Should beef be stewed with seasoning? It seems to be a pediatric question, but I spent a lot of energy to demonstrate it. Now I have made another one to further demonstrate it with practice, and invited several food friends to verify it on site. The result was a smooth pass. Not only did the stewed beef require no seasoning, let alone spices, but the finished dish also had very few seasonings, only chopped green onion, crushed black pepper and salt.

Stewed meat is "stewed meat", which is traditionally called "boiled meat". The cooking method is to cook the meat in water.

The earliest boiled meat had no seasoning, and I guess I didn’t know what seasoning to add at that time. As far back as the Neolithic Age, our ancestors had fire and knew that cooked meat was more delicious and fragrant than raw meat, so they tried to cook the meat. But there is no idea of ??making utensils yet. The only way is to make full use of natural conditions, add water and put meat in a stone pit, and then heat the stones and throw them in to achieve the effect of cooking meat.

Later it progressed to cooking meat with animal skins. Freshly skinned animal skins are tied up at the four corners and lifted up. Water is filled inside, and pieces of meat are put in. Heat the fire below and cook them. Later, it was upgraded. Inspired by the sintering of clay, clay pots were made with a purpose, which led to the earliest stew pot.

For thousands of years, the pots used to cook meat have evolved from clay pots to various pots today. Pots have developed rapidly, but the method of cooking meat has not changed. So far, the simple method of boiling meat in white water is still continued. Herders in almost all pastoral areas in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai Tibet still use the old method of boiling meat in large pots with large pieces of water, no spices, and boiling it in plain water.

But in the Mainland, I don’t know since when, cooking meat requires adding many kinds of spices. For example, the beef stew was originally passed down from pastoral areas, but it has completely changed. A lot of spices have to be added. Even home stews have learned from street restaurants and restaurants. Adding more spices is a good idea, and not adding spices is not a good idea. Therefore, there are often more than a dozen kinds of additions, and there are several kinds that are missing. Not counting onions and ginger, star anise, cinnamon, bay leaves, etc. cannot be missing.

A brief review of our history of cooking meat. It is recorded that King Zhou of the Shang Dynasty used meat cooked in white water in his meat forest and wine sea; the cook Yi Yin sublimated the stew to the theory of state governance, and did not add any seasoning to the meat; in the Zhou Dynasty of Confucius' time, meat was still boiled in white water and cooked Eat the meat with dipping sauce. This way of eating is still preserved in Northeast China, Shandong and other places, as is Beijing mutton hotpot.

In the Song Dynasty, the "medicinal diet" line became popular. This one is boiled meat with spices. It is originally intended to be a traditional Chinese medicine prescription. The broth is stewed into a tonic. Eating it can prolong life and strengthen the body. The representative one is mutton soup, which was originally eaten by the emperor to relieve hangovers when he got up early. Later, it was spread out of the palace and evolved into spicy soup. Medicinal diet practices also produce braised pork. By adding spices and utilizing the respective properties of Chinese medicinal materials to form an agent, the cooked meat can have a flavor-enhancing and antiseptic effect.

Because of the flavor-enhancing and antiseptic properties of spices, all low-quality meats can be sublimated. For example, beef, sheep, and pig meat have never been served on a large banquet table because the quality of the ingredients is low. Now, adding a few spices can completely change the quality of sewer water. Braised pork, a method of cooking meat, has become very popular, especially among the grassroots people.

It can be seen that braised pork is a branch of cooked pork and a major development of cooked pork. Until 40 years ago, our stewed meat and braised pork were still distinct and not confused with each other.

The change will occur after 40 years. After the market was liberalized, the catering industry took the lead and played the leading role, so competition was fierce. There are two main aspects of the fierce competition in the market: on the one hand, each dish reform has its own unique ideas, innovative dishes, improved dishes, private dishes, palace dishes, farm dishes, there are only dishes you can't think of, and there are no recipes that the market lacks. On the other hand, frugality goes too far and ends up cutting corners. Thinking of substituting the inferior quality, reducing the portion, the noodle bowl is as big as a basin, and the noodles in it are only enough for one bite, and the price is charged as for a large bowl.