In the long history of China, there have been as many gourmets as there are crucian carp crossing the river. The most famous ones are undoubtedly the following eight:
The first is Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period. Confucius already had many titles, including educator, thinker, philosopher, social activist, elderly person...it's a long list. I think one more should be added: gourmet. Although Confucius said something like, "A gentleman has nothing to eat to satisfy himself and a home to live in peace," but in fact, he was a very particular person about his diet. His emphasis involves various aspects such as etiquette, hygiene, taste, etc. There is a passage in "The Analects of Confucius Xiangdang" that can be regarded as an outline of Confucius' food culture thoughts:
You never get tired of fine food, and you never get tired of fine food.
Do not eat if the food is too gluttonous or the fish is sluggish and the meat is rotten; if the appearance is bad, do not eat; if the smell is bad, do not eat; if the food is not cooked well, do not eat; if the fish is not cooked properly, do not eat; if the fish is not cut properly, do not eat; If you don't get the sauce, you won't eat it.
Although there is a lot of meat, it won’t make you lose your breath.
But unlimited wine is not as good as chaos.
Do not withdraw ginger food.
Sacrifice to the public, do not sacrifice meat. The sacrificial meat will not last for three days, and it will not be eaten for three days.
No words when eating, no words when sleeping.
Although you eat vegetable soup and offer melons as a sacrifice, you must be fasting.
There are so many exquisite things that ordinary people can only dream of. Of course, Confucius also expressed his opinions on food in other places. Due to space limitations, we will not quote them one by one. This verse alone is enough to prove one thing: Confucius, who lived 2,500 years ago, was a well-deserved gourmet!
The second place is Cao Cao in the late Han Dynasty. Everyone in the world says that Cao Cao is a treacherous minister, and those who have a little deeper knowledge may praise him as a capable minister. Anyone who has read the history of literature knows that Cao Cao is a poet. From poetry, we know that Cao Cao has a lot of experience in wine culture, and he wrote " Du Kang is the only one who can relieve worries." As everyone knows, Cao Cao also worked hard to study the art of cooking. According to Wang Shihan's "Selected Wenxuan and Neo-Confucianism", among the books cited in the annotations of "Selected Wenxuan" is Wei Wu's "Four Seasons Food System". In other words, Cao Cao may have done special research on cooking and written special books. The "Four Seasons Food System" compiled from "Taiping Yulan" and other documents that can be seen now talks about the origin and eating methods of fish. One *** talked about fourteen kinds of fish, some of which are difficult to identify today. Here are three examples:
Pixian fish, with yellow scales and red tail, comes out of the rice fields and can be made into sauce. ("Yu Lan" 936)
Sparse-toothed fish, which tastes like pork, comes out of the East China Sea. ("Yu Lan" 940)
The squid is as big as a five-douch dowry, one foot long, with a mouth and a lower jaw. They often come from the river in the middle of March and often catch them in Mengjin. Yellow fertilizer can only be used as vinegar. There are also Huai River. ("Beginner's Notes" 30)
Obviously, Cao Cao was a gourmet who especially loved fish.
The third one is Du Fu of the Tang Dynasty. In the minds of many people, the poet Du Fu was a miserable, cynical poet who was frustrated all his life. In fact, this couldn't be further from the truth! Du Fu was born into a noble family and lived a carefree life since he was a child. In his youth, he lived a life of chasing eagles and beasts and riding horses wildly. Although he has suffered a lot since middle age, he is still a member of the ruling class and has seen all kinds of delicacies. In his poems, there are vivid descriptions of palace meals, princely banquets, and farmers' drinks. The description of the situation of eating sashimi in the poem "Jiang Qishao's Mansion in Jiangxiang Sets up a Dock, and Plays and Presents Long Songs"; in the poem "After the illness, the king leans to drink, and presents songs", a homely meal served by a friend, the host It can prepare a table of meals with meat and wine, which shows true love in troubled times; in the poem "To the Eight Immortals of the Guard", a very simple late-night snack in the war years, "spring leeks are cut in the night rain, and yellow beams are cooked in the new kitchen" , full of human warmth... They are all delicacies in the history of literature. It can be said that Du Fu was the first person to express Chinese food in poetry. Needless to say, Du Fu is a huge foodie.
The fourth one is Su Shi of the Song Dynasty. There is no doubt that Su Shi is the most famous gourmet in Chinese history. Because he invented a delicacy that is still popular today: Dongpo Pork. In addition to pork, Su Shi also liked various fish ingredients (including yellow croaker, mackerel, seabass, etc.), the most famous of which is puffer fish. One of the poems in "Two Evening Scenes on the Spring River by Hui Chong" says:
Three or two peach blossoms outside the bamboo are the duck prophets of the warmth of the spring river.
The ground is full of wormwood and reed buds, which is when the puffer fish is about to come.
This shows the courage of gourmet Su Shi. Su Shi's interest turned to vegetarianism in his later years, mainly eating vegetables and fruits. During his stay in Hainan, Guangdong, he tasted all kinds of fruits from the South, including bayberry, tangerine, lychee, longan, olive, and betel nut, and there was nothing he disliked. Among them, I especially like lychees. "If you eat three hundred lychees a day, you will grow up to be a Lingnan native!" The famous saying will remain in the world. In addition, Su Shi also focused on the development of soup dishes (soup) in his later years. He has invented several soups, one of which is made of spring bamboo shoots, glutinous rice flour (minced ginger, garlic, and chives), and shepherd's purse. "The bamboo shoots are sprouting under the steps in the New Year, and the old poppies are covered with frost in the kitchen. He often goes around the wheat fields to seek help. Wild shepherds are used to cook mountain soup for the monks." ("Ci Yunzi grew vegetables without rain for a long time") One was made by Su Shi in the fields, with a broken tripod. The main materials were manjing and Lupine (that is, radish). This soup probably has good health-care effects. Mr. Dongpo is very proud of it. He calls himself "Zhenfeng" and named it after the three characters "Dongpo Soup" ("Di Shaozhou Boiled Manjing and Lujiang Soup").
There is also a gold-medal Dongpo soup called "Dongpo Jade Grits Soup" - it was actually invented by Su Shi's son Su Guo. "The aroma is as white as ambergris, and the taste is as clear as milk. Don't compare the golden glutinous rice from the South China Sea to the jade grits soup from Dongpo!" ("Guozi suddenly came up with a new idea, using mountain yam to make jade grits soup, the color and taste are both delicious) It’s so strange that the Sutuo in the sky is unknowable, and there is no such taste in the world.") The taste is so good. Su Dongpo kept the specific method of making it secret and refused to publish the recipe. He only told us that the main ingredient is potato.
The fifth place is Zhang Dai in the late Ming Dynasty. Although Zhang Dai himself is dressed in white and has never passed the imperial examination or held an official position, he was born in an official family and his family is well-off. In addition, his hometown is Jiangnan, which is rich in products, so he is well-positioned to pursue various kinds of life. enjoyment. He claims to be good at monasteries, good at raising maids, good at promiscuity, good at fresh clothes, good horses, good lanterns, good fireworks, good at plowing gardens, good at preaching, good at antiques, good at flowers and birds... He also has poetry, songs, music, chess, calligraphy and painting. , shengxiao string pipe, cuju and li, bolu and tiles, using guns and sticks, shooting arrows and moving horses, Laotian drums and singing, Fu Fen's appearance, story telling and joking, playing Ruan and throwing pots... he is proficient in everything. Naturally, Zhang Dai is also very particular about various diets. Among them, he is particularly knowledgeable about how to eat crabs. Every October, Zhang Dai and his friends and brothers form a "crab party" to hold a crab-eating activity. The general situation is: one person is given six crabs. To avoid the cold fishy smell, they take turns cooking and eating them. Supplementary foods include fat cured duck, cow cheese, amber-like drunken clams boiled in duck juice, jade-like cabbage, fruits such as Xie orange, Fengli, and Fengling, vegetables such as Bingkeng bamboo shoots, and Yuhu ice for drinking. Japonica white rice from Xinyu, and Orchid Snow Tea for gargling. All of this is recorded in his article "Eating Crabs".
The sixth place is Li Yu from the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. Li Yu is known as a dramatist, but in fact he is similar to Zhang Dai in that he is also a man of erudition and wide-ranging interests. This can be best proved from his book "Xian Qing Ou Ji". His gourmet cultivation can be seen from the "Drinking and Food Department" in "Xian Qing Ou Ji". "Food and Drink" is divided into three sections, vegetable food, cereal food, and meat food. In other words, he has studied the preparation and consumption of various materials required for delicacies, including vegetables, rice and flour staple foods, water, land, and air, birds, beasts, livestock, fish, and shrimp. And often have their own unique insights.
The seventh place is Jin Shengtan of the Qing Dynasty. Jin Shengtan was an outstanding literary critic in the Qing Dynasty. He highly praised "Li Sao", "Zhuangzi", "Historical Records", "Du Shi", "Water Margin" and "The Romance of the West Chamber" and other works, calling them must-reads for all the talented people in the world. And comment on each one. It is a pity that only two commentaries of "Water Margin" and "The Romance of the West Chamber" have been completely preserved to this day. When he commented on "Water Margin", his insights were novel and his talents were overflowing. Jin Shengtan lived in poverty, was wild and uninhibited, and his words and deeds were often sensational. He was called a master of dry humor. Ren Weichu in Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, imposed arbitrary punishments, bribery and expropriation. Eighteen people including Jin Shengtan instigated more than a thousand students to gather at the Confucian Temple to cry and protest when news of Shunzhi's death reached Suzhou. As a result, the court was offended and ordered that the scholars, including Jin Shengtan, be executed in Lingchi. When he was about to be executed, Jin Sheng sighed and drank freely, and said: "It is a pain to cut off the head, and it is happy to drink alcohol. Cutting off the head and drinking wine first is so happy! So happy!" Another version is "Beheading is extremely painful, and the saint What a surprise!" (Liang Zhangju's "Miscellaneous Notes on Returning to the Fields") His last words to his eldest son were not about anything important, but rather a recipe for a dish. There are different versions of this. One version is "...chew peanuts and dried tofu together, and it tastes like ham"; another version is "...eat salted vegetables and soybeans together, and it tastes like walnuts." Once this method was passed down, I will die with no regrets." As for Jin Shengtan's spirit of still thinking about gourmet recipes in times of crisis, we must also enshrine him as a gourmet. I would like to offer a petal of my heart's fragrance to the sage's soul!
The eighth place is Yuan Mei of the Qing Dynasty. Yuan Mei was a famous poet and poetry critic during the Qianlong period. At that time, if a poet could get a word of praise from him, his worth would immediately double. Therefore, many poetry lovers, including a group of dignitaries, respectfully sent their poetry works to him for comment. This is where his famous book "Suiyuan Poetry Talk" comes from. Yuan Mei was disgusted with the intrigues in the officialdom. When his father died at the age of thirty-three, he resigned and returned home. From then on, he stopped serving as an official. He bought an abandoned Sui garden in Nanjing, renamed it "Suiyuan", built a house and lived in Shijiu. Spend your life leisurely. During this period, Yuan Mei wrote "Suiyuan Food List", which was later hailed as an important work that systematically discussed cooking techniques and dishes from the north and south. The book is divided into instructions list, warning list, seafood list, fresh food list, special animal list, miscellaneous animal list, Yu family list, aquatic fish list, non-scaled list, miscellaneous vegetable list, small menu, snack list, rice list Fourteen aspects including porridge menu, food and wine list. It uses a large amount of space to describe in detail more than 300 dishes and snacks from the north and the south that were popular in my country from the 14th to the 18th century. It also introduces the fine wines and teas of the time, from the selection of ingredients to the tasting. Although Yuan Mei has written a special book on cooking, he himself adheres to the ancient motto "a gentleman stays away from the cook" and does not know how to cook. Therefore, he is not a master of cooking, but a gourmet.