Diet of the Song Dynasty
1. Diet varieties
(1) Five grains: As an agricultural nation, the Han people have always played a major role in their diet. In the Song Dynasty, there were no crops such as corn and sweet potatoes. According to local conditions, the food of northerners was mainly millet and wheat, while the food of southerners was mainly rice.
The variety of pasta is the most diverse. "People who eat it when it is cooked with fire call it Shaobing, people who eat it when it is boiled with water call it Soup Cake, and people who eat it when it is steamed in a cage call it Steamed Cake." The name of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty was Zhao Zhen. In order to avoid the taboo of the emperor's name, people pronounced steamed cakes as cooking cakes, also known as cage cakes, similar to today's steamed buns. Soup cake is noodle soup, and is in the process of evolution from Xiangsuo noodles, also known as noodles. ①Ruan Sheep Noodles, Tung Skin Noodles, Pork Noodles, Tong Skin Cooked Pork Noodles, etc. sold in Kaifeng Restaurants, and Zhuyang'an Raw Noodles, Shredded Chicken Noodles, Three Fresh Noodles, Bamboo Shoots Pork Noodles, etc. sold in Lin'an Noodle Restaurants. They are all soup cakes. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, "Medicine Chess Noodles" noodles appeared, which were "only one point thin and as thin as paper". Sesame cakes are also called sesame cakes. The sesame cakes sold in Kaifeng's sesame cake shops include door oil, chrysanthemum, wide focus, side thickness, marrow cake, manse and other varieties. Some sesame cakes are undoubtedly stained with sesame, while the oil cake shop sells steamed cakes, sugar cakes and so on. There are varieties of cakes, buns, and plates. Restaurants and night markets also sell white meat pancakes, pork pancreas pancakes, and vegetable pancakes. Zanzi is also known as ring cake. Su Shi's poem said that "fried green oil produces a tender yellow color", which is undoubtedly fried pasta. Various types of noodles are sold in Lin'an City, collectively referred to as "steamed noodles". There is also a saying that "the food wrapped in crispy honey is unparalleled in the world and is easy to eat", which is probably also made of rice flour or flour. ②
Song people’s pasta also includes stuffed buns, wontons, ③, etc., such as Wanglou plum blossom buns, Cao Po Po meat pie, bamboo shoots and fern wontons, stuffed steamed buns, thin-skinned spring cocoon buns, Shrimp buns, meat cakes, sugar-meat steamed buns, Taixue steamed buns and other items
Rice and millet are mainly used for cooking rice and porridge. The porridge products in Lin'an area include Qibao vegetarian porridge, five-flavor meat porridge, corn porridge, sugar bean porridge, sugar porridge, cake porridge, etc. ③During the Song Dynasty, there was a custom of drinking Laba porridge in both the north and the south. Kaifeng calls it Qibao Five-flavor Porridge, and Lin'an calls it Five-flavor Porridge. On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, "the common people's families cooked red bean porridge to worship the God of Food. It was called population porridge.
The difference in staple food between the north and the south in the Song Dynasty was quite obvious. However, since the Northern Song Dynasty transported six to seven million stones of rice to Kaifeng and other places every year, Therefore, some northerners, especially officials and soldiers, also relied on rice as their staple food.
At the turn of the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, as a large number of northerners migrated southward, the double-cropping system of rice and wheat was adopted in the Yangtze River Basin. More common.
(2) Vegetables: Vegetables played an important role in the diet of the Song Dynasty, and they were known as "vegetables inferior to grains". In the Song Dynasty, the variety of vegetables was very rich. Vegetable varieties include moss heart, short yellow, big white head, small white head, yellow bud, mustard, lettuce, spinach (spinach), lettuce, bitter, ginger, onion, scallion, leek, garlic, small garlic, eggplant, melon, Cucumber, wax gourd, gourd, gourd, taro, yam, burdock, radish, manna, wild rice, fern, celery, fungus, etc. In Huizhou on Jiangnan East Road, vegetable varieties include mustard, celery (including bamboo celery, cress), Garlic, onions, ginger, leeks, coriander, yuntai, alfalfa, spinach, turnip, lily, taro, burdock, wild rice root, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, perilla, wolfberry, mugwort, bitter, bitter Job's tears, malan, shepherd's purse, amaranth, pigweed, fern, gourd, etc. ⑧ In Fuzhou on Fujian Road, vegetable varieties include sativa, mustard, radish, black beetroot, white beans, lettuce, Yun Tai, Yongcai, Shuijin, spinach, etc. Bitter greens, amaranth, eggplant, amaranth, coriander, mugwort, fern, ginger, green onion, leek, scallions, gourd, wax gourd, gourd, white water chestnut, perilla, parsley, wormwood, nori, carrageenan, Taro, wolfberry, etc. Many vegetables also have different varieties. According to the "Fungiogram", the fungi include mushrooms, mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms, pine mushrooms, bamboo mushrooms, wheat mushrooms, jade mushrooms, yellow mushrooms, and purple mushrooms. , Four Seasons mushrooms, Amanita mushrooms and other famous products
2. The prosperity of the catering industry
The catering industry in the Song Dynasty developed simultaneously with the commodity economy, especially in the big cities in Kaifeng in the late Northern Song Dynasty.
The catering industry in Kaifeng generally includes restaurants, restaurants, cake shops and tea shops. The food styles and cuisines of restaurants can be divided into three categories: Northern food, Southern food and Sichuan food.
The catering industry in Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty included tea shops, wine shops, tea shops, pasta shops, meat and vegetable restaurants, etc.