Western food is very popular in China.
First, what does Hu Shi eat?
Modern western food eats hamburgers, pizzas and steaks, so what did Hu Shi eat in Tang Dynasty? There was a monk named Huilin in the Tang Dynasty. He writes about Hu Shi, and his staple food is Robbie, sesame seed cake, Hu cake, Tana and so on. You may be confused when you see these strange food names, so I will explain them to you one by one.
Let's talk about Robbie first. Robbie is related to another word "minions". Louluo in the Tang Dynasty described the voice of the poor or conference semifinals, and later referred to short and pithy people. In the Tang Dynasty, poor scholars liked to gather in restaurants to eat Robbie, because they were poor but greedy, and then they were proud of it, so people satirized these scholars as "Louluo". This shows that Robbie should be a cheaper, richer and tastier food. In the Tang Dynasty, there were even special Biluopu and Biluosi to sell Robbie to people.
Someone once said that Robbie should be a kind of food similar to the present hand-grabbed rice, but this is not the case. According to the records, Robbie's appearance should be "Robbie, thick and delicious." From this point of view, Robbie has shapes, pasta and fillings. Later generations restored Robbie according to these descriptions. The Robbie made is fried pasta, which looks like spring rolls, with stuffing inside and delicious taste. Therefore, we can imagine that the acid scholars in the Tang Dynasty ate happily with Robbie in their hands.
Why was Biro originally considered as a vulgar food? Personally, I think it should be its spicy taste. There is a story in Youyang Miscellanies: "When you first enter Biluo Temple, ghosts don't enter." In this story, because of Robbie's pungent smell, ghosts don't want to enter Robbie's shop.
I guess Robbie may have garlic, and ghosts will "cover their noses" when they smell Robbie. Considering that Robbie is from the Western Regions, it may be Robbie's mutton stuffing at first. Mutton itself has a bad smell, which many people hate. Therefore, strong spices such as onion, ginger and garlic will be added to suppress the odor. Many people don't like the taste, so people reject Biro as a relatively vulgar food.
Since then, Robbie has been continuously improved and developed, and gradually entered the temple from a folk food, resulting in new dishes such as "cherry Robbie" and "crab Robbie". These Robbie used noble ingredients, and the salted fish suddenly turned over and became a luxury meal sought after by celebrities and wealthy businessmen.
Louyi
Sesame cakes and Hu cakes can be classified into one category for the time being. They are all cakes, and their appearance should be the same as the sesame cakes we eat now. Nowadays, sesame cakes are very small, and some big men I know can even eat five or six sesame cakes at a time. In the Tang Dynasty, these big men could never eat so many sesame cakes. The diameter of Hu cake in Tang Dynasty was about 20 cm, so a person with a great appetite might only eat one Hu cake at a meal.
The taste of Hu cake eaten alone may be a little lacking, so the Tang people eat mutton with Hu cake, which makes Hu cake taste better and more beautiful. According to records:
"When the Hao family drinks for the second time, take a catty of mutton, spread it on the giant Hu cake, separate it with pepper and black beans, moisten it with pastry, and force it into the furnace until the meat is half cooked."
We can imagine such a scene. In the Tang dynasty, people put mutton and crispy and greasy sesame seeds together, and put pepper and fermented beans in it. When they take a bite, their mouths are full of oil, which is absolutely delicious. In some documentaries, the same is true of Xinjiang now. When you eat mutton kebabs with Nan, you can't help longing for such a scene!
In Jinhua, Zhejiang, the legend of Jinhua shortbread is closely related to the founding fathers of the Tang Dynasty. As far as the production of Jinhua shortbread is concerned, it has the style of Hu pancake, or it may be improved by the influence of Hu pancake, which is more suitable for the taste of Han people.
Hu pancake
Second, Hu Shi spread throughout the Tang Dynasty
Where can I eat Hu Cai in Tang Dynasty? The fact is that you can eat Hu Cai everywhere in Datang.
Let's take Hu Bing as an example. First of all, you can eat Hu Bing in Chang 'an. There are many cake shops in Chang 'an city, and the competition is fierce, thus forming some outstanding cake shops, among which Fuxing Square's cakes are particularly famous.
Bai Juyi is a delicious person. He was once demoted to Zhongzhou as the secretariat of Zhongzhou (Zhongzhou is in central Chongqing today). In Zhongzhou, far from Chang 'an, Bai Juyi ate sesame cakes. Therefore, Bai Juyi wrote a poem saying: "Sesame cakes are like Kyoto, and crisp noodles are freshly baked." We can see that in the Tang Dynasty, Sichuan had already imitated sesame cakes made by Chang 'an stores, which were very delicious and not inferior to those made in Beijing.
When monks from Jian Zhen travel to Japan, they need to travel at sea for a long time. For the convenience of eating, monks from Jian Zhen specially prepared "two cars of Hu cake". Jian Zhen traveled eastward to Japan, starting from Yangzhou. It is estimated that this kind of dried Hu cake is also made in Yangzhou, so it can be seen that Hu cake is also made in Yangzhou.
Therefore, geographically speaking, Hu Shi can be said to be from the Western Regions to Chang 'an, from Chang 'an to Sichuan, and from Sichuan to Yangzhou, and Hu Shi existed almost everywhere in the vast mountains and rivers of the Tang Dynasty.