"Yes, the water dispensers in our home are all bought for drinking vinegar."
"We Shanxi people drink not vinegar, but loneliness."
Jokes are jokes. Shanxi people can't "drink vinegar", but "jealous" is an expert. The first of the eight eccentrics in Shanxi is that "old vinegar is a dish". It is precisely because Shanxi people love vinegar deeply that the "jealous" version is misinformed and misunderstood by people all over the country.
Why are Shanxi people so jealous? This has a deep historical origin.
According to the history, the earliest vinegar appeared in the Zhou Dynasty. China first called vinegar "acyl", and the word "acyl" first appeared in the Zhou Dynasty. In Zhou Li Tian Guan Zhong Zai, there are "acyl people" (royal officials who specialize in vinegar control), and under the "acyl people", there are "two candidates, twenty women, and forty people." Shanxi people's nickname "Lao Xi 'er" also comes from the word "acyl", which is synonymous with "Xi" and is actually "Lao Xi 'er", referring to people who are jealous.
At this time, in the southern part of Shanxi, there was also a record of vinegar for seasoning. Professor Hao Shuhou, a historian, concluded that at least before 497 BC, "when Jinyang City (now the southern suburb of Taiyuan City) was established, there should have been vinegar makers."
With the passage of time, the vinegar brewing industry in Shanxi is more and more prosperous, and the vinegar brewing technology is constantly updated. Jia Sixie, an agronomist in the Northern Wei Dynasty, introduced the production process of vinegar in detail in Qi Min Yao Shu, and specially visited Shanxi for this purpose. Brewing methods such as "rice vinegar", "fermented rice vinegar", "wheat vinegar" and "fermented wheat vinegar" were put forward in Four Seasons Compendium of the Five Dynasties, which showed that the vinegar brewing technology had further developed. In the Song Dynasty, Shanxi vinegar brewing industry spread all over urban and rural areas, and in the remote areas such as Taihang and Lvliang, there was a grand occasion of "every family has a vinegar jar, and everyone is a vinegar maker".
After the development and evolution of the past dynasties, Shanxi vinegar industry reached its peak in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. During the Shunzhi period of Qing Dynasty, the Chinese time-honored brand "Meiheju" changed the aging process of new vinegar to "drying in the summer and fishing for ice in the winter". After aging for more than one year, the vinegar was black and purple and mellow, and it did not rot for a long time, and all the eaters were amazed, thus creating a precedent for "old vinegar". With the popularity of "Beauty and Harmony", mature vinegar has become a royal tribute, ranking first among the four famous vinegars in China.
It can be seen that Shanxi people have mastered the fermentation technology for a long time, and the history of vinegar brewing has a long history. It is not surprising that Shanxi people, who have superb vinegar brewing technology, are jealous.
In addition, Shanxi people's love of "jealousy" is also inseparable from factors such as diet and geography.
People say that Shanxi is a good place, with fertile land, beautiful water and fragrant grains. Shanxi is located in the Loess Plateau, with less water and more light and a dry climate. Such natural conditions are not suitable for planting rice, but they can make wheat and miscellaneous grains grow sturdily. This not only provides excellent raw materials for vinegar brewing, but also makes all kinds of pasta become the staple food of Shanxi people.
Shanxi people's material life has always advocated simplicity, known as the saying that "the style of fifteen countries is the simplest", and the daily diet of the people is multiple staple foods, ignoring non-staple foods. Therefore, Shanxi people's meals are mainly pasta and potatoes, especially miscellaneous grains, which are difficult to digest compared with other foods. If they are eaten for a long time, they will cause stomach discomfort. And vinegar can increase the acidity of gastric juice, help digestion and stimulate appetite.
Shanxi people are jealous because of climate. "My family lives on the high slope of loess, and the wind blows from the slope." Shanxi has a dry climate, and vinegar has the effect of promoting fluid production and moistening the lungs. Being jealous can effectively alleviate the invasion of dry climate.
Topographically, Shanxi is located in the hinterland of Taihang Mountain and Taiyue Mountain, and the soil and water are mostly alkaline, which is "hard soil and water" in Shanxi dialect. The acidity of vinegar can just neutralize the alkalinity and maintain the acid-base balance in the human body. Eating more vinegar is good for your health.
In addition to making vinegar and pasta, Shanxi is famous all over the country, and it is also dominated by coal. Shanxi is rich in coal reserves and has a long history of application. At least in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, coal was widely used in Shanxi, as evidenced by Wang Xun, a native of Taiyuan in the Northern Qi Dynasty, who said that "today's warm wine is used to roast meat with carboniferous". In the Song Dynasty, there was a record that people in Zezhou (now Jincheng) in Shanxi Province "risked mountains to transport ore charcoal" and "the official purchase of carboniferous increased to more than 20 games". It is recorded in "Pingding Zhouzhi" that Shanxi even has the custom of burning coal on the fifteenth day of the first month, "the fire is burning at night."