The invention of iron pot can be said to have changed the historical process of cooking in China. It is precisely because of the appearance of iron pots, frying and frying, a variety of dishes, fried tripe in Beijing, vinegar fish in West Lake, fish-flavored shredded pork in Sichuan, stewed fish in iron pot in Northeast China, and

fried kidney flower, which is popular among most male compatriots.

I have to say again that the iron pot is really the fifth invention of China. Happily, we can enjoy the delicious food brought by iron pots, but thousands of years ago, ancestors who didn't have iron pots used to cook and cook, did they eat barbecues every day?

I was puzzled when I saw this problem, so I went to check the information in detail. I didn't know that the cookware used by our ancestors was so exquisite. Don't panic, I'll talk backwards one by one, first the iron pot, then the kettle, retort, wok, tripod and so on.

Iron appeared in archaeological research, at the latest in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Because the initial iron ore output was very low, iron was extremely precious. Until the Han Dynasty, iron was directly controlled by the state, so it was impossible to popularize iron pots in a large area. However, according to archaeological findings, iron cookers were unearthed in the Han Dynasty, but their shapes were similar to those of kettles, which were far from modern iron pots. However, these luxuries belong to the aristocratic class and can only be enjoyed by the court and royal family.

Iron cookers were quite mature in the Tang Dynasty. In the era of Wu Zetian, Wu Zetian personally liked to eat dishes cooked in a large iron pan in the imperial kitchen. It was not until the Song Dynasty that iron pots became popular in ordinary people's homes. One of the reasons why the food culture in the Song Dynasty was so developed was the popularity of iron pots.

A large number of iron pots were found in the cargo of the sunken ship Nanhai No.1 in 1987, which shows that iron pots and porcelain were the main export commodities of the Song Dynasty at that time.

So Wu Zetian was eating wok cooking in the Tang Dynasty. What did ordinary people eat? In the economically and culturally developed Tang dynasty, iron products were quite mature, and wealthy families generally had iron cookers, such as iron kettles and iron hoes. Rice and pancakes were the staple foods at that time, and cooking techniques such as stir-frying were not allowed at that time, so most of them cooked soup with spices, meat and vegetables as a supplementary food.

the days in the Han dynasty were even more difficult, with pottery kettles, pottery jars and pottery ding. Occasionally, there will be bronze tableware or cookers, but at that time, a few people, a village may have them in Lizheng or the heads of families. There is no other cooking method except cooking food accidentally. The most famous one is Xiang Yu's cross the rubicon in front of the Wujiang River. This broken kettle is a pottery kettle, which breaks every time. There are also Zan and Wei, which are necessary for cooking hot pot and are heated evenly.

Further on, the cookware of Warring States, Zhou, Shang and other dynasties, except for some changes in shape, were all pottery products used in ordinary people's homes, and bronze products were all precious metals. Further on, the Neolithic and Hemudu metal products were rare, let alone used to make other daily necessities.