First, mutton? Monthly confessions of Tang Dynasty officials
The Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty recorded the number of sheep that nobles needed to supply each month, and the number of sheep supplied by officials of different grades was also different. The number of sheep provided by the second-level official is 20 per month, and the number of sheep provided by the fourth-level official is 9. Among the sacrifices enjoyed by court officials every month, mutton, beef and pork are the most important in eating meat, which is quite rare.
At that time, there was a folk saying that eating too much beef would be retribution, which was recorded in Taiping Guangji. Of course, these stories have fantastic colors. According to Taiping Guangji, in the Tang Dynasty, there was a county magistrate who was tortured by the disease because of eating beef for a long time and died after 10 years.
Second, the general situation of mutton catering in Tang Dynasty
1, street mutton barbecue
In the Tang Dynasty, there was a fashion that people preferred mutton to pork and beef. There are many ways to make mutton in the Tang Dynasty, each with its own characteristics, among which mutton skewers are deeply loved by everyone. The mutton kebabs popular in the Tang Dynasty are very delicious and deeply loved by people from all walks of life. The snack custom of kebab is still popular among Chinese people, which originated in the Tang Dynasty.
2. Do Tang people love Gu Lou?
There were many ways to eat mutton in the Tang Dynasty. Both nobles and ordinary civilians have their own characteristics in eating. But generally speaking, in order to conform to the eating habits and tastes of the Tang people, keep healthy and strengthen the body, most beef is mainly spicy in winter, mainly sauce in spring and spicy in summer. The best way to eat mutton at this time is to give priority to cold food.
In Tang Yulin, according to records, a kind of delicious mutton that people ate in the Tang Dynasty was called Drum Tower, which is also commonly known as mutton Hu pie. According to the name, it can be roughly understood that this kind of diet originated from ethnic minorities and was quite popular among Han people, which also shows the cultural compatibility and absorption of western culture in Tang Dynasty.
Simply put, it is to take mutton as stuffing, spread the mutton layer by layer on the huge Hu cake, bake it with fire, and then sprinkle with very delicious seasoning, and you can eat it. Of course, in the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the Drum Tower, there was a very popular mutton snack, namely mutton shortcake, which was made of mutton and flour, and ginger juice was used as the seasoning for pancakes. The cake is hollow, delicious and full of mutton.
3. Sporadic Society and Qiaoyangfei Decoction
The catering culture in Tang Dynasty is closely related to the sacrificial culture. In large-scale sacrificial festivals, people often eat mutton to sacrifice to the land god. For example, Sheemmitting was a dish eaten by civilians in the Tang Dynasty when they sacrificed to the land gods. Qiaoyangfei decoction is a very popular nutritional supplement in Tang Dynasty, which combines the nutrition of mutton and the umami flavor of bean juice in the form of soup. According to the Records of Qingyi, this dish was eaten by people in the Tang Dynasty in the cold season.
Every ten and a half months before the Great Cold Festival, people begin to prepare ingredients, and the most important thing is to prepare sheep lungs and dried beans. Of course, there are many other nutritious ingredients and condiments in this dish. In the cold season, people begin to get together to drink, and Qiao Yangfei soup is a very attractive dish at the party.