In today's my country, there are many delicacies, and each place has its own special flavor. If you don't go locally, it will be difficult to taste the most authentic taste. However, in ancient times, under the conditions of different periods, what people could eat was very different. Now many people may think that in the Qin and Han Dynasties, if you wanted to eat a bowl of noodles, it would not work, because that There were no noodles at all. Is this true? Is it true that noodles were not invented during the Qin and Han Dynasties?

1. What did the ancients eat? Is it the same rice and noodles as modern people? Or are the foods eaten by people in ancient times extinct now? Are there any? The WeChat article was widely circulated. It was about a man who traveled to Xianyang City in the Qin Dynasty and wanted to eat, but ended up in all sorts of troubles. Because the things he wanted to eat, such as tomato braised noodles, fried vegetables, large watermelons, and even the tea he wanted to drink, had basically not appeared at that time.

Nowadays, China is famous all over the world as a country of gourmet food, but the level of our ancestors in this regard seems to be far lower than it is now. So what did people eat during the Qin and Han Dynasties? When did the complex cooking and various dishes in today's Chinese cuisine appear?

Let's talk about the big Han before. The first meal he ordered at a street restaurant was braised noodles with tomatoes. The waiter’s exact words were as follows: “Emma! Sir, are you kidding me? Noodles were only available in the Song Dynasty. Tomatoes are native to America and were only introduced in the Qing Dynasty. Enter the Middle Earth."

2. Divided into two parts, let’s not talk about the story of tomatoes for now, let’s talk about noodles first.

According to the definition, noodles are made from "flour", which is mixed with water and kneaded to form a dough; the dough is then rolled, extruded, or kneaded, pulled, pulled, pulled, dialed and other processing methods to form a dough. A general term for long strips, tubes, sheets or other shaped flour products.

Flour includes wheat flour, buckwheat flour, barley flour, etc. Some people include rice noodles, but in the context of ordinary Chinese people today, noodles should not include rice noodles products. Wei Yimin, an expert from the Institute of Agricultural Products Processing of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, recently published a special article discussing the origin of Chinese noodles.

His point of view is simply: "Cake" is the original prototype of Chinese noodles; Chopped buckwheat noodles are the early form of Chinese noodles; Noodles are the originator of extruded noodles and the largest scale production of noodles. primary form. Hand-rolled noodles are a type of family-eating noodles developed on the basis of the techniques of chopping buckwheat noodles and pancakes after wheat was introduced to the Western Regions, Guanzhong and the Central Plains. Xinjiang La Tiaozi is the ancestor of Lanzhou Ramen; Lanzhou Ramen is the prototype of hand-made noodles.

There are many grinders discovered in archeology in my country, the earliest ones dating back to 11,000 to 9,000 years ago; batches of carbonized wheat grains from 5,000 years ago were unearthed from the Donghuishan site in Minle County, Gansu Province; Lingbao, Henan Province A green-glazed pottery workshop model from the Eastern Han Dynasty was collected in Zhangjiawan County, showing scenes of people pounding rice and grinding flour.

3. In addition, according to the "Book of Han·Shihuo Zhi" written by Ban Gu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wheat was introduced to Guanlong from the Western Regions during the Western Han Dynasty and began to be planted in large quantities in the Central Plains. "In the era when there was no wheat cultivation, , there are definitely no wheat flour noodles that contain gluten and are elastic and malleable. So, were there noodles in the Central Plains, Guanzhong, Longxi, and Longdong before? If so, what ingredients were the noodles made of? How were they made? Where's the food?"

A major discovery appeared in October 2002 - a blue-patterned red pottery bowl excavated from the Lajia site in Minhe County, Qinghai Province, which was about 3,900 years ago. Found something that looked exactly like today’s “noodles”. The "noodles" are beige in color, uniform in thickness, about 3mm in diameter and about 500mm in length. After analysis, experts believe that it is mainly made of millet and a small amount of millet.

Animal bone fragments were also found in this bowl of "noodles", indicating that it was a bowl of meat noodles. The discovery attracted worldwide attention. Because the "noodles" previously discovered in China based on food, text and mural data have a history of more than two thousand years at most. The discovery also begins to challenge Western researchers' assumptions about the origin and history of spaghetti.

During the Western Han Dynasty, due to the needs of military reserves, security and large-scale feasts, the court needed to develop food production technology that could be stored and easily eaten by many people. Therefore, "branded noodles" that could be stored and easily eaten appeared. ".

Baked noodles have a low water content and are easy to store and carry. They are also cooked food and can be eaten immediately or cut into strips and cooked in a soup pot. Cui Shi of the Eastern Han Dynasty (approximately 103-170 AD) recorded "Shuizu Cake" and "Boiled Cake" in the "Monthly Order of the Four People", which is the earliest written record of noodles so far. It should be noted that the meaning of "bread" at that time was not the same as it is today.

However, because the crops grown in Longxi, Longdong, Guanzhong and the Central Plains at that time were mainly millet, millet, buckwheat, barley (including highland barley, that is, naked barley), soybeans, etc. that originated in China, wheat Although the development is relatively rapid, it is not too common.

Therefore, wheat flour noodles in Qin Dynasty should be relatively rare. The word "noodles" was renamed from "soup cake" in the Song Dynasty. Therefore, it is not consistent with historical facts to say that "noodles" only existed in the Song Dynasty. Even if the Qin Dynasty couldn't eat it, the Han Dynasty could still eat it.