Since ancient times, food is the most important thing for the people, but China is a multi-ethnic country, and the north and the south have their own eating habits, which are quite different. For example, rice has been the staple food in the south since ancient times, but it is different in the north of China, especially in the ancient northern nomads. They may not be able to eat rice because of geographical and climatic reasons, but they have their own unique staple food. So what is the daily diet of these nomads?

China's traditional food culture has a very long history. What was originally put on the table by ancient people is called? Hey? The cereal belongs to a Gramineae plant, which is shaped like dog tail grass, with green leaves and yellow fruits. After grinding the husk, yellow rice grains are obtained, and the food cooked with this yellow rice has been the staple food for ancient people for a long time.

however, the early millet was a wild plant, and it was domesticated as a cultivated grain only after it was discovered by people. However, even if this plant was planted on fertile land, its yield was not high, and the obtained grain was small and hard, which was troublesome to grind and difficult to digest, so the ancient people cultivated millet from the basis of millet. The Book of Songs? Feng Wang? There is a record in "Mi Li":? He is separated, and he is a seedling? .

Therefore, people suspect that millet is the ancient sorghum, which is more productive than millet. In about 1 BC, the indigenous people in the south collected the seeds of millet and began to cultivate them artificially. Due to the advantages of geography and climate, the south can provide a suitable growth environment for this kind of rice, and its output value is considerable, which has gradually become the staple food of southerners. Compared with the nomadic people in the north, they lack advantages in planting millet because of climate and geography, and they can plant the obtained grain.

China's northern nomads are a large ethnic group living on grasslands. Their main livelihood is grazing, and the place where they live is not fixed, which often changes due to the quality of aquatic environment. Therefore, there is no shortage of grain food when farming, but the northern nomads have their own custom food culture, which is caused by their unique production methods. In most people's images, the grassland people put cattle out all day, presumably eating beef and drinking goat's milk for meals, but this is not the case.

In ancient times, nomadic people in the north mainly lived by grazing. Besides feeding themselves, the animals they cultivated were also used as commodities, and they rushed to the trade zone to exchange various materials, such as how many bags of flour were exchanged for one cow, and tableware, clothes, tea and vegetables were exchanged for several sheep.

Although they keep a large flock of cattle and sheep all day, ordinary nomadic families can't eat meat at every meal, but it is wealthy families or aristocratic people who can eat meat every day. Therefore, the common food of the ancient people in the north was two meals a day, with a pot of millet gruel or flour cake in the morning, and some dried meat and bacon to eat with rice porridge for dinner. Every festival day, sheep and cattle were killed and eaten. It is recorded in the literature that Gabini, an Italian missionary, once described in his "Mission to Mongolia":? Herdsmen boil millet in water, drink several cups of porridge soup in the morning, so they won't eat food during the day, and eat a little meat with soup at night? .

It can be seen that northern herders occasionally eat millet, but they also often eat beef and mutton. Sometimes they kill horses and take horse meat when they meet sacrificial activities or greet important guests. Because horses are an important tool for northern nomads, they usually don't kill them, so eating horse meat is very luxurious for them.

Later, nomadic people developed to the south, plundering the grain of many Han people, and even the nomadic tribes with a little strength collected grain and some materials that they could not produce from the farming tribes in the south of the border. In order to supplement all kinds of nutrients needed by the body, northern herders will also eat vegetables and fruits, fish in lakes and dig wild vegetables in grasslands to provide themselves with richer food sources. In addition, they have also developed various dairy products mainly based on horse milk, milk and goat milk.

Nowadays, with the continuous improvement of the living standard of northern herdsmen, they are getting closer to modern life, so their diet has changed from two meals a day to three meals. At this time, their food has begun to diversify and become more abundant.

In ancient times, due to backward production and poor resources, the diet of ancient nomadic people in the north was relatively simple. This singleness did not mean that they mainly ate meat every day, but that there were not many foods to choose from. In TV series, we often see that herders either eat hand-grabbed meat or roast mutton when eating. In fact, Mongolian nomads rarely slaughter sheep to eat, unless there are distant guests coming or there is a festive festival. After all, the cost of raising a sheep is also quite high. It is said that it takes nearly 2 mu of land to feed a sheep, while the average herdsman family needs to feed more than 3 sheep to be a well-off family, so the total required grassland will reach more than 6, mu per household.

In the long years of grazing cattle and sheep, if the weather is not good, it may lead to the death of animals under the influence of extremely hot or cold climate, especially the sudden foot-and-mouth plague, which will completely turn a grazing family into a poor household overnight. Sometimes it's hard to survive the cold winter, and herders find that half of their flocks are frozen to death. At this time, let alone eating mutton, I'm afraid it's even difficult to drink porridge.

Then, when it is necessary to slaughter sheep, herders generally don't kill ewes, but only choose weak lambs or rams that can't resist the cold. Therefore, the herdsmen in the north don't take killing sheep as their main food source, they mainly rely on dairy products and some miscellaneous grains as their main food. The land in the Mongolian steppe is also fertile. Although it is not as easy to farm as in the south, there are some small places where vegetables and rice can be planted, but the scope is relatively small.

In addition, people need wool and goat's milk derived from sheep. Since sheep is the main source of production, we can't eat all our family belongings, so we have to eat some secondary products? Dairy products, therefore, have spawned many goat milk teas, goat milk buns, milk cakes, etc., while wool can be used to make sweaters, quilts, blankets, mend clothes and tents for the winter, and take them to the market to exchange daily supplies. In ancient times, herders even paid taxes with wool. There is also a description of the eating habits of northern herders in Zhao Yi's "Miscellanies Exposed to the eaves" in the Qing Dynasty, saying:? Eating cheese, the custom of Mongolia, can't eat meat, but only the princes and taiji can eat meat. We are poor, and it is enough to kill only one sheep every festival. .

What I mean is that ordinary nomadic families mainly eat cheese food, and those mutton feasts are the right that nobles can enjoy. We poor people just need to kill a sheep every holiday to use it.

There are also many rules and etiquette in the northern herdsmen's eating habits. For example, the herdsmen's owners will first hold a bowl of milk tea when dining, and give it to the guests one by one according to their age. The way of acceptance is that the guests need to kneel to receive the milk tea. This kneeling is not for the owner, but for this bowl of food, which symbolizes the meaning of thanking the gods of the earth for giving us food.

There is also a local saying:? Good tea to drink, good face to see? Mongolian herders regard tea as their own face, and it is also one of their staple foods. When you come to the vast prairie, herders will offer you tea and food with their hands folded, regardless of whether they are strangers. However, it is worth noting that when you attend the host's dinner, there are dairy products and delicious hand-grabbed meat at the table. At this time, because you can't resist the temptation of meat, you choose to eat hand-grabbed meat first instead of tasting some dairy products first, then the host will pull down his face.

Mongolian nomads have also developed a new diet called? Fried rice with milk tea? This delicious food is moist and refreshing, thick and mixed, not greasy in the mouth, soothing the stomach and refreshing, and helpful for digestion. Especially when it is eaten with delicious hand-grabbed meat, it can play a wonderful match with vegetarian meat, which can be described as a great pleasure in life.

References:

The Book of Songs? Feng Wang? Millet separation

Mission to Mongolia

Miscellaneous Stories Exposed to the eaves.