Although there was rice, the staple food in the Tang Dynasty was mainly pasta, more specifically, cakes, with dozens of kinds of cakes (at that time, all kinds of steamed bread were also called cakes, and the concept of cakes was bigger than now). In the Tang Dynasty's note novel "Record of Stories Due to Words", it was mentioned that "the world is heavy with cakes". Various kinds of cakes often appear in all kinds of history books, novels and poems, such as steamed cakes, pancakes, Hu cakes, soup cakes and so on. At that time, mutton was the main meat (it was illegal to eat beef, but there was not much pork), and the problem with mutton was that it was pungent, so the pepper that could smell pungent was very high at that time and the price was very expensive.

why didn't the Tang dynasty eat chicken, duck and goose? This is an interesting topic. Because sometimes in the Tang Dynasty, chicken, duck, goose and other poultry meat were not considered as meat-here is a short story: at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, it was once forbidden for the imperial censor to eat meat when he went to a place, but at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Ma Zhouyou, a famous celebrity, especially liked to eat chicken when he went to a place, and then he was sued. Emperor Taizong said, "I forbid the imperial censor to eat meat, and I am afraid that the state and county will spend a lot of money. What is the point of eating chicken?" I'm afraid of extravagance and waste, so I'm forbidden to eat meat, but how can eating chicken count as meat? As for meat, I would like to add that fishing and hunting were very popular in the Tang Dynasty, and fishing was very common. At that time, there was a very famous dish-"Sliced Silver Carp", which is actually sashimi today. Hunting prey, such as deer, rabbits, wild boar and bears, often appear on the menu of the Tang people. Let's talk about vegetables, such as tomatoes, potatoes, green peppers, sweet potatoes, onions, peppers and corn. Guess how many were eaten in the Tang Dynasty?

the answer is zero, and none of these were available at that time.

Even the common Chinese cabbage (then called "fermented grains") and spinach (then called "spinach") are not common vegetables. Cabbage is because of its poor appearance, while spinach is just introduced and the price is too expensive. So what was the most common vegetable at that time? Okra is called "winter amaranth", and Du Fu has a poem: "Rice can be cooked white, and okra can be cooked again. Whoever is slippery and full is always soft. " It's not common now, and it's only eaten in some provinces and cities in the south. In addition, there is a very common vegetable called xiè, and Du Fu also has a poem: "In Chai Men, a hermit, vegetables are planted around the house in autumn. The surplus basket bears the dew, not waiting for the book. " Now this dish is also available, and its name is "jiào Tou", but it is also very rare, only in some southern provinces and cities. Besides, the practice at that time was rather monotonous, basically boiling, steaming and baking, and frying was not available until the Song Dynasty.

let's talk about seasonings again.

At that time, there were quite a lot of spices, such as pepper, pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and dried tangerine peel. There are also some complicated seasonings, such as lobster sauce, bean paste, onion, ginger and garlic. There must be some salt. However, monosodium glutamate and chicken essence, which were only available in modern times, were definitely not available at that time, and neither were peppers. Many ancient poems mentioned seasonings used in cooking at that time, such as "Steamed dolphin with garlic sauce and roasted duck with salt and pepper". Boneless fresh fish, and cooked meat face "(steamed pork dipped in garlic paste, roast duck dipped in salt and pepper, sashimi, sheep with skin or pork head); Another example is "the scales are as white as snow, steamed with cinnamon", and so on. It can be seen that the use of spices in the Tang Dynasty is very close to that in modern times, and there are many ways to do it. At that time, there was vinegar, and it was not uncommon to cook with wine. In addition, there was sugar in the Tang Dynasty, but the more common name was "Feng", more specifically, it should be maltose, and some people added Feng to make drinks. This drink is called "Feng". At that time, the process of making the glaze was exquisite, and the quality of the glaze was very high. As Li Shangyin said, "The porridge is fragrant and the apricot blossoms are white"; As for sucrose, it is just emerging, or the production process that Xuanzang brought back from Tianzhu. Since then, sugar has gradually become popular.

Take the Chang 'an generation in the Tang Dynasty as an example, and talk about what they were eating all day.

breakfast in the Tang dynasty, the most common "jiaxuan". Simply put, it is noodle soup. Jia Sixie's "Qi Min Yao Shu Cake Method" has a detailed description of the practice of Jia Xiu: "Jia Xiu, like a big finger, is broken in two inches and immersed in a basin. It is advisable to slap it to the side of the basin by hand to make it extremely thin, and all of them are cooked by boiling. It is not straight, white and lovely, but also self-slippery. " To put it simply, it is a common staple food in the Tang Dynasty that noodles are torn to the size of thumb and boiled with seasoning, which belongs to one of the "soup cakes" I mentioned earlier. Another common breakfast is "porridge". It is said that porridge, a simple and nutritious thing, is also the favorite of Tang people, such as Bai Juyi's "It's cold in spring now, ask yourself what you want." Su Wen Hua Bai wine, milk and rehmannia porridge. " Another example is Pi Rixiu's "There is wheat in the morning and cloth in the morning." One of them is also porridge. At that time, the practices of porridge were diverse, compared with contemporary ones. In the Tang Dynasty's medical work "A Heart Guide for Food Doctors", there was a special part about porridge, in which various practices were mentioned. The raw materials ranged from rice to white rice, millet, coix seed, barley, wheat and japonica rice, and the auxiliary materials ranged from vegetables to meat to fruits to dried fruits, which was all-encompassing.

Name a few with high appearance rate:

Sesame porridge. At that time, I liked to add sesame seeds to rice, such as Wang Wei's "royal soup and stone marrow, fragrant rice into flax", and porridge was indispensable, so there was sesame porridge (sesame porridge). Cold eating wheat porridge. During the Cold Food Festival, according to the Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty, the recipes of civil servants included cold wheat porridge. As for folks, eat more cold porridge during the Cold Food Festival. Almond porridge. Cold porridge tastes bad, so eating almond porridge is very common. The practice is to "eat cold food for three days, make fermented cheese, cook japonica rice and wheat for cheese, and pound almonds for porridge." According to the Jade Candle Book, today's people know barley porridge, almond research is cheese, and don't treat it like a charm "("Ye Zhong Ji "). Simply put, it is barley porridge with ground almonds and charm (maltose). Of course, apart from noodle soup and porridge, there are definitely other options for breakfast, such as steamed cakes. Simply put, all the pasta steamed in the cage can be called steamed cakes. (Of course, steamed buns are included, but not limited to steamed buns, and some are similar to steamed buns), which are directly steamed, steamed with oil, and steamed with dried fruits and stuffing. Another Song poet, Wu Chuhou, mentioned in Miscellanies of the Blue Box: "In Renzong Temple, chastity is taboo (it should be called' Zhen'), and the language is incorrect and close to steaming. Today, the whole imperial court calls steamed cakes as cooking cakes." -think of Wu Dalang.

Choose a famous introduction:

Zitui Steamed Cake: This is also the seasonal food of Cold Food Festival, and you can eat it today. Another super-famous staple food with a high appearance rate is Hu Bing. Bai Juyi has a poem, "Hu Ma pancake is like Kyoto, and its surface is crisp and oily." It tells the story that Bai Da poet copied a famous Hu Bing shop in Beijing and then made it to send it to a friend. The method of making Hu-cake is about white flour cake embryo, smeared with oil and sprinkled with sesame seeds, and baked in the oven-considering that this thing comes from the western regions, the method is exactly the same as that of Naan, and I think it is Naan. It's the same as baked wheat cake. I feel that Hu cake should be similar to today's bag. In "Tang Yu Lin", there is a luxury version of Hu cake: when Hao's family eats twice, it takes a pound of mutton, which is covered with giant Hu cake, separated by pepper and black bean, moistened with crisp, forced into the furnace, and the meat is semi-cooked, which is called "Gu Lou Zi". A kilo of mutton is wrapped in a big Hu cake, and the seasoning is black pepper and lobster sauce. It is spread with ghee and baked in the oven. It is called "Gu Lou Zi", which sounds generous enough.

then there are pancakes.

Pancakes are also a kind of seasonal food. It is mentioned in Six Classics of the Tang Dynasty that officials will eat pancakes on March 3, but so far there is no detailed literature describing the practice of pancakes in the Tang Dynasty. However, in Wang Zhen's "Wang Zhen Nong Shu Gu Pu Er" in the Yuan Dynasty, it was said that "(Buckwheat) is peeled, ground into flour, spread as pancakes, and eaten with garlic." Therefore, at least the authentic pancakes of the Yuan Dynasty were made with garlic. In addition to staple food, mutton was the first choice for meat in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, the practice of mutton was not very rich. Let's take a few famous ones: raw mutton, which was handed down from the Sui Dynasty. Simply put, it is raw mutton chopped and mixed with seasoning. Imagine what it tastes like. Astragalus mutton is a kind of medicinal diet, that is, astragalus and mutton make soup.

there is another one, which can be regarded as a famous dish among the famous dishes at that time-"Hun Yang", and the method is also very wonderful. "Taiping Guangji" says: "Take the goose, remove the hair, and remove the five internal organs, and brew it with meat and glutinous rice, and the five flavors are blended. Take a bite of the sheep first, then peel it and gut it. Put the goose in the sheep and sew it. If the mutton is cooked, it is as good as going to the sheep. Take the goose and eat it. " To put it simply, it is to kill sheep and geese, remove their internal organs and depilate them, then put glutinous rice and meat in the goose's stomach, put the goose in the sheep's stomach, then roast the sheep, and then eat the goose when the mutton is cooked. But there's still room to do it After talking about mutton, talk about beef. Although nominally forbidden to eat, but since ancient times, our people have the ability to have policies and countermeasures, and I am not allowed to kill cattle, but the cow died unexpectedly, so I can eat, right? Therefore, there are still some dishes made of beef, such as this one: Bao Niu Tau, which is recorded in Beihu Lu. "Southerners take tender Niu Tau and cook it on fire, then remove the roots with soup (scalding), wash it again and again, add wine, black bean, onion and ginger and cook it until it is ripe, cut it into palm slices, and mix it with Su Gao, pepper and orange, all of which are in bottles and jars with mud and mud." The practice is very complicated. You can roast the cow's head first, add all kinds of wine, lobster sauce and onion ginger to cook, then mix with spices and seal it in a big jar with mud, bury it and light a fire to bake it slowly. How does it taste? The author praised it as more delicious than bear's paw.

There is also a famous dish, "Roasted Goose and Duck", which is said to be the favorite of Zhang Yizhi, a favorite of Wu Zetian, but it is very cruel. Put the goose and duck in a metal cage, roast them with charcoal fire, and then put in the adjusted seasoning juice. When the goose and duck are hot, they will start pouring the seasoning juice until they are roasted to death, and the taste is in, and the meat is just cooked. Let's talk about pork with less sense of existence. At that time, the most common practice was to steam it and eat it with garlic.

In addition, it is important to mention "silver carp", which is sashimi. Yes, Japanese sashimi was handed down from the Tang Dynasty, but it was returned from Japan today. Sashimi is similar at home and abroad. Take fresh fish, or slice it, or shred it, and dip it in seasoning. This was the top dish at that time, because slicing fish requires a lot of knife skills. Du Fu's poem "The Seven Little Houses of Jiang in Gan Township set up a drama for Long song", which recorded in detail the process of eating: "The marquis of Jiang set up a drama for the severe winter, and it was windy yesterday and today. Hedong is not suitable for fishing, and cutting ice may invade Hebo Palace. Jiao Ren, a fish, washes the fish and sharpens the knife, making the fish jealous. Silent and fine flying snow, bones have chopped spring onions. I am partial to advising my stomach to be ashamed of my youth. When the anvil fell, the white paper was wet, and I didn't feel that the gold plate was empty. "

after meat, let's talk about food.

Let's talk about okra first. It is also available today, and the most common way is to stew soup. Another famous dish, Vinegar Qin, was the favorite of Wei Zhi, a famous minister in the early Tang Dynasty. It's the vinegar-stained celery now: finally, people in the Tang Dynasty liked to eat with "fruit", which is fruit. Oranges, lychees, pipa, longan, pears, peaches, dates, apricots, plums and cherries were all common fruits at that time. In fact, on the whole, people in the prosperous times of the Tang Dynasty naturally did not have the happiness of eating food today, and they could eat more delicious food. This can be seen from Gu Yanzhong's famous "Han Xizai's Night Banquet" and Du Fu's "two for the road": "The food listed in the case before the host and guests is only eight items, four shallow bowls and four small plates. There is a bowl of white spherical things, a bit like hemp seed balls with rice grains rolled outside. There is a bowl of bright red color, which is very eye-catching. If you look closely with a magnifying glass, it is just a few persimmons with pedicels. " The picture of Han Xizhai's night banquet depicts a very luxurious meal at that time, and what civilians eat can be imagined.

Du Fu's "two for the road" actually describes many delicacies, but they are all too beautiful and exaggerated, which is probably the product of Du Fu's imagination: "red camel-humps are brought them from jade broilers, and sweet fish is ordered them on crystal trays. The rhinoceros has been tired for a long time, and the finely wrought phoenix carving-knife is very little used. Fleet horses from the Yellow Gate, stirring no dust, bring precious dishes constantly from the imperial kitchen. " The peak of the purple camel, the hump, is a precious food. There is "hump roasting" in Tang aristocratic food; Plain scale: refers to white scale fish; Rhinoceros horn: chopsticks made of rhinoceros horn. This kind of writing is only more expensive, not more delicious, and it is not realistic at all. It is estimated that Du Poet is not a professional diners.