flowers, and the fruits are like bald pen-heads. They are spicy and red in color and are very impressive." There are two routes for peppers to be introduced into China. One is the far-reaching Silk Road, which goes from West Asia to Gansu, Shaanxi and other places. It is cultivated in the northwest; first, it enters South China through the Strait of Malacca, and is cultivated in Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong in the south.

In ancient China, there were many spicy seasonings, the most important ones were pepper and ginger. , Cornus officinalis, Fuliu Teng, cinnamon, pepper, mustard, chili pepper, etc. Before pepper was introduced to China in the late Ming Dynasty, Zanthoxylum bungeanum, ginger, and Cornus officinalis were the most commonly used, and were the three major spicy spices among Chinese people.

Panthoxylum bungeanum. It played an important role in spicy seasonings in ancient China. Historically, it was also called Sichuan pepper, Han pepper, Ba pepper, Qin pepper, Shu pepper, etc. It was widely cultivated and used in China as early as in the Book of Songs. Zanthoxylum bungeanum. It is particularly worth mentioning that in ancient China, there was a common tradition of adding ginger, pepper, and cinnamon to tea, among which Zanthoxylum bungeanum ranked second. Cornus officinalis, among which Zanthoxylum bungeanum is the first. The "five spices" used in the past were also composed of fennel, cloves, cinnamon, and Zanthoxylum bungeanum.

Research shows that before the Qing Dynasty, Zanthoxylum bungeanum was grown in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin in China. There are a lot of plantings in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin, and there are a lot of plantings in the east, middle and west of China. The distribution of this kind of Zanthoxylum bungeanum production can be mutually proved by the fact that Sichuan pepper was widely used in the national diet from the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty. This widespread use of Sichuan pepper in folk cuisine obviously does not exist now, because except for Sichuan people, modern Chinese people almost always talk about "hemp".

Of course, historically Sichuan was the most important producing area of ??Zanthoxylum bungeanum and was the most commonly eaten. Research shows that on average, Sichuan peppercorns were added to a quarter of the food in ancient China. Compared with the proportion of Sichuan peppercorns in Chinese recipes today, this proportion is very large. From the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, the proportion of Zanthoxylum bungeanum used gradually increased, reaching a peak of two-fifths in the Tang Dynasty and one-third in the Ming Dynasty. But starting from the Qing Dynasty, the proportion of Zanthoxylum bungeanum in the diet has been greatly reduced, down to one-fifth. This may be related to the introduction of hot peppers (chili peppers) and their encroachment on spicy seasonings. At the same time, the extensive use of pepper in the Qing Dynasty may have also usurped the share of Zanthoxylum bungeanum in the diet. As a result, the numbing flavor of Sichuan peppercorns that was very popular across the country before the Qing Dynasty was gradually pushed to a corner of Sichuan, making Sichuan cuisine a pattern of both spicy and spicy. In the Central Plains, only Shandong and other places still have a certain tradition of eating hemp.