1. In the Suiren period,

wood was drilled for fire, from which cooked food entered the stone cooking era.

2.

During Fu Xishi's period, in terms of diet, people made nets to teach tenants to fish, and raised sacrifices to serve as cooks.

3. During Shennong's period,

"ploughing and pottery" was the pioneer of agriculture in China, who tasted a hundred herbs, initiated ancient medicine, invented Lei, and taught the people to cultivate crops. Pottery utensils make people have cookers and containers for the first time, which makes it possible to make fermented foods, such as wine, sugar, acyl (vinegar), cheese, sugar, sugar and so on. Ding was one of the earliest cookers. It had claws because there was no stove at that time, and there was a pot. Its claws were hollow and used for cooking wine.

4.

During the Yellow Emperor's period, the Chinese nation's diet was improved again. The emperor started as a kitchen god, concentrated his fire to save fuel and make food cooked quickly, and it was widely used in the Qin and Han Dynasties. At that time, cauldrons and high-legged cookers gradually withdrew from the historical stage. "Steaming cereal for drinking and cooking cereal for porridge" was the first time because of the cooking methods, and the steamer was invented. Steamed salt industry was invented by Su Sha, a courtier of the Yellow Emperor. Since then, he has learned not only how to cook but also how to adjust it, which is beneficial to people's health. Delicious

5. Zhou and Qin Dynasties

In the formative period of China's food culture, cereals and vegetables were the staple food. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, self-produced grain vegetables were basically available, but the structure was different from now. At that time, the early field work was mainly: millet (the most important thing) was millet, also known as millet, which dominated for a long time and was the length of five grains. A good millet was called Liang's masterpiece, also known as Huangliang. Millet is rhubarb sticky rice second only to millet, also known as millet, and it is threshed millet. Wheat, barley. Bitter, beans, was mainly soybeans, black beans. Hemp is pockmarked. Both glutinous rice and hemp are eaten by the poor people, and hemp is also called glutinous rice.

There is also rice in the south. The ancient rice was glutinous rice, and the common rice was called japonica rice. It was not until weeks later that rice was introduced to the Central Plains, which belongs to flour and rice and is more precious. Zizania latifolia, a kind of aquatic plant Zizania latifolia, is black, called carved Hu rice, which is particularly fragrant and smooth. It is put in a leather bag with broken porcelain pieces and rubbed and threshed.

6. The rich period of China's food culture in the Han Dynasty was attributed to the exchange of food culture between China and the West (Western Regions) in the Han Dynasty, and pomegranate, sesame, grapes, walnuts (namely walnuts), watermelons, melons, cucumbers, spinach, carrots, fennel, celery, lentils, alfalfa (mainly used for horse food), lettuce and green onions were introduced. Liu An, the king of Huainan, invented tofu, which made the nutrition of beans digested, good quality and low price, and made many kinds of dishes. In 196, there was a stone carving of tofu workshop on the large portrait stone in the Han tomb discovered in Mi County, Henan Province.

vegetable oil was also invented in the eastern Han dynasty. Before that, animal oil was called grease, animal oil with horns was called grease, and animal oil without horns was called ointment. The fat is hard and the paste is thin and soft. The vegetable oils include almond oil, shea butter and sesame oil, but they are rare. After the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the varieties of vegetable oils increased and the prices were cheap.

7. Tang and Song Dynasties

The peak of food culture was too particular. The most representative example of "Su Steamed Voice Department and Wangchuan Map Sample" is the barbecue.

8. The food culture in Ming and Qing Dynasties

is another peak, which is the continuation and development of the food customs in Tang and Song Dynasties, and at the same time, it is full of Mongolian characteristics. The food structure has changed greatly. The staple food: wild rice has been completely eliminated. Pockmarked leaves the staple food and uses oil-pressing instead. Bean materials are no longer staple food and become dishes. The proportion of wheat in the Yellow River valley in the north has increased greatly, and flour has become the staple food in the north since Song Dynasty, and in the Ming Dynasty. Meat: Livestock and poultry raised artificially become the main source of meat. Man-Han banquet represents the highest level of food culture in Qing Dynasty.

Characteristics of China's food culture

1. Excellent selection of ingredients

The raw materials for each dish, including main ingredients, ingredients, auxiliary materials, seasonings, etc., have many exquisite and certain rules. In a nutshell, it is the word "fine" and "fine", which is what Confucius said: "You are never tired of fine food, and you are never tired of fine food". The so-called "refined" refers to the selected raw materials, taking into account their varieties, producing areas, seasons, growth periods and other characteristics, with fresh, tender and excellent materials as the best.

during the Han and Tang dynasties, it was customary to call delicacies "eight treasures". About the Song Dynasty, Bazhen specifically refers to eight precious cooking materials. In the Qing Dynasty, there were numerous series of "Eight Treasures", mainly referring to the banquet of eight rare raw materials.

2. Skillful knife work

Our country has attached importance to the use of knife method since ancient times. After repeated practice by chefs in past dynasties, we have created a wealth of knife methods, such as straight knife method, slice knife method, oblique knife method, gouging knife method (marking the raw materials without cutting them off) and carving knife method, and processed the raw materials into pieces, strips, wires, blocks, dices and so on.

In particular, the combination of knife skills and hand-waving method makes clinker and edible raw materials into artistic and lifelike fancy platters of birds, animals, insects, fish, flowers and grass, such as "Dragon and Phoenix in Prosperity", "proud as a peacock", "Magpie in Plum", "Lotus Crane" and "Flower Basket with Double Phoenix". For example, "proud as a peacock" is made of fifteen kinds of raw materials, such as duck meat, ham, pork tongue, quail eggs, crab clams and cucumbers, and it is finished through twenty-two fine knife techniques and assembling procedures.

It is not only writers who regard the fine knife-cutting as a perfect art appreciation, but also ordinary people often take a quick look. In order to broaden one's horizons, someone specially organized a knife performance in ancient times, which caused a sensation. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Zeng Sanyi's Record of the Same Talk said that one year Mount Tai held a unique performance, and the "best art in the world" naturally included those who were good at cooking. "There was a man who made a man bow down to the ground with his back bare, and took a catty of meat with his back as a few, and carried it with a knife. Try to withdraw the meat, and the soldier's back is not hurt at all. " Taking a person's back as a chopping block, shredding pork without hurting his back, this move can't help but be amazing.

3. Unique fire duration

Chef China can accurately identify different fires, such as strong fire, medium fire and weak fire, be familiar with the heat resistance of various raw materials, skillfully control the time of using fire, be good at mastering the properties of heat transfer objects (oil, water and gas), and determine the order of cooking according to the tenderness, moisture content, shape and size of raw materials, and the thickness of whole pieces, and use them flexibly. As early as ancient times, chef China had made a special study on the heat, and expounded the law of heat change and the key points: "Five flavors and three materials, nine boiling and nine changes, will win with it, without losing its reason."

(Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals) Su Shi, a great poet in the Northern Song Dynasty, is not only a gourmet, but also a cook. He created the famous Dongpo meat dishes, which is closely related to his good use of heat. He also wrote these experiences in stew poems: "Slow fire, lack of water, natural beauty when the heat comes." Later generations used his experience to cook the meat with a sealed low fire. The meat was original, oily and bright red, rotten but not broken, waxy but not greasy, tender like tofu, palatable and outstanding in flavor.

4. Different techniques

Commonly used techniques are: frying, frying, cooking, slipping, frying, pasting, stewing, grilling, stewing, stewing, boiling, dipping, steaming, roasting, mixing, frying, smoking, and beet. Different techniques have different flavor characteristics. Each technique has several or even dozens of famous dishes. The famous "beggar chicken" is famous all over the world for its mud roasting technique. According to legend, a beggar stole a chicken in Changshu, Jiangsu Province in ancient times. Because there was no cooker, he slaughtered the chicken, removed its internal organs, put in onion salt, sewed it up, pasted it with yellow mud, grilled it on a fire, cooked it with mud, and knocked on the ground to eat it. The meat was fresh and tender, and the aroma was overflowing.

After being improved by the chef and roasted with various seasonings, it tastes more beautiful and becomes a famous dish. Yunnan's "crossing the bridge rice noodles" is a masterpiece of techniques. According to legend, a scholar was studying in the study in ancient times, and his wife created this method in order to make him have hot soup and hot rice: the hen was boiled into boiling chicken soup, and then sliced into thin chicken slices, fish slices, shrimp slices and rice noodles. Because of the oil floating on the surface, it can keep warm and cook the above foods, and it can remain hot and tender after crossing the bridge, thus creating this method.

5. Five flavors are blended.

There are three kinds of seasoning methods: basic seasoning, stereotyped seasoning and auxiliary seasoning, with stereotyped seasoning being the most used. The so-called stereotyped seasoning refers to the seasoning in the process of heating raw materials, in order to determine the taste of dishes. Basic seasoning is carried out before heating, which belongs to pre-processing seasoning. Auxiliary seasoning is carried out after heating, or seasoning when eating.

so, the five flavors in the so-called "harmony of five flavors" are a general reference. The dishes we enjoy are generally compound flavors with more than two flavors, and they are changeable. "Huangdi Neijing" says: "The beauty of five flavors is incomparable"; "Wen Zi" says: "The beauty of the five flavors can't be tasted", and it is said that the harmony of the five flavors can bring people wonderful enjoyment.

in a word, whether the seasoning is just right or not depends on the chef's proper preparation, in addition to the material conditions such as complete variety and excellent texture. There are strict requirements on the proportion of seasoning, the order of blanking and the seasoning time (pre-cooking, mid-cooking and post-cooking). As long as we are meticulous, we can make the dishes reach the predetermined flavor.

6. Elegant mood

China's food culture has elegant mood and artistic atmosphere, which is mainly manifested in three aspects: beauty, praise and beauty.

Yuan Mei quoted an old saying that "the ancients said" food is not as good as beautiful utensils "in" Food List with the Garden ",which means that eating beautiful utensils is also beautiful, and food should be matched with beautiful utensils, seeking the effect of adding beauty to beauty.

The beauty of China's eating utensils lies in quality, shape, decoration and harmony with food. The beauty of ancient tableware in China mainly includes pottery, porcelain, bronze, gold and silver, jade, lacquer and glassware. The rough beauty of painted pottery, the elegant beauty of porcelain, the solemn beauty of bronze, the transparent beauty of lacquerware, the brilliant beauty of gold and silver, and the bright beauty of glass have all given people who use it a beautiful enjoyment, and it is another kind of beautiful enjoyment besides food.

the beauty of a beautiful vessel is not limited to the quality, shape and decoration of the vessel itself, but also lies in the beauty of its combination and the beauty of its matching with dishes.

the tripod in the Zhou dynasty, the cup set in the Han dynasty, and the Manchu-Han banquet silver tableware in Confucius' house all embody a kind of combined beauty. Confucius House specially designed silver tableware for Manchu and Han banquets, with a total of 44 pieces, which can serve 196 dishes. This set of tableware is partly antique and partly food-like. The decoration of the utensils is also very elegant, inlaid with jade, jadeite, agate, coral, etc., engraved with various flower patterns, and some also engraved with poems and auspicious words, which is even more elegant and extraordinary.

The Manchu-Han Banquet Tableware in Confucius House is arranged according to the four-four system pattern, which is divided into several parts: small tableware, water tableware, fire tableware and snack box. The harmony between beauty and food is the highest realm of food aesthetics. In Du Fu's "two for the road", "red camel-humps are brought them from jade broilers, the disk of crystal is plain; And the finely wrought phoenix carving-knife is very little used "poem, at the same time chanting the beauty of food and utensils, foil the elegant realm of the beauty of food and utensils.

In China, there are no nameless dishes. A wonderful naming of dishes is not only a vivid advertising word of dishes, but also an organic part of dishes themselves. The name of a dish gives people beautiful enjoyment. It is conveyed to the brain through auditory or visual perception, which will produce a series of psychological effects and play a role that the color, shape and taste of the dish can't play.