Sichuan cuisine boasts a history of more than 2,000 years. But it's hard to say how much the Sichuan food we eat now has to do with the Sichuan food at that time. An ironclad proof is that as early as 400 years ago, there was no pepper in Sichuan cuisine-how can it be called "Sichuan cuisine" without pepper?
Fracture of ancient Sichuan cuisine
The breakthrough point of old Sichuan cuisine and new Sichuan cuisine was in17th century.
The Ming Dynasty spent the last 40 years in the17th century. In the peasant war in the late Ming Dynasty, Sichuan was the last province where the war lasted, and its economy and people's livelihood suffered the most. Zhang established local political power in Sichuan, and after discovering that he could no longer rule China, he implemented scorched earth in Sichuan. With the appalling burning and destruction of Zhang and other troops, the Chengdu Plain has almost become a wilderness. Demographers' research shows that the war has reduced the population of Sichuan from a few million at the peak to 600,000-800,000, while the number of old Sichuanese in Chengdu Plain in central Sichuan has been "more than one hundred".
Killing wiped out the population and cut off the inheritance of culture and even habits. In this process, the Sichuan cuisine culture centered on Chengdu also suffered a devastating blow.
It is said that Sichuan cuisine originated from ancient Bashu. From the Qin Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period, Chengdu gradually became the political, economic and cultural center of Sichuan, which made Sichuan cuisine develop greatly. Sichuanese have a tradition of "respecting taste" since ancient times. In addition, Sichuan is rich in natural products, and birds, animals, poultry and fish provide rich raw materials for Sichuan cuisine. As early as the Han Dynasty, Sichuanese were known as "very spicy".
As early as 65,438+0,000 years ago, Zuo Si, a writer in the Western Jin Dynasty, wrote in "Shu Du Fu" that "sitting in the golden base, eating and drinking every four years, licking with clear tincture, with few purple scales". During the Tang and Song Dynasties, Sichuan cuisine became more popular. The poet Lu You once praised Sichuan cuisine with the poem "Jade eats Emei fungus, goldfish eats hole C fish".
But after the genocide, who might pass on those elaborate and complicated recipes? After the massacre in Chengdu Plain, only Yibin and Zigong in southern Sichuan, where Zhang Jun rarely entered, partially retained the habit of ancient Sichuanese who loved glutinous rice.
Why is Sichuan food so numb?
Sichuanese have been "spicy" since ancient times and like to eat spicy food, but it is not only Sichuanese who have been "spicy" since ancient times.
Zanthoxylum bungeanum, ginger and dogwood are the three most traditional spices in China, among which Zanthoxylum bungeanum is the most commonly used spice. According to the research on ancient recipes in recent years, it is found that about one-fifth of the food used pepper in the history of more than 2,000 years before pepper entered China. Zanthoxylum bungeanum is planted in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and Yellow River in China. In the Tang Dynasty, when the consumption of Zanthoxylum bungeanum peaked, the proportion of food using Zanthoxylum bungeanum in recipes accounted for 37%.
Zanthoxylum bungeanum once occupied an unquestionable dominant position in spicy spices, and its edible range basically spread all over the country, and its importance in China's diet can't be compared even with today's peppers.
However, since the late Ming Dynasty, the frequency of spicy spices in the diet has been declining, and many dishes no longer use pepper as raw material. One of the most important reasons is the impact of pepper. During this period, pepper became popular, and the taste of many traditional spicy food areas began to fade.
Although personal tastes and preferences often change, on the whole, people in a region or a country will not create or abandon a dietary tradition for no reason. In fact, the decline of Zanthoxylum bungeanum is closely related to the changes of China people's meat structure since Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The two major functions of spicy seasoning are to inhibit the fishy smell in food and avoid "cold and dampness". Before the Qing Dynasty, the land in China was generally more than five mu per capita. Due to the small population base, a large number of mountainous areas with forests and grasslands as the main vegetation have not been reclaimed, which provides a broad living space for free-range animal husbandry. Beef and mutton account for a large proportion in the meat structure of China people, and its fishy smell is an important reason why spicy spices are widely used everywhere.
However, the introduction of potato, corn, sweet potato and other high-yield dry land crops in the Ming Dynasty triggered a sustained population growth and mountain development, and a large number of grass slopes and woodlands became cultivated land, which led to the shrinking of cattle and sheep animal husbandry, and the proportion of domestic pig and poultry meat in the diet increased greatly. Pork became the main meat, and obviously there was no need for spicy spices to suppress the fishy smell.
As a result, the proportion of Zanthoxylum bungeanum in animal dishes in Qing Dynasty decreased from 59% in Ming Dynasty to 23%. With this change in meat structure, many areas began to withdraw from the spicy territory and instead pursued a light and mild taste.
By the end of Qing Dynasty, Zanthoxylum bungeanum only accounted for 18.9%, which was basically crowded in Sichuan Basin. Zanthoxylum bungeanum is only favored by Sichuanese who love spicy food. It was during this period that Sichuan cuisine became the "only hemp" in the world.
Today, it is almost inconceivable that a large table of Sichuan cuisine has no peppers, but in fact, there is still more than one hundred years from the loss of ancient Sichuan cuisine to the popularity of peppers in Sichuan.
Spicy taste in the upper reaches of the river
As early as the second half of16th century, China businessmen who were active in Manila silk trade brought back a lot of silver and pepper, which were called "pepper" in Eight Chapters of Respect for Life written by 159 1. This may be because pepper came from overseas and was as hot as the popular pepper at that time, so it was named seasoning.
The introduction of peppers from Zhejiang Province may be just one of several routes for peppers to enter China. Other possible routes include the introduction of pepper into the northwest along the Silk Road and the introduction of pepper into Taiwan Province Province by Dutch colonists. Similar to the period when peppers appeared in Zhejiang, Northeast China did get peppers from North Korea separated by a river in the early17th century, which may be a source for North Koreans in Northeast China to eat peppers later, but these conjectures are difficult to be finally confirmed by historical data.
Zanthoxylum bungeanum is destined to have the status that Zanthoxylum bungeanum once had. Although pepper was first introduced into Zhejiang, it was not recorded in the local records of Taicang until the seventh year of Jiaqing (1802).
After the Republic of China, pepper was planted in most areas of Jiangsu, but it was recorded in Guangdong in the south from the Qianlong period, but Cantonese people always had a light taste, and pepper cultivation was not common until the Republic of China. According to the survey, in the 20th year of the Republic of China (193 1), only Zijin and Pingyuan counties in Guangdong province had peppers in their vegetables.
However, although the spread of pepper in the north and south was blocked, the love for spicy taste in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River was persistent, which made the spread of pepper in China go west along the Yangtze River and form a sub-center in Hunan. Peppers from Jiangxi, Guizhou, Hubei and Sichuan should all be imported from Hunan. These areas also constitute the hottest areas in China, so there is a saying that "Sichuanese are not afraid of spicy food, Guizhou people are not afraid of spicy food, and Hunan people are not afraid of spicy food".
Hunan people think that eating spicy food has a special relationship with Hunan people's personality. Eating Chili can promote blood circulation, not only can dispel cold and dehumidification, but also has a certain exciting effect. However, it is still unknown whether eating Chili peppers for a long time will affect a person's personality development. Hunan, at the core of spicy food, has produced many revolutionary figures who are not afraid of being beheaded in modern times. Mao Zedong thought that eating Chili peppers made people impulsive and irritable, "If you don't eat Chili peppers, it's not a revolution". However, although Chengdu people also eat spicy food, they are warm, kind, respectful, frugal and polite, while people in Northeast China don't eat spicy food, but they are often impulsive. This shows that this "impression of Chili's character" may be just a self-suggestion of people who eat spicy food.
Guizhou is also a spicy area that is often overlooked. Pepper spread from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Guizhou, separated by several provinces, but Guizhou may be the first region in China where peppers are widely eaten. Guizhou has been like this since ancient times because of the lack of salt. Tian Wen said in Kangxi's Qian Shu, "When it (salt) is scarce, use dog pepper (pepper) instead. Pepper is spicy, spicy instead of salty, which only hurts the husband's tongue and ears, not the right taste. " In the Annals of Sizhou Prefecture during the Kangxi period, it was also recorded in the category of drugs that "sea pepper, commonly known as spicy fire, replaced salt with soil seedlings". The nickname "sea pepper" comes from Hunan, which seems to explain the origin of pepper in Guizhou, but it is classified as a medicinal material, which also shows that the main use of pepper was not as seasoning.
In the Qianlong period, eating Chili peppers in Guizhou has become a fashion. At this time, the surrounding areas adjacent to Guizhou also began to generally eat Chili, and Xiangxi also had a formal record of eating spicy food. The "Fu Zhi" in the Qianlong period said that at this time, "Chen people called pepper instead of pepper, and those who took it were mostly green and red, and they cut it for food." However, it was not until Jiaqing that the records of widespread consumption of peppers in eastern Hunan and southern Hunan appeared.
Reshape Sichuan cuisine
Although Sichuanese are famous for eating spicy food, they come into contact with Chili much later. It was not until the 14th year of Qianlong (1749) that the first record about pepper was recorded in the county annals of Dayi County, a suburb of Chengdu: "Meat dish: Qin pepper, also known as sea pepper." This is more than half a century later than Hunan, but the custom of eating spicy food in Sichuan is almost as popular as that in Hunan. Sichuanese people keep the traditional habit of eating hemp, but at the same time they add spicy taste to their diet. Zanthoxylum bungeanum is called "sea pepper" in Sichuan, followed by Zanthoxylum bungeanum and capsicum. Pepper is actually a name invented by Hunan people, which seems to prove that the main producing area of Sichuan pepper is related to population migration in the early Qing Dynasty. During the Jiaqing period, there were records about peppers in Jintang, Huayang, Wenjiang, Chongning, Shehong, Hongya, Chengdu, Jiang 'an, Nanxi, Pixian, Jiajiang and Qianwei counties in Sichuan, as well as in Zhili counties in Hanzhou and Zizhou. The widespread distribution of pepper proves that it plays an increasingly important role in Sichuan people's eating habits.
After Guangxu, peppers were not only widely eaten by the people, but also recorded a large number of edible peppers in classic Sichuan cuisine recipes.
In Fu Chongju's Overview of Chengdu in the Late Qing Dynasty, Chili has become the main seasoning in Sichuan cuisine, and roast pork in Sichuan cuisine has also been written into the menu for the first time here. Pepper has since become the most important material and the most distinctive symbol of Sichuan cuisine, and "Sichuan cuisine" has been reshaped.
Today, Sichuanese are proud of Sichuan cuisine, which is only the crystallization of wisdom in the past 300 years. Today's Sichuan cuisine is divided according to traditional schools, including Shanghe Gang (centered on Chengdu and Mianyang), Xiahe Gang (centered on Chongqing and Wanxian), Xiaohe Gang (Zigong and Yibin) and Zichuan Gang (represented by Zi, including Weiyuan, Renshou, Jingyan and Fushun), but no matter how it is divided, it is inseparable from spicy harmony. Although it is extremely ingenious and changeable, Sichuan cuisine, which has been famous for thousands of years since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, may only have the same guiding ideology of "moderation and delicacy".
Pepper territory
The sphere of influence of Zanthoxylum bungeanum has finally been basically delineated. From 65438 to the beginning of 09 century at the latest, it was described in the literature of most provinces in China. During the Kangxi period, it was introduced from Zhejiang to Hunan and Guizhou in the southwest, and the pepper introduced from North Korea was also introduced from Northeast China to Hebei in North China. During the Yongzheng period, Shaanxi in the western region joined, and North China extended to Shandong. During the Qianlong period, East China expanded to Anhui, Fujian and Taiwan Province provinces, the surrounding areas of Hunan expanded to Guangxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Jiangxi and Hubei, and the west expanded to Gansu. During the Jiaqing period, East China expanded to Jiangsu; During the Daoguang period, North China expanded to Shanxi, Henan and southern Inner Mongolia.
More than 200 years later, peppers have spread all over China. At this time, the pepper planting areas in East China, Central China, South China, Southwest China (except Yunnan), North China, Northeast China and Northwest China have all been connected.
Compared with the rapid expansion of planting areas, spicy food areas are much more stable. Lan Yong, a professor at Southwest University, divided the pepper map of China according to the "spicy degree": the heavy spicy areas in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, mainly in Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan, Guizhou and southern Shaanxi; Taking Beijing and Shandong as the core, east to the Korean peninsula, west to the spicy areas in northern Xinjiang and Jiangsu to the temperate coastal areas in southeastern Guangdong, peppers are basically not eaten. This is not much different from the map of eating spicy food nearly 200 years ago.
Professor Lan Yong believes that it is necessary to have less sunshine, cold winter and humid climate to develop the habit of eating spices because of cold and wet demand. Yin, cold and dampness are the three elements of spicy food, and they are indispensable. The spicy areas in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River often have less solar radiation, foggy mountains and cold and humid winters, so they are naturally hot areas. In the northern slightly spicy areas, although there is strong sunshine in winter, most of them are dry inland, so the spicy direction is much weaker than the heavier spicy direction; As for the southeast coastal areas, although the humidity is high, the winter is warm and the sunshine is strong, so there is no demand for spicy food.
Qiandaohu area in western Zhejiang may provide a proof for this judgment. Qiandao Lake is mountainous, foggy, cold in winter and humid in climate. This place is quite spicy, just like an anomaly in the tasteless coastal area.
Climate factors are similar to the internal forces that determine the basic landforms in geology, carving the basic boundaries of spicy or light food, while the outstanding products of spicy culture, such as boiled fish, hairy belly hot pot and chopped pepper fish head, are similar to the external forces such as running water accumulation and weathering erosion, which make the boundaries of spicy food more and more blurred. Compared with the long rainy season, the new Sichuan cuisine or Hunan cuisine may be closer to pepper.
Sichuanese don't have to eat light food, and Zhejiang people don't have to eat spicy food. When a Sichuanese knows that he is not only far from Li Bai and Su Shi in taste, but also difficult to get close to Yang Sheng 'an or Qin Liangyu, and then thinks that he actually has a secret taste with Toussaint L'Ouverture and Aztecs, it makes people feel that how can he believe in cultural determinism when it comes to eating? After all, the world of commercial society is equal.