A round of food, a scoop of water, are the gifts of the Creator.
If you don't know how to eat and drink, food is just a kind of fodder for people.
Throughout the ages, the intelligent Chinese people know how to reward the taste buds, if you ask which dynasty foodies have the most blessed mouth, non-Song people.
Whether it is braising, frying, stir-frying, stewing and other culinary techniques popularity, or salt, vinegar, peppers, black beans and other ingredients, and even the endless array of delicacies gathered, just like in all walks of life set off a wave of unprecedented gastronomic trend.
Elegant Song people not only love to eat, will eat, but also contributed to the improvement of kitchen utensils, furniture, and the formation of a set of well-organized back of the kitchen system.
Since the Song Dynasty, two meals a day began to transition to three meals a day, and the status of divided food system was gradually replaced by a combined food system. Without the Song Dynasty, an important milestone in China's culinary history would have been lost!
National scholar Mr. Chen Yin Ke, in "Deng Guangming & lt; Song history of the official record of the examination of the right & gt; preface" wrote:
Song Dynasty, has never been an underestimation of the dynasty, because it is with the Liao, Jin, Xixia, and other northern ethnic strife, signed a variety of unequal treaties, so that future generations only remembered that it is weak in the military.
Unbeknownst to them, the domestic economy and international trade of the Song Dynasty were far more prosperous than people today can imagine.
According to historical statistics, during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, the annual minting of coins in the treasury reached 5.06 million coins, while in the Tang Dynasty, the annual minting of coins was 320,000 coins during the reign of Emperor Kaiyuan, a difference of nearly 16 times, which is enough to prove that the Song people were rich.
With a solid economic foundation, the government is not poor, the people can live and work in peace and contentment, will put forward higher requirements for the quality of life. The first to be satisfied, naturally, is the stomach.
The greatness of the Song Dynasty, not only in the end of the five generations and ten states of war, but also to solve the problem of food and clothing with the people closely related.
Throughout the previous dynasty, several famines broke out in China, with no harvest for hundreds of miles, and the starving corpses were everywhere, which was shocking. After the founding of the dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, the founder of the Song Dynasty, immediately formulated a correct agricultural policy, and his children and grandchildren all carried out this policy seriously.
In comparison, the average grain yield per mu in the Tang Dynasty was 1.5 stone, and in the Song Dynasty, it was raised to 2 stone. It is worth noting that in the Tang Dynasty, one stone was about 53 kilograms, and in the Song Dynasty, one stone was about 97 kilograms.
In the book Economic History of the Song Dynasty, the author Chilman also calculated that the Song people reclaimed an area of 720 million mu of land, and the yield of rice in the south was about 176 kilograms per mu, and the yield of wheat in the north was about 89 kilograms per mu.
The great breakthrough in yield could not have been achieved without the effective measures taken by successive kings: setting up agricultural officials, counseling agriculture and mulberry farming, building water conservancy, opening up wasteland, rewarding the planting of trees and mulberry, and promoting agricultural innovation.
In order to keep people from starving and to eat good food, the emperors have set an example, and the most prominent case is that of Song Zhenzong Zhao Heng.
At that time, among the tributes sent to China by the Vietnamese envoys, there was a batch of excellent seeds called "Chamchung rice".
Emperor Song Zhenzong did not immediately promote to the local, first in the palace in the fields opened up two years of trial planting, found that its drought-resistant, short growing period, adaptability, and then give the seeds to the local officials, starting from the Fujian began to sow, and then passed to the Jianghuai and Zhejiang, and even the Henan area.
In addition to the Chamchung rice, the Northern Song Dynasty also introduced the Goryeo's yellow rice, Indian mung beans and so on. In order to make the new varieties circulate more quickly throughout the country, the government not only issued a series of edicts to promote agriculture, but also issued an edict to exempt agricultural tax.
Not only did farmers have fields to plant, but the food on their tables became more and more plentiful, and eating was no longer just about satiety, but also about aesthetics.
How much the Song people loved to eat, turn Zhang Zeduan's heirloom work "Qingming Shanghe Tu" can be appreciated. The 5-meter-long scroll vividly depicts the people of Kaifeng in Tokyo.
People of all colors travel through the streets and piers, sedans, mules and horses are busy, boats of all sizes dock at the shore, the tall city tower stands in the center of the city, and the houses on both sides of the scale, the grand style of the city jumps out of the paper.
In the scroll nearly 100 buildings, there are at least 45 stores operating in the catering industry, such as tea houses, liquor stores, noodle stores, butcher stores, etc., and even appeared in the "takeaway boy".
Just see, a small fellow with a dinner plate in one hand, slowly walking forward, I do not know which family to deliver the freshly prepared meal. The idea of home delivery was so far ahead of its time that the country was already able to provide the service!
Song people love to eat what, in the "Dream Liang Book", "Tokyo Meng Hua Book", "Old Story of Wulin" and other classic works, has listed a long list.
Such as noodles, Song people called "soup cake", there are bamboo shoots splash meat noodles, salt fried noodles, fomentation soft sheep noodles; then steamed bread, Song people called "steamed cake", there are mutton steamed bread, crab steamed bread, bamboo shoots steamed bread; pastries are even more varied, there are heavy sun cake, Chestnut cake, plum cake, hu cake ......
Interestingly, the Song people will now be the dumplings called "wontons", and what we say today, wontons, is called "馉饳".
People in the north are mainly pasta, and people in the south are mainly rice, but also eat fried rice. The rich and noble people pursued the fineness of food; for the commoners, a bowl of vegetable soup and a piece of fried tofu could be eaten with a sense of satisfaction.
The most incredible thing is that the Song people actually also love "late-night poisoning".
As we all know, the Tang Dynasty implemented the night ban, every night to drums to inform the people, "night ban" began, not to go out privately, violators will be punished, only three days a year is not night ban. To go out at night to drink and rub rice, is simply a fantasy. But if you traveled to the Song Dynasty, you can be relieved.
When you visit the night market of the Song people, you will realize that the food paradise should be here. There is no restriction on the opening hours, the Song people's night market is usually until the end of the night, and then open early on the fifth day of the night, food, drink, everything, and the price is not expensive.
According to the different seasons, stores will also introduce seasonal menus, hot summer there are such as lychee paste, plum ginger, sugar ice cold Yuanzi such appetizing desserts; to the cold winter, people eat rabbit, wild duck, roasted pork skin and other nourishing ingredients.
When it comes to meat, we have to mention a famous dish - Dongpo Pork.
The great writer Su Shi was relegated to Huangzhou for the "Wutai Poetry Case", found that the local pork is extremely delicious, but rarely eaten, so the creation of braised pork, and the cooking skills written into the poem:
There are many other food related to Su Shi, such as Dongpo elbows, Dongpo bean curd, Dongpo Liangfan, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria, Dongpo Poria. Poria cake, Dongpo celery chopped, Dongpo cuttlefish, Dongpo soup and so on.
As a veteran gourmet, Su Shi, while developing new dishes, was enthusiastic about advising an old woman selling deep-fried noodle cakes.
The old woman was very skillful, but no one came to buy her noodle cakes because the store was remote. So, Su Shi wrote a poem saying:
Because of this poem, The deep-fried noodle cake is presented to the neighboring woman, the old woman's business has been booming since then. We don't know how the flavor of deep-fried noodle cake is, but through the writing of Su Shi, it seems that we can feel the crunchy and sweetness of a thousand years ago.
There are a few scholars who love to study food like Su Shi.
Drawing on the essence of folk noodle-making, Zheng Wenbao, a scholar of the early Northern Song Dynasty, also contributed a unique flavor - Yunying noodles.
Yunying noodles are made of lotus root, lotus, rhododendron, taro, chicken head, water chestnut, mushroom, and lily etc. First, the noodles are made of lotus root, lotus, rhododendron, taro, chicken head, water chestnut, mushroom, and lily.
First of all, the above ingredients are mixed, lean meat steamed until rotten, to cool the wind, in the stone mortar finely mashed, add sugar and honey produced in Sichuan steamed, continue to pour into the stone mortar gently pounded, so that the sugar and honey with which to mix well, and then take out a ball, cooled and hardened, with a knife to cut and eat. The thin slices cut off look like snowflakes, and this is where the name "Yunying Mian" comes from.
A bowl of ordinary noodles can be a combination of so many ingredients, it is indeed a lot of effort. In fact, in the production method of Yunying noodles, you can see the shadow of Shanxi knife-shaved noodles.
Every cuisine is born from the work of its predecessors. The Yunying noodles were favored by countless diners and later included in the Song Dynasty recipes.
Cai Jing, a powerful minister, was also a fanatic about food. Legend has it that he invited his subordinates to savor crab brain soup dumplings in Kaifeng and spent more than 1,300 guan on a single meal, which was equivalent to one month's salary.
In Cai Jing's house also set up a level of top chef team for its services. The record says, "In the Song dynasty, Cai Jing had hundreds of cooks and maids, and fifteen cooks. ......"
Not only Cai Jing, but also the back kitchens of government officials and officials' families were similarly configured, with more or fewer cooks. Unlike his dynasty, the Song Dynasty's celebrity chefs were mostly women.
Among the many professions, the cooks were the most expensive, and their division of labor in the back of the kitchen was very clear, with some just cutting silk, some just arranging plates, and each process was done to the best of their ability.
If not for the rich and powerful, the average family can not afford to use the cook. Sometimes, in order to get a good cook, even if the official is a governor, you have to use a sedan chair to meet with dignity.
Then look at the cook's list of ingredients, the cost of a meal is equivalent to buying a few good silk. In the long run, how many families can afford such daily consumption?
Whenever there is a grand banquet, it is time for the "four divisions and six bureaus" of the big families to show their skills.
The "four divisions" include the Accounts Division, Kitchen Division, Tea and Wine Division, Table Division; "six bureaus" include the Fruit Bureau, Honey Fry Bureau, Vegetable Bureau, Oil and Candle Bureau, Incense Bureau, Row Office Bureau. From the song and dance with the feast to change the soup and wine, specialists in charge, each in their own way, has formed a set of mature management system.
In the Song people's table, there is a difference from the previous dynasty's special phenomenon, that is, people can sit around a table, enjoying the delicacies.
Reminiscent of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, food is placed on a low wooden case, the meal must be seated on the ground, each person a share, do not interfere with each other. This is the system of sharing food, which has been practiced for more than a thousand years.
Although it was a more formal system, if the family was not able to eat together at the same table, it was a bit cold.
With the development of the times and the emancipation of thought, food culture is more and more close to the secular, high tables and chairs appeared, the convenience of the combined system of food into the mainstream, the exquisite dishes and cutlery are readily available.
What is valuable is that the Song people have paid great attention to food hygiene, strict regulations on the use of public chopsticks.
According to Yuan dynasty scholar Kong Qi's "Zhi Zheng Zhi Ji - Stop Butterfly", there were three essential tableware items in the Song Dynasty. The third is the "slag bucket", which is used to hold meat bones and fish splinters to keep the table clean.
With the formality of the communal food system and the increased awareness of the communal chopsticks, the popularity of "hot pot" in the Song Dynasty was not an accident, but rather a natural progression.
In the Southern Song Dynasty, there is a book called "Shanjia Qingsui" written by Lin Hong, a scholar of the Southern Song Dynasty, which contains a food called "dialing xiasui".
The literati of the two Song dynasties favored hare meat. Using chopsticks, the thinly sliced rabbit meat was repeatedly stirred in the hot broth, and in a short time, the meat turned into a haze-like hue, and when dipped in the sauce, it tasted exceptionally delicious, which is the prototype of shabu shabu?
Compared to "hot pot", a newer way of cooking, "stir-fry", came out of nowhere. Since before the Song Dynasty, Chinese cooking has been based on steaming and boiling, using mostly renewable plant fuels.
By the Song Dynasty, commerce and industry were booming, and the demand for fuel was getting higher and higher, and it was clear that plant-based fuels could not meet the supply, so the coal mining industry exploded, and coal became the favored new energy source.
At the same time, metal smelting in the Song Dynasty became more mature, and iron, which was previously used to make agricultural tools and weapons, was gradually used by craftsmen to make cooking utensils in large quantities.
Along with the popularity of iron pots in the folk, but also for the Chinese fried dishes provide the basis for development. It is no longer unusual for people to stir-fry a few dishes of home cooking with a spoon.
Today, we are accustomed to the Chinese cuisine is divided into four major flavors and eight major cuisines, the four major flavors, namely, Lu, Sichuan, Guangdong, Huaiyang; eight major cuisines refers to the Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine, Zhejiang cuisine, Anhui cuisine, Guangdong cuisine, Fujian cuisine.
The Song Dynasty is so much in favor of food, and there will be no cuisine?
The Song people's division is simpler, there are mainly southern food, northern food and Sichuan rice.
"Szechuan rice" is a kindred spirit. The Sichuan people are not spicy, and the reason can be found here. Except that chili peppers were introduced from the Americas during the Ming Dynasty, and were accepted by the general public during the Qing Dynasty. No chili pepper Song people eat in the end what "spicy"?
Onions, ginger, garlic, leeks, mustard greens, peppercorns ...... were all included in the kitchen, as long as they could provide a spicy flavor. The most commonly used Sichuan peppercorns are a type of pepper with a stronger flavor than regular peppercorns.
In the morning market, people consume Ginger Spicy Soup, which is made with ginger and mustard greens to provide the spicy flavor, and then pepper to enhance the numbness on the tongue. When you go out early in the morning, a bowl of this soup has the effect of lifting your brain. At the night market, vendors sell "spicy vegetable cake", "spicy bones", "mustard spicy meloner" and other special snacks, business is particularly hot.
Roasted, grilled, fried, popped, slipped, stewed ...... in the Song Dynasty basic molding; meat, vegetarian, noodle, tea food ...... in the Song Dynasty competing.
The text is pale, after a thousand years of baptism, some of the secret flavors are lost, the flavor of the wonders of the jianghu is gradually forgotten. But if time could be turned back, how would we look at this era while feasting?
Song dynasty, after all, is a dynasty full of regrets, although it can be regarded as the realization of the unification of the great, but the territory is not as vast as the period of the Han and Tang dynasties, the border area is always war.
The Song Dynasty was also a peak of civilization, with the minimalist elegance of Song ceramics, the uniqueness of Song lyrics, the excellence of calligraphy, and the beauty of paintings, all of which demonstrated the style of a great nation.
It is an undeniable fact that the Song Dynasty was rich but not strong, and that it was oppressed; it is also an undeniable fact that it was rich and fertile, and that it was able to support a population of 100 million people.
If the Song dynasty had not been destroyed by the Mongols, and the industrial and commercial prosperity had continued, perhaps China would have entered the Industrial Revolution earlier than Europe, and that would have been possible.
The wheel of history has never stopped, and the rise and fall of the Song dynasty has long been fixed. Regardless of how the world changes, a tea and three meals a day, is still the same theme.
When we hold up the hands of the bowl, chewing the flavor of life, imagine a thousand years ago in the city of the alley, a yelling vendors picking the stretcher to come, a batch of diners lined up in a long queue, will always be unable to stop smiling.
"Where the diet of rare flavors, when the new meal, strange fine vegetables, pieces of goods are not missing." This is the fashion of the Song people.
Live in the present, taste this day, and now we harvest, not only is the gluttonous feast, but also far better than the Song Dynasty's national wealth and military strength. Born in the peace and prosperity, the people are well, no disaster, can be well-fed, wine and wine, for foodies, is the real happiness it!