Chinese Food Culture in the Zhou and Qin Periods The Zhou and Qin Dynasties were the formative period of our country’s food culture.

By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, in the Central Plains region, our current food varieties (except for some foreign varieties) were basically available. The difference is that now rice and wheat are the main ones, while at that time, various miscellaneous grains were the main ones.

, some of which are now lost.

In ancient books, people often refer to these major food crops as "grains", but the meanings are often slightly different.

These crop varieties mainly include millet, millet, wheat, bean sprouts, rice, etc.

(1) Ji, the main food variety in China during the Zhou and Qin Dynasties, is today’s millet, commonly known as millet. It is a drought-tolerant and easy-to-survive crop. It occupied an important position in China’s early dry farming and was the main food for the people at that time.

Ancient people have always regarded it as the leader of grains.

"Baihutong. Sheji": "Why does the king have Sheji? To seek blessings and merit for the world. People cannot stand without soil, and cannot eat without grain. The land is vast and cannot be worshiped everywhere. There are many grains, so it cannot be sacrificed one by one. Therefore

Seal the soil and establish a community to show that there is soil. Ji is the source of grain, so we should set up Ji to sacrifice it.” Henceforth, those who taught people to farm were called Hou Ji, and She Ji became synonymous with the country.

The improved varieties of millet are called Liang, and yellow Liang is the top grade of Liang.

Millet, that is, large yellow rice.

It looks like millet, is yellow and sticky, and is the main ingredient for making sticky food.

Its status in ancient people's life was second only to millet, so millet and millet were often mentioned together.

The grains of millet are also called millet, and later millet became the general name for grain.

Wheat, the status of wheat in ancient times was far less prominent than it is today.

Wheat can be divided into barley and wheat. In ancient times, barley was called "銰" (yinmou).

Shu, the general name for beans.

"Xiaoya? Xiaowan": "There are Shu in the Central Plains, and the common people pick them." Beans are the staple food and are not easy to digest, so they are the food of the common people.

Hemp, that is, hemp seeds, eats too much and hurts the stomach, so it is also a food for the poor to satisfy their hunger.

Nowadays, pockmarked seeds have long been withdrawn from the ranks of human staple food and become livestock feed.

Rice originated in southern my country. The earliest rice species with traces of artificial cultivation in my country was discovered in Daoxian County, Hunan Province, pushing the history of rice cultivation in my country to more than 10,000 years.

A large number of rice seeds and rice husks were found at the Hemudu site in Yuyao, Zhejiang, which dates back more than 7,000 years. This shows that in southern my country, rice has been the staple food since ancient times.

Rice was cultivated relatively late in the Central Plains, starting around 3000 BC. It can be regarded as a relatively high-end staple food in the Central Plains.

Wild rice, also known as carved humi and anhumi, is a very unique and famous staple food.

It is the seed of the aquatic herb wild rice shoots. Wild rice is black in color, so there is a line in Du Fu's poem "The wild rice is floating in the air and the clouds are black".

Wild rice was originally wild. Volume 5 of "Miscellaneous Notes of Xijing" contains: "Gu Ao, a native of Kuaiji, seldom lost his father and was extremely filial to his mother. His mother loved to eat wild rice, and she often had handsome children picking it for themselves. When he returned home, he guided water and dug rivers.

"Every time you make an offering, you will gain something."

Cooking with wild rice is commonly known as Diaohu Rice. It is fragrant, sweet and smooth, and is very popular among literati.

When Mei Cheng of the Western Han Dynasty described the delicacies of the aristocracy in "Qi Fa", he said, "The food of Chu Miao is the food of Anhu. It is difficult to understand when you swish it, and it falls apart with a sip." This indicates that this rice is slippery, soft and sticky, but falls apart when you enter it.

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Wang Wei's "Fragrant rice with green wild rice", Li Bai's "Kneeling down to carve rice with rice, the moon shines on the plain plate", Du Fu's "Sliding memory of carved rice with rice, smelling the fragrant brocade soup" all reflect these great poets' love for sculpture.

Hu Fan has a special liking.

The processing method of wild rice is also very strange. First, put the wild rice into a leather bag, mix it with the porcelain pieces pounded into pieces, and rub it repeatedly on the board to make the husk fall off. This processing method was relatively common even at that time.

rare.

After the Song Dynasty, wild rice became less and less popular. The reason is that the yield of wild rice is low, the maturity period is inconsistent, and the seeds are easy to fall off, making it difficult to harvest.

After wild wild bamboo shoots are parasitized by smut fungus, they no longer bloom and set seeds, but grow galls, which are today's wild rice shoots, and they are delicious.

Therefore, farmers in later generations switched to planting wild rice and eating it as vegetables, which led to the extinction of wild rice. People today can only appreciate the deliciousness of wild rice from the poems of the ancients.

(2) Dishes of the Zhou and Qin Dynasties Dishes of the Pre-Qin Dynasty in my country can be divided into six categories according to cooking methods: Zhipin During this period, even though people’s eating methods became more diverse with the invention of pottery, people used the same methods when cooking meat. The method is still mainly barbecue.

Pao, burnt, broiled, and boiled all belong to the category of barbecue. The difference is that Pao and Yao focus on roasting over a large fire, such as the roasted whole lamb we can see today; Zhi focuses on roasting on a low fire, such as today's roasted mutton kebabs.

"炰" refers to wrapping the prey in mud and throwing it into the fire for burning.

Zhipin occupies an important place in pre-Qin meat.

There are many poems about roasting meat in the "Book of Songs", such as: "There is a rabbit with a head, and it is burned on the stove."

At that time, there were many raw materials for cooking, including cattle, pigs, sheep, and various game meats.

At this time, people already knew how to season. After soaking in seasonings, the aroma of the grilled food with the five flavors in it becomes more delicious.

In addition, it can be served with various sauces, which are often made from meat.

The number of roasted foods gradually decreased after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, while processing techniques such as stir-frying and stewing became the mainstream of cooking.

Today's roast duck, roast suckling pig, roast whole lamb, etc. are all the legacy of ancient roasted dishes.

Sauce is a meat sauce made with meat as the main ingredient.

It had already appeared in the Xia and Shang Dynasties at the latest.