Decades ago, there was a young man from Suzhou who fell in love with a girl from Xuzhou.

Although the parents were reluctant in every possible way, they could not resist their son, so they went to the girl's house to propose marriage.

It was the dog days of summer. According to custom, the girl’s family took out the mutton for entertaining guests and said enthusiastically: Try our specialty here: fuyang.

Unexpectedly, the man's family was shocked: They ate mutton on a hot day of 36 to 7 degrees Celsius, just to kill people.

Jiangbei is too uncouth to get married like this.

Without giving any room for negotiation, he took his son home overnight.

In that era of relatively limited information, the mutual incomprehension between the "infighting provinces" can be seen from this story.

The man's family has firmly established the impression that Jiangbei people are of low quality and unscrupulous, while the woman's family probably also deeply feels that Sunan people are stingy, pretentious and unreasonable. This pair of hard-luck mandarin ducks may never have the chance to receive the blessings of their parents and family.

01 Differences in perceptions of mutton between the north and the south / Agricultural civilization VS Nomadic civilization / In the vast areas south of the Yangtze River, mutton is regarded as a precious food ingredient, and because of its role in warming and nourishing blood in traditional Chinese medicine classics, it is mainly used as a winter tonic.

But north of the 400 mm precipitation line, the grassland areas occupied by nomads do not have these particularities.

Mutton is sufficient all year round; and the nomads do not believe in traditional Chinese medicine, so there is no such thing as cold or heat. No matter how hot the weather is, a bowl of mutton soup can relieve all kinds of fatigue.

In fact, most of this difference in perception of food ingredients can be attributed to geographical determinism.

In the agricultural civilization system, land is negotiable real estate with the same value as currency.

A piece of land that can produce various crops would obviously be a huge waste if it were grown forage that cattle and sheep eat, and sheep cannot be used as farm animals like cattle. However, omnivorous pigs are different. They waste swill,

They eat fruits, vegetables, roots and bark, and they eat everything. This way they don’t compete with the people for land.

Over time, mutton, which is relatively expensive, has been labeled with various labels that cannot be eaten casually, while pork, which is readily available, does not require so much attention.

A similar example is pork in French cuisine. Many French chefs regard pork as a high-end ingredient with rich fat and tender texture, and should be served with care.

There are also many taboos when eating. If you don't do it well, you will violate the commandments in the Old Testament of the Bible not to eat pork.

02 The heterogeneous "Fuyang District" of Han culture/Cultural integration VS psychological resistance/But in the Central Plains of China, there is a custom that runs counter to Chinese civilization: eating Fuyang.

The so-called Fuyang refers to the mutton slaughtered during the dog days of summer.

Many cities also hold grand festivals for Futian Sheep Eating, including Xuzhou, Suzhou, Zaozhuang, and Linyi. The "Futian Sheep Festival" has become a local tourist attraction.

Studying from the map, although "Fuyang District" spans the four provinces of eastern Henan, northern Anhui, northern Jiangsu and southwestern Shandong.

But like the "free shipping area" Yangtze River Delta, it has similar dialects and similar folk customs. They are both Xuzhou among the "Nine States in the World" in the pre-Qin era.

Because it occupies the most fertile and fertile land in ancient China and has convenient transportation links, from the end of the Western Jin Dynasty to the Song Dynasty's southward migration for more than 800 years, Fuyang District has been an area where the north and the south have repeatedly fought for material wealth.

Extremely vulnerable to damage by nomads.

After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the increasing economic development and serious soil erosion, the Yellow River diverted Si into the Huaihe River many times, and the "Fuyang District" turned into a "yellow flooded area" that was disgraceful in the talk of farming civilization.

In addition, it is not far from the center of Manchu rule, and long-term cultural exchanges and marriage integration have exposed the people here to the custom of northern peoples who love to eat mutton regardless of climate and season.

But on the other hand, this is the birthplace of Confucianism and the origin of Chinese civilization.

Although the literati of the Southern Song Dynasty bitterly denounced the large-scale consumption of mutton in the Central Plains as: "On Zhusi, the land of string songs is also smelly."

But the locals have persisted for hundreds of years to find a reasonable way to eat mutton in summer.

This is a typical representation of the "Hawthorne effect" in psychology.

The first ones to be targeted were classical books.

"The Rites of Zhou·Tianguan": "The lambs and dolphins travel in spring, and the food is fragrant"; the "Book of Rites·Yue Ling": "In the month of mid-spring, wheat and sheep are eaten." were all moved out.

But eating mutton in winter is always the mainstream. No matter how you look for it, eating mutton in spring is the limit that the Han people can accept.

Let's start with the daily life of ancient emperors, from Yao and Shun, to Peng Zu, and to the "Book of Han". Although we have found a few records, they are still not systematic.

The final step is to find a sense of universal identity among the people.

Fortunately, Xiao County, under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, Anhui Province, first proposed the concept of "Fuyang Festival", and it has become popular throughout the "Fuyang District" in more than ten years, and has become a phenomenon-level food culture, radiating to the wider eastern region.

the trend of.

For hundreds of years, the people of the "Fuyang District" who are Han Chinese have eaten mutton in Futian to find a sense of psychological identity.

This is not an attempt to impress people, on the contrary, it is a unique commentary on regional eating habits.