What are the rules and taboos of ancient Chinese diet?
Mengziyun: "Food color, sex also." Diet is the most basic need for human survival and development, and it is also an important force to promote the historical process and the progress of civilization. If you want to talk about the food culture of our country, it is a very long history. As early as 1.7 million years ago, during the Yuanmou people, our ancestors learned to process food with fire, which marked that China's ancestors bid farewell to the barbaric era of Ru Mao drinking blood and entered the era of civilization of eating cooked food.
Since then, the cultivation and domestication technology, food processing technology, food storage technology, and dietary cooking technology of edible animals and plants in ancient China have developed rapidly, and have bred a broad and profound food culture, and at the same time formed a systematic and strict diet system.
In the historical evolution of the Chinese nation in the past five thousand years, whether it is the diet of the court, or the diet of large-scale activities such as sacrifices and banquets, or even the behavior norms of people's daily diet and food hygiene and safety, there are relatively complete systems to regulate.
To say that the rules of diet are very much valued by the rulers, after all, eating is something that is done every day, so the status is also supreme, so what are the rules of diet for our ancestors?
One. A variety of eating rules
The rules for the ancients to eat were varied, from before eating to eating, there were a variety of different rules.
Before eating, the ancients performed a sacrifice to the ancestors to show that they would drink water and remember the source and not forget the beginning. As the saying goes: "Rituals, food and drink must be sacrificed, showing that there is a precursor." ”
Before eating, the host must tell his guests to take the food and put it in his vessel to pay homage to the food gods.
Among them, the god of rice is at the top of the sacrifice, and the sacrificer prepares food and dishes in advance. If there is a melon in the diet, then before eating the melon, it is necessary to sacrifice the god of food. Among them, the upper part of the melon is used for sacrifice, the middle part is eaten by itself, and the lower part is thrown away and inedible.
If the food of the sacrifice is fish, the best part of the fish is sacrificed to the gods. If the diet contains livestock, the animal's mouth is placed facing forward and its ears are cut off before eating for sacrifice.
If you happen to encounter a large banquet, you need to open two sake bottles on the banquet, which are filled with genju and rice wine. Genjo is clean water that is poured from a well in the morning. The sake is only placed there and not eaten, focusing on the respect people have for their ancestors and gods.
There are enough rules before eating, but this is still a small witch compared to the rules in eating.
According to the requirements of the Book of Rites:
"Eat together without enough, eat together without hand, do not pass on rice, do not put rice, do not poke, do not throw with dog bones." No fixation, no rice. ”
This means that people must not show greed when eating, that is, they must not eat. (It is estimated that those big stomach kings who are doing eating and broadcasting today are speechless when they see it).) When you are full, you stop eating, and you can't be gluttonous. Wash your hands before eating, and do not rub your hands together before eating. When eating, do not use your hands to cook the ball, this is very reasonable, after all, it is very unsightly.
Do not put the food in your own rice bowl back into the rice serving tool. Do not continuously deliver food to the mouth, eat ugly; do not drink water in large quantities, and do not let the water flow out; do not chew bones loudly, do not bite your lips, and do not abandon insufficient food;
Don't put the bitten fish back, others will feel dirty; don't throw the bones to the dog (what did the dog do wrong?). ）。 All in all, it is necessary to eat according to etiquette, which can be said to be a lot of rules.
However, we see that these rules for the ancients to eat are still relatively reasonable, and they have become the customs of our current eating. But this is only about the rules of eating, for ingredients and chefs, the rules are far more than that.
Two strict ingredients and a demanding chef
If you want to say that the ancient times had the highest requirements for ingredients, it must be the emperor. As the supreme ruler of ancient Chinese society, the emperor's diet was responsible for by special officials, and the health and safety of the diet were specifically stipulated by national laws.
According to the "Zhou Li" record, there were more than 2,300 officials in charge of or related to diet in the Zhou Dynasty, accounting for nearly 60% of the total number of officials, and it can be said that the Zhou royal family did not raise "Ji" but "pigs" (the royal surname of the Zhou Dynasty was Ji).
What are so many people doing? According to the records, they all had their own tasks: there were farmers who supplied cooking ingredients, cattle people, sheep people, fishermen, salt people (as the name suggests, they were in charge of paying tribute to cattle and sheep and other meat), and there were warehouse people and house people who provided rice millet storage (probably the same as warehouse keepers);
There are food doctors and disease doctors who formulate health care recipes for the king; there are diners and wine people who cook and process diets full-time; there are si quan people and small ministers who provide eating services; and there are potters, bottle people, and Zi people who are in charge of making eating utensils.
In the feudal society that lasted for more than two thousand years after the Qin and Han Dynasties, almost every generation of dynasties was deeply influenced by the "Zhou Li" food official system, building a huge food official institution and formulating special regulations to strictly regulate the food official institution.
For example, the Qin set up taiguan, the Han set up shang food, the Sui set up the ancestral department, the Tang set up the dining department, the Song set up the Guanglu Temple, the Yuan set up the shiwenyuan, the Ming set up the Shang food bureau, and the Qing set up the imperial dining room, basically these institutions are similar to the Zhou Dynasty, and will not be introduced here. It can be said that the whole country is also painstakingly working hard for the emperor to eat. At the same time, the selection of chefs is also very exquisite.
Laws throughout the dynasties have strict rules on the selection of chefs. The Imperial Cooks of the Song Dynasty elected cooks and demanded that "each of them should not punish the evil ones with big characters", that is to say, those cooks could not be guilty.
Otherwise, cooking for the emperor would be "impure". If you do not choose a chef, you must be a clean person, and even the temporary miscellaneous personnel must also be "supplemented by people who have a line" if they are good children.
Not only that, but it is also necessary to send someone to supervise the preparation of the imperial kitchen dishes. According to ancient law, if a cook accidentally brought a drug containing toxicity to the emperor's special kitchen, he was sentenced to hanging. It can be said that cooking for the emperor is not prudent and life-threatening.
The cleanliness and hygiene of food is a basic requirement for food safety. The imperial kitchen staff who do not carefully select or serve unclean food when serving food, or food that is hot and cold, are subject to severe sanctions.
The "Tang Laws and Regulations," which is the official law of the Tang Dynasty, stipulates: "If it is a 'filthy thing,' it will be a disciple for two years in food and drink." In other words, if there is something unclean in the food, you will be exiled for two years, not only that, but if you do not pick the vegetables clean, you may also be exiled.
In addition, when serving meals to the Lord, it is also necessary to pay attention to the standardization of the movements: close the lid of the embroidered cage, and serve the food before entering the imperial treasure, and serve the food and the double offering straight over. That is, you have to cover the food with something like a hijab, then raise it high above your head and kneel on the ground to serve the emperor.
The food made by the imperial chef must first be tasted by a special official himself: "Those who do not taste, a hundred rods." It can be seen that the rules are strict.
In ancient China, there were many taboos in food mixing, and the imperial chef had to follow the Food Sutra when making the imperial meal, and the forbidden chef was severely punished.
The "Tang Law" stipulates: "Those who create imperial meals and mistakenly violate the food prohibition are hanged as staple foods."
In other words, if a taboo combination is used, then the chef will be hanged, which can be said to be extremely harsh.
What are these taboos? For example, there can be no meat in normal rice, and turtle meat (that is, turtle meat) can not have lettuce in the soup, which is taboo.
Because most of the ancient meat was not fresh, it was regarded as a poisonous thing, and the emperor could not eat ordinary meat. It can only enjoy the special offers of the court, and it must be eaten separately. So the emperor's diet is so strict, what about the food safety of the general public?
Three. Severely punish counterfeiting
In ancient China, food safety has always been a major issue related to social stability, and if the people have problems eating, it is very easy to directly shake the foundation of the regime's rule. Therefore, the emperors of ancient China advocated food production in an encouraging way, and sent commissioners to supervise food hygiene, and the legislation on food safety was gradually improved.
During the Zhou Dynasty, in order to enhance the safety of food, unripe vegetables and fruits were not allowed to be imported into the market; In order to prevent traders from killing animals, fish and turtles before the time, the imperial court issued a culling time regulation, and required people not to enter the market for trading before the season.
For example, the "Book of Rites and The Royal System" says: "From time to time, the fruits are not ripe, and they are not porridge in the city." ...... Animals, fish, turtles are not killed, and they are not porridge in the city. ”
This may be the earliest law in China to prohibit the sale of substandard food, which shows that the ancients in China have realized the importance of food safety.
During the Han Dynasty, the scale of restaurants in the city was further expanded. With the development of the private catering industry, the Han Dynasty strengthened the legal supervision of the food market. The imperial court of the Han Dynasty attached great importance to food hygiene and safety. If you have a problem with food, such as selling expired meat or expired eggs, in addition to the sellers and producers, the planners and managers will also be punished.
In the Song Dynasty, the rules were more perfect, and the urban economy of the Song Dynasty was quite developed, and the catering industry also prospered. To this end, the Song Dynasty promulgated a series of laws to improve the catering market.
First of all, on the basis of the laws of the Tang Dynasty, the Song Penal Code clearly carried out food safety penalties; secondly, in order to ensure that food is safe enough to promote the national economic development, the Song Dynasty Bill also introduced a series of bills to combat counterfeit and inferior food, and achieved obvious results.
By the end of the Qing Dynasty, China's ancient food safety was more perfect, and there were already many inspection processes for exported tea. For the tea exported by China to other countries, the Qing Dynasty government had to use two methods of double identification in advance: boiling bubbles and chemical testing. If it is found that the tea does not meet the specifications during the appraisal process, the tea will be confiscated by the authorities.
The so-called boiling bubble is to randomly sample in the tea leaves, and then put it in water to make tea and then drink, according to the situation of tea brewing and the taste of drinking, etc. to identify the level of tea. Chemical testing is even more rigorous. Only if both are qualified can they be sold overseas.
The author believes that although there are many dietary rules and taboos in ancient China, most of them are for the health of ancient people and the development of civilization, and it can be said that most of them are reasonable. The ancient people's cautious attitude towards eating, especially food safety, is worth learning for life.
Resources
【1】Shang Shu
【2】Zhou Li
【3】The Book of Rites
[4] Ouyang Xiu et al. New Book of Tang