It was noon on a June day in the Imperial City, and the people in the city were cooking and sweating like rain.

The sound of selling ice comes across the water, but pedestrians are not satisfied.

The sweet frost and snow are as sweet as sugarcane, growing under the Nanshan Mountain every year.

——"Lychee Song"

Yang Wanli's poem not only points out the Song Dynasty citizens' love for iced fruits, but also points out the ancient people's way of eating iced fruits without refrigerators. Only by digging a cellar in winter and burying ice can you eat cold food in summer.

Iced lychees

People in the Song Dynasty were experts in eating. In their hands, ice cubes could not only be used to freeze fruits, but also to create a variety of refreshing frozen drinks. .

1. A wide variety of cold drinks in the Song Dynasty took care of the hot summer days of the ancients in the Song Dynasty: herbal tea, snow-soaked plum blossom wine, sour plum soup, and papaya juice

Cold drinks in the Song Dynasty were collectively referred to as "cold water" , further broken down, the cold drink family is divided into four major branches: juice, herbal tea, wine, and soup drinks.

Juice in the Song Dynasty not only refers to the squeezed fruit juice that we are familiar with, but also refers to a kind of juice that is boiled with fruits and sugar at the same time and then blended with water. The juice made by this method is also called "thirsty water". The more common fruits that can be boiled with sugar include peaches, bayberries, papayas and oranges.

Drinking juice in the Song Dynasty was a bit like drinking milk tea and cold shrimp in summer today. The store would first scoop out a large spoonful of juice from the pot for you, and then add a bowl of crushed ice to you. Usually the store will tell you: drink slowly, it will taste better when the ice cubes melt!

The ancients knew very well that if you wanted to drink a delicious glass of frozen juice in the Song Dynasty, you had to go to a larger delicatessen or hotel, because only merchants like them had enough financial resources to dig cellars for storage. ice cubes.

Pictures for reference

Herbal tea was the most common summer drink in cities during the Song Dynasty. In "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", both sides of the Bianhe River are lined with large and small tea shops and teahouses. , tea houses and tea shops.

For people in the Song Dynasty, drinking tea was not only to relieve summer heat and quench thirst, it was also a daily leisure way for citizens. Wang Anshi once said: "The use of tea is equal to rice and salt. It cannot be eaten without drinking it for a day." "

Citizens living in Bianjing City like to invite a few relatives and friends to Bianqiao for tea in the evening. Because at Bianqiao, you can not only see the "Zhouqiao Bright Moon", known as the Eight Scenic Spots of Bianjing, but also experience the bustling "Zhouqiao Night Market".

There is a poem:

The stone bridge stands high in Junyi ditch, and the moonlight is like silver in cold autumn.

Ao carries mountains and silver quells on its back, and the rainbow shines across the sea and floats on jade beams.

The incense carts have gone to Huajian City, and the red-sleeved songs are still flowing upstairs.

Some people play the phoenix pipe several times, and the scenery in Bianzhou is better than that in Hangzhou.

Tea stalls on the streets of the Song Dynasty

In the night market, if citizens are lucky enough, they can also see tea fights.

People in the Song Dynasty paid a lot of attention to tea drinking. They did not drink tea directly with boiling water. The tea at that time was usually made into the form of tea cakes. When people in the Song Dynasty drank tea, Then knock off a piece of tea cake, grind the tea leaves into powder with a tea grinder, and then add boiling water to make it. During this process, the tea maker needs to use a tea whisk to stir the tea soup to make it present various "soup flowers".

Tea ordering work: Yuanshan, named after the tea soup is shaped like flying birds and mountains and rivers

People in the Song Dynasty loved drinking, to the extent that no feast would be complete without wine. Mr. Li Huarui, a scholar of Song history, once estimated that in the tenth year of Xining in the Northern Song Dynasty, there were at least 159 million buckets of wine circulating on the market that year.

In the Song Dynasty, only Zhengdian stores licensed by the imperial court could make wine. The 72 Zhengdian stores in Bianjing were responsible for producing and supplying hundreds of kinds of fine wines circulating throughout the capital.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a Qingfenglou Hotel in Bianjing City. The store owner was very good at doing business. He could always launch some attractive products according to the season. For example, in the summer, stores will sell "snow-soaked plum blossom wine" and "coconut wine" to attract customers. Citizens know that there is such a good place, and the surrounding residents regard it as a good place for summer parties. Where to go, these people "enjoy the coolness here in summer months".

This store sells "plum blossom wine", and there are really many tricks. First, the wine needs to be chilled with ice cubes. When drinking, you need to use a silver bowl and ladle and play "Plum Blossom Yin" to entertain. On a hot summer day, in such a joyful atmosphere, guests will feel comfortable taking a sip of "Snow-infused Plum Blossom Wine".

Pictures are provided for reference

Soup is a kind of "medicinal drink" for relieving summer heat that people in the Song Dynasty are very fond of, such as the sour plum soup, white plum soup, black plum soup and osmanthus soup that we drink now They all belong to the soup family.

Tangyin, also known as "yinzi" and "xiangyinzi", can be seen in the imperial palace and on the streets.

The emperors of the Song Dynasty liked to give soup drinks to traveling soldiers and favored ministers in the summer to express their concern. Therefore, the scholar-bureaucrats regarded drinking "soup drinks" as a great honor. things. The emperor simply stipulated that among the civil servants, "all elected officials, envoys, etc. who have no job title or insufficient job title" can receive an extra "tea money" in addition to their salary in the summer.

The soup tastes sweet, refreshing and can quench thirst and cool down the body in summer, so it is very popular among the people.

In the Song Dynasty, vendors carried buckets of soup and tableware to the market early in the morning to wait for the arrival of customers. They only needed to hold up a clear cloth umbrella and set up beds in the street. The stools are stacked, and the shout "Sir, please have a bowl of drinks!" is heard. Even if the guests hear it from a distance, they will quickly gather around.

The "Xiangyinzi" in the Qingming River Scene

Having seen the four major families of "iced drinks" in the Song Dynasty, let's introduce another popular summer refreshment in the Song Dynasty. Food - Chilled fruit.

2. Iced fruits, leading the summer food fashion in the Song Dynasty

The scenery of West Lake in summer is very pleasant, with willows clinging to the embankment and lotus flowers standing gracefully on the lake. Everywhere you look, You can see the citizens riding the painted boats to enjoy the scenery on the lake.

Summer is the time when lotus flowers are in full bloom. The lotus flowers gently open their buds and stretch their bodies among the lotus leaves. They are as quiet and pure as girls who have just woken up. This scene is so beautiful. Delightful for the eyes. At this time, a breeze blew across the lake, and a fresh and elegant fragrance unique to lotus was diffused in the air.

Willows, lotus, tourists and the pavilion in the center of the lake complement each other, and together weave this beautiful West Lake landscape painting.

When the elegant scholars of the Song Dynasty visited the West Lake, they liked to drink wine, compose poems, and sing loudly in the boat with melons and fruits soaked in ice basins. The beautiful scenery and delicious food go with a good mood. Such days should be It's so beautiful!

Willow, Lotus, Hu Xin Pavilion

This way of eating "fruit soaking in ice basin", in addition to putting a few pieces of ice in the fruit basin, you can also add cheese , made into the "fruit ice cream" we are familiar with.

A poem describes this: "The sugarcane syrup is cold from the silver cup, and the jade bowl is red."

This method is to heat the cheese and cane sugar until they are soft. , then pour it on the fruit, and add ice cubes to cool it down. The ice-soaked fruit made in this way has a texture similar to the ice cream we have today.

The way to eat "ice-soaked fruit ice cream" has already appeared in the Tang Dynasty. It has been very popular with girls since its debut. At that time, when best friends gathered together, a piece of this delicacy would usually appear on the table.