The Journey to the West is a classic in many people's minds. However, just recently, Ma Siqi, a fifth-grade student in a primary school in Hangzhou, discovered a big loophole in the The Journey to the West.
= Poster of TV series The Journey to the West
Many dishes are similar from the Eastern Tang Dynasty to the Western Regions
In his composition, Ma Siqi listed the names of dishes at banquets in different stories in The Journey to the West. Indeed, even in the western regions, these dishes are all Chinese food. After reading her composition, many people gave thumbs up and praised it. It was brilliant!
= Poster of TV series The Journey to the West
Have you ever found that no matter how wonderful the author writes, the regional differences from the Eastern Tang Dynasty to the Western Regions are so great, but the food they eat is so similar? Ma Siqi sorted out the names of dishes listed in several well-known scenes. As follows:
The menu of the king's wedding banquet in the daughter country of Xiliang for the 54th time: shredded rice, steamed cakes, sugar cakes, mushrooms, mushrooms, fungus, cauliflower, daylily, laver, turnip, taro, radish, yam, Polygonatum ... The 67th camel Luo Zhuang vegetarian meal: gluten, tofu, taro seedlings. Powder soup ... The 79th King's Banquet of Children's Kingdom: lion candy, vermicelli, mushrooms, auricularia, Polygonatum sibiricum, fragrant rice ... From these menus, we can see that rice, mushrooms, mushrooms, auricularia, tofu, gluten, taro and radish are available at almost every meal. The same food has traveled thousands of miles and spread all over the region, as if it were faster and farther than the Monkey King's somersault cloud. Datang and the small countries in the western regions generally have the same diet, while goblins and monarchs have basically the same preferences, which inevitably makes people suspicious. How is this possible?
It turns out that Wu Cheng'en, the author of The Journey to the West, is from Huai 'an, and most of these foods are Jianghuai cuisine.
= TV series The Journey to the West poster
Want to travel to the Ming Dynasty to persuade Wu Cheng'en
Recently, the reporter met Ma Siqi at school. She is a quiet little girl and doesn't talk much. But when it comes to The Journey to the West, the spirit will come soon.
"I really want to travel to the Ming Dynasty to persuade Wu Cheng'en to consult more people with this kind of professional knowledge," Ma Siqi wrote in his composition. Ma Siqi said that The Journey to the West has read several times, and some stories have been read more than 11 times. As a foodie, when watching The Journey to the West, he naturally pays attention to what The Journey to the West eats. "I found that in The Journey to the West, many dishes are similar, and they should all be from Wu Cheng'en's hometown. So I wrote this composition specially. "
Professor Lou Hansong, Dean of the School of Humanities, Zhejiang University, is quite familiar with The Journey to the West's classic novel. After reading Ma Siqi's composition, he said, "Children read carefully, and the opinions expressed in the composition are generally reasonable. The details written by writers are often closely related to their own life experiences. But whether these dishes are unique to Huai 'an is hard to say. However, the spirit of children's thinking and discovery is very worthy of recognition. "
In fact, some people think that The Journey to the West's time was limited by various realistic conditions, so he may subjectively think that the diet of the Western Regions was not much different from that of the Tang Dynasty, so there is no need to treat the ancients with modern thinking. But in any case, Ma Siqi's spirit of being good at finding problems is still worth encouraging.