China's Mid-Autumn Festival or Dragon Boat Festival actually has this kind of content. These two festivals in China, one after the autumn harvest and the other after the summer harvest. At this time, people have passed the era of no food, and it must be very happy to have new food, so celebrate and thank God. Some people will say: didn't the Mid-Autumn Festival come from the struggle with the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty? Isn't the Dragon Boat Festival to commemorate Qu Yuan? This will only make sense later. In particularly ancient times, they were just festivals to celebrate the harvest.
On this festival, we must thank God for his care. Because without God's care, there will be natural and man-made disasters and crops will not grow well. The God of China is a dragon, an ancestor, and heaven and earth. Therefore, the dragon boat race and throwing zongzi into the water may be a thank you to the dragon. Moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival may be food for offering sacrifices to gods or ancestors. This is a custom in China. In the west, after the harvest, we should also thank God, so there was Thanksgiving in the ancient west. In the west, the roast bird on Thanksgiving Day is not necessarily a roast goose. Why do you eat roast poultry? We want to read the Bible. There is a passage in the Exodus of the Old Testament: Moses took the Israelites into desert of sinai without eating or drinking. The Israelis are very dissatisfied. Start complaining. Moses said that God had heard their complaints. They will get food. As a result, a large number of quails flew in and landed in their camp the next day. Moses said, This is the flesh that God has given you to eat. So they ate a big meal happily. This may be the earliest Thanksgiving in Judaism. There is no record in the Bible of how the Israelites eat these quails. But when I think about it, I know it must be baked. Because they are in the desert, they are short of water and can't cook. It is impossible to steam. They can't steam. And it's baked without any cooking utensils. They must have escaped from Egypt without heavy and expensive copper pots. There was no aluminum or iron at that time. Most people can't afford to use bronzes. In China, at that time, the copper pot was a tripod, which was a terrible thing. The fleeing Israelis won't take this with them. The clay pots used by ordinary people are fragile and can't be taken on the road, so there must be roasted quail. This is also the best way to eat. Therefore, there is such a content in western culture: poultry is God's salvation and gift. People should bake and eat. And it's best to eat it on Thanksgiving Day. Quails are much smaller than geese. Gooses are birds.
People are always looking for fat to eat. Goose, in particular, is a specialty of the Mediterranean, just as Turkey is a specialty of America. So later people ate roast goose instead of roast quail on Thanksgiving Day. In fact, in many festivals, roast goose is eaten. Because western festivals are related to God in Otawa. Europeans arrived in America and found that the bird God gave them was a turkey. So they eat roast turkey to thank God. Knowing the story of roast turkey makes it easier to accept the story of roast duck. The ancestor of roast duck is also the roasted goose in the west.
Goose roasting technology was introduced to China twice. Once in the Yuan Dynasty. Once in the Qing Dynasty. In the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongol Empire occupied a large territory. From eastern China to the Mediterranean, it is his territory. So Westerners such as Kyle Polo can come to China. They brought a lot of western culture. Including cannons and roast geese. There was a roast duck restaurant in Yuan Dynasty. Why did you change from roast goose to roast duck? Like a goose turning into a turkey. Ducks are a specialty of China. Duck for roast duck is an excellent variety cultivated in China. Its scientific name is Beijing roast duck. Now the whole world is eating this kind of duck. I said: Wild ducks are found all over the world, and only China people domesticate them. China began to domesticate wild ducks two thousand years ago. That's mallard in English. This name is now a clothing brand. Ducks are not domesticated in Europe. But domesticated geese very early. It is enough that they domesticated these geese. Because geese are bigger than ducks, as for ducks, people in the Mediterranean and Europe have always only regarded them as prey. There are records of geese in the Bible. In Roman legend, a flock of geese saved Rome. In China, geese are not as common as ducks. You can see ducks in every pond and seldom see geese. So the roast goose became a roast duck in China. The roast duck in the Yuan Dynasty is similar to the roast goose in the West. In China, it is called "Stewed Roast Duck". It seems that I can't eat this roast duck any more.
This baking method is also western: a stove made of stone or brick. Make a fire in it. First, the furnace itself is heated to make the furnace wall absorb a lot of heat. Then put the duck in. Roast duck with the heat from the furnace wall. This is also the way Europeans bake bread. This can make the temperature of the heated food not high, uniform and long. The person who invented this method must have special experience in baking food. That is, westerners who eat toast every day Because bread has been baked every day for thousands of years, a method of baking bread thoroughly without baking the crust and smelling of smoke was invented, that is, baking it with the heat absorbed by the furnace wall instead of the fire source itself. Because this kind of roast duck is roasted inside, it is called braised roast duck. At the end of Qing dynasty, the method of roast duck changed. Change from stewing furnace to hanging furnace. And the way of eating also has obvious Shandong characteristics. In fact, the roast duck restaurant was opened by Shandong Rongcheng. It is characterized in that cakes, green onions or cucumbers, sauce and ducks are eaten together. Cake rolls, green onions, cucumbers and sauces are the most common things that Shandong people eat. However, the author has a hypothetical explanation as to why Shandong people invented the roast duck:
In the late Qing Dynasty, Germany occupied Qingdao, Shandong Province, and at the same time immigrated to Qingdao in large numbers. William II, the German emperor at that time, said (as if by imperial decree): "Qingdao belongs to Germany and will always belong to Germany". So Qingdao was not a colony at that time, but an enclave of German mainland in China. This was of course Mr. William's idea. The Prussian soldiers who occupied Shandong were also hunters. Wild ducks are their traditional prey. They and their ancestors have been hunting wild ducks in Germany or Poland and the Czech Republic for thousands of years. So I'll keep calling when I get to China. There are many wild ducks in China. At least at that time, there were quite a few. Their habit is to fight and eat in the wild. This way of eating is similar to today's BABIQUE, which is baked with an open flame. This outdoor roasting method is very similar to that of Beijing roast duck. Is to rub honey on ducks and roast them. China people also learned this practice immediately, but they did not completely abolish braised duck. This is a combination of boredom and open flame baking. Roast duck not only has the smell of roasting with open fire, but also has the heat of stuffy stove.
At the same time, China people made a particularly great invention. Just don't gut the duck. Just stick a small hole in the duck, take out the internal organs, then pour boiling water into the duck's stomach, and then stick the small hole. Then hang it on the fire and bake it. This method has several advantages. The first is to prevent ducks from losing water due to roasting. The second is to let the water swell the duck's stomach, so that the duck's skin will swell instead of being baked soft, so that the duck's skin will be thin and brittle. Duck skin becomes the best part of roast duck. When China invented this baking method, it was the time when steam engines were widely used in the West. People in China use ducks as boilers. It seems to have the same effect as westerners. But if you combine this practice with the way of eating roast duck, you can get another story. Roast duck is eaten in a very special way, that is, skin rolls with green onions or cucumbers. Boil the bones and drink them. We also know that the roast goose in the west has a big problem, that is, the skin is baked very hard, but people often don't eat the skin. As for bones, you can't eat them. Germans in Shandong also often eat roast goose on festivals. Like modern westerners, meat is eaten and skin and bones are thrown away. These skins and bones became the food of China coolies. Shandong people roll skins into cakes and cook bones into soup according to their own habits. And found that this way of eating has a particularly good taste. People use their unique wisdom to turn this way of eating roasted goose skins and bones into a way of eating roast duck. As we know, this kind of cooking invented by the lower class occupies a particularly important position in China cooking. For example, "beggar chicken", it is said that the casserole house also started from the waste of rich people such as fat meat and water. Cooking methods such as instant-boiled mutton, steamed buns and braised fire also come from the lower level.
In Qing dynasty, the duck of roast duck changed from ordinary duck to stuffed duck. The method of stuffing ducks comes from Europe. This method was originally used to fill geese. Because Europeans like foie gras or foie gras very much. In order to make geese grow a big liver, Europeans came up with a way to fill the liver. It's called "forced feeding" in English. The purpose is to make geese grow a big fatty liver. Speaking of which, it seems a little disgusting. As a result, China people learned this method. Implement it on ducks. It became Beijing duck-stuffing.
Later, Beijing roast duck (not stuffed duck) was introduced to Britain, and Britain improved Beijing roast duck so that it could grow to more than ten kilograms without stuffing. And because of the improvement of feed, the lean meat content of ducks has increased. In China restaurants in Europe, it is found that the roast duck made from this duck is more suitable for European tastes. Because everyone is afraid of eating too much fat. Later, China also introduced this kind of duck. Now, some people call it an English duck. In fact, it is an improved breed of Beijing duck. Roast duck restaurants basically sell this kind of duck. The author thinks that the really delicious duck is the lake duck in the south. The lake duck is small, but it tastes much better than stuffed duck. If you change the dish made by South Lake duck to stuffed duck, the taste will be far from good. But the lake duck is too small to roast. Because roast duck can't be opened, and it mainly eats skin. Lake duck is not suitable for this practice. Sichuan has "duck in oil". It's made of lake ducks. Not bad either. As for wild ducks, I haven't eaten them, and there may be none in China. By the way, there are some wild ducks in China. Wild ducks are often seen in my hometown of Sichuan, but the number is definitely not as much as before.