Category: Food/Cooking

Problem description:

Because someone said that there are no two things in business

Analysis: < /p>

It is said that watermelon is native to the tropical dry areas of the Sahara Desert in Africa. Its direct wild ancestor can no longer be found, but large areas of wild watermelon still grow in Sudan, Africa.

Around the first century BC, watermelon was spread overland to ancient Persia and the Western Regions (Xinjiang, my country) via the "Silk Road".

"The Book of the Former Han Dynasty: Geography" records: "Dunhuang, Du Lin, the official of Guanghou in the Central Duwei Administration Department, thought that the ancient Guazhou was a place where beautiful melons grew. The ancient saying is what Zuo's biography says in the Spring and Autumn Period The Rong people with the surname Yun live in Guazhou. There are still large melons growing there, and foxes go into the melons and eat them, but the head and tail cannot come out." Later generations attached the story of Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions. It is said that Zhang Qian (? - 114 BC) of the Western Han Dynasty was ordered by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to send an envoy to the Western Regions. He passed through Jiayuguan and fell seriously ill. Later, he heard from a doctor that he could eat watermelon and be cured of his illness. In order to commemorate this place, it was named "Guazhou". (Mr. Chang Zheng believes that the so-called "Rong of Guazhou" lived in the north and south of the Qinling Mountains in ancient times, and it is wrong to understand Dunhuang. See the article "On Chang'an Guazhou and Jiang Rong·Lu Hun" in the second volume of "Beijing History Garden") The above information shows that as early as 2000 years ago, Dunhuang and other places in Xinjiang, my country were famous for their "beautiful melons grown from the ground".

Watermelon has been widely cultivated among the people of the Central Plains since the Khitan Kingdom during the Five Dynasties (AD 916-1115). Then, it spread from the north to the Song Dynasty. By the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1273 AD), watermelon was already eaten "every year". (See the poem "Watermelon Garden" by Fan Chengda, a poet of the Southern Song Dynasty: "Watermelons were originally grown in northern Yan, but now they are grown in Henan (south of the Yellow River).") The Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties all had specialties for watermelons. describe. For example, during the Jianyan period of Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty (1127-1130 AD), Honglu described the shape, color, and function of watermelon in detail in his "Songmo Jiwen": "The shape of watermelon is like a flat pudding and round, and the color is It is very green, but turns yellow with age. It is a melon-like melon with a sweet and crisp taste, and the juice in the middle is particularly cold." Fang Fei of the Yuan Dynasty was even more vivid in his poem "Eating Watermelon", leaving behind the famous poem "The strands of flowered clothes are stained with green, the skin is red with traces of red blood, the fragrant smiles are watery, and the coolness of the clothes is felt by the wind" verse. The "Melon and Vegetable Chapter" of "Xue Garden Miscellaneous Vegetables" of the Ming Dynasty, after a detailed comparison with other melons, called "watermelon, the most beautiful among melons". Li Shizhen recorded the cultivation, quality and medicinal value of watermelon in "Compendium of Materia Medica". "Sown in February...the ones that are ripe in July and August and have a girth and diameter of a foot, the white ones have a bad taste. The tastes range from sweet to light to sour. The sour ones are inferior." "...and the southern melon is not as good as (the northern watermelon)".

It can be seen that watermelon has been cultivated in our country for at least 2,000 years. It was first cultivated in northern my country and has a history of 1,000 years.

Do you know the origin of tomatoes?

Tomatoes are native to the forests of Peru and are called "wolf peach". Because of their bright and attractive appearance, people are suspected of being poisonous and they only watch them but dare not eat them. In the 16th century, they were brought back to Europe by a British Duke and were still only used as food. For ornamental purposes. Almost two hundred years later, a French painter took a chance and discovered that it was both delicious and nutritious, so it spread widely.

Tomatoes, like peppers, were also imported after Columbus discovered America. It was introduced into China at about the same time as pepper. For a long time, it was an ornamental plant in gardens. Tomatoes were regarded as vegetables and fruits. Edible food was first started by Europeans in the 19th century. During Guangxu's reign in the late Qing Dynasty, better edible varieties were introduced to China in the name of food.

Previously, tomatoes were only ornamental plants in China. The first document recording tomatoes was found in Zhao Han's "Plants" (1617) of the Ming Dynasty. Zhao Han mentioned in the book that tomatoes were Western missionaries. In the earlier Wanli period, it was brought to China together with sunflowers in 1621. Wang Xiangjin's "Qunfang Pu" once again confirmed the origin of tomatoes. I believed it until 1983.

Around mid-July 1983, pottery, lacquer ware, and rattan were unearthed from an ancient tomb in Fenghuang Mountain in the northern suburbs of Chengdu. There are nearly 60 pieces of urns and bamboo urns, and food remains such as rice grains, fruits, and animal bones were found. The rice grains were attached to the bamboo urns and rattan urns. The bamboo utensils were covered with a piece of wet cloth and transported to the warehouse of the cultural relics depository for storage. A strange thing happened. More than ten days later, people discovered the bamboo utensils. There are plant buds growing inside and outside the rattan, which is very unexpected. In order to find out the details of this plant, archaeologists invited the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Experts from the Chengdu Branch Research Institute came to study, but the experts could not make a conclusion at that time, so they decided to take the germinated seeds back for cultivation. At the same time, the Cultural Management Institute also left More than a dozen plants continued to be observed.

Vegetable experts from the Chengdu Institute of Agricultural Sciences divided the transferred germinated seeds into four pots and cultivated them in the greenhouse. Seven months later, on February 24, 1984, all The plants all bloomed and produced fruits on the same day, and the harvest yielded 34 fruits. The fruits were small red oval-shaped fruits, which were identified as tomatoes! Later, the fruited seeds were placed

in the open field and continued to be cultivated. In early January 1985, three small tomatoes matured. The researchers continued

in the following years. Through cultivation in a larger area, it was found that the growth pattern of this small tomato is different from that of modern tomatoes: first, it can grow from cuttings and bear fruit; second, it can grow in the cold winter months

Bloom and bear fruit.

After summarizing the environment of the unearthed site and academic debate, archaeologists determined that in the Western Han Dynasty 2100 years ago, the tomb owner had used this small tomato as a vegetable or fruit. Edible (note), and experts further concluded that small tomatoes in the Western Han Dynasty already had the characteristics of cultivation. In this way, the history of tomato consumption and cultivation was suddenly advanced by 1,700 years. The discovery of tomatoes in the Western Han Dynasty opened up a new way of thinking for Chinese paleobotanists and vegetable experts. They began to search for the ancient ancestors of tomatoes in the mountainous areas of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guangxi. Later, several kinds of "small sour fruits" that were more primitive than tomatoes in the Western Han Dynasty were successively discovered (such small tomatoes were also found in the Jiuzhaigou area). The Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences' p> Experts specially use wild tomatoes found in Guangxi for large-scale cultivation.

The discovery of tomatoes in the Western Han Dynasty not only added new content to the history of Chinese vegetable cultivation, but also told the world: The first people to eat tomatoes were the Chinese, not the The French painter who risked his life to try it

Although later for some reason, the tradition of eating and cultivating tomatoes was interrupted.