Ome: From a natural thing to a representative of the mood

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The city is full of hot, and the plums are yellow and rainy. Every year in June and July, the warm and humid air flow of the Pacific Ocean brought by the southeast monsoon makes the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River appear continuous rainy weather, and it coincides with the ripening period of Jiangnan plums, so it is called "plum rain". The green plum that conforms to the season, sweet and sour, blends together, and is long-awaited. Through the green plum, people lament the change of time, resort to the sadness of parting in the green plum, use the green plum to bless love, decorate the beautiful scenery with the green plum, and melt the green plum into the wine to talk about heroic arrogance... In this way, Ome has become a representative of the mood from a natural object, whether as an ingredient or a cultural symbol, it has long penetrated into all aspects of life.

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Seasoning Wakami and soup only salt plum

China is the origin of plums, as the best spokesperson for the rainy season of plums, the history of cultivation is at least 3,000 years. As a tree of the genus Dipterocarp, the plum tree is about 20 meters tall, with oblong turquoise leaves, or pure white or pale yellow or light pink flowers, spherical fruits, dense and lush, and a high posture.

Before the invention of vinegar, ome was a seasoning used by the ancients to blend sour taste. Archaeologists excavated a delicate eating vessel in yin ruins, the copper ding, which was filled with carbonized plum cores, which was identified more than 3200 years ago, indicating that china began to eat plums as early as the Shang Dynasty. The Shang Shu Shu Shu Zhi Xia records that when the Shang king Wu Ding appointed Fu Shu as a xiang, "If you make a harmony soup, you can only salt plums." "Seeing Fu Shuo as salt and plum in seasoning, and using salt plum as a metaphor, it can be seen that the importance attached to salt plum in the Yin Shang period.

Regarding the edict of "salt plum and soup", successive generations of literati have clear records, such as the Tang Dynasty Shen Jian period has the lyric of "salt plum and Ding food", the Song Dynasty Wang Yu Wei (yin chēng) "Salt Pond" poem: "Jiang Mei must wait for me, Jin Ding can first be harmonious." In modern times, Jing Dingcheng "An Yi Yan Chi Yong" Yun: "Si people do not eat lightly, and salt plums are used as spice spoons." One is auspicious, the other is to adjust the food. In addition, the Zhou Li Tianguan contains the sentence "Feeding the food, in fact, the core is the core", which is the ancient name for eating plums. There are also many records of plums in the famous poetry collection "Book of Poetry" around the sixth century BC.

After the appearance of vinegar, green plums began to appear on people's tables in the form of fruits or preserved fruits. In the heroes of Cao Cao's theory of boiling wine in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there is the following description: "With the small pavilion, there has been a bottle: a plate of green plums, a bottle of boiled wine." "Here, green plums become a preserved fruit dish for drinking. By the time of the Tang Dynasty, many places had already offered plum pan frying (plum candied fruit) as a tribute to the monarch, "New Book of Tang , Geography 5": "Hongzhou Yuzhang County, Shangdu Governor's Mansion." Tugong: Kudzu, silk cloth, plum frying, milk citrus. And in the Song Dynasty, with the prevalence of the literary theme of the small talking book, the "talk plum" was gradually born, it is rumored that mr. Storyteller spoke for a long time, the mouth was dry, he contained a salted plum in the mouth, the sour and salty taste stimulated the taste buds, and the saliva secreted full of mouth, you can continue to speak. In addition, it is also recorded in the "Tokyo Dream Hualu Ikeen Inner Ren Guan Shu Game": "Ikegami diet: water rice cold water spinach snail meat, Rao plum blossom wine, slices, apricot slices, plums, herbs crispy plums, spin-cut fish, green fish, salt duck eggs, miscellaneous and spicy dishes and the like." ”

Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty wrote in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "The plum is also the medium, and the media is united with the taste of the people." The "matchmaking taste" of plums is also a "good medicine" that can make cooking food more sour and delicious. In ancient times, there was no refrigerator, for the preservation of flowers and fruits, the most important means is to use sugar pickling, according to the Qing people Gu Zhong's "Yang Xiaolu" mentioned, when the flowers and fruits are pickled with sugar, the sour plum marinade is wonderful, where the sugar makes each fruit, a little juice, the fruit is not bad, and the color is not retreating.

To this day, southerners still have the habit of adding green plums to dishes. For example, the Jiangnan dish "Honey Sauce Fire Fang" should be decorated with green plums and cherries, and Dali's "Cui Mei Sour and Spicy Fish" needs the fruit acid of green plums to reconcile the fishy qi.

Koreans like to make ome with sugar into ome juice, ferment it and use it to marinate crab or as a sauce for a cold dish, or mix it with chili sauce with pickled plum and leave it for a week, which is another flavorful dish.

Cold drink An ou of ice water and plum soup

Cold drinks, known as "cold drinks" in ancient times, have a history of nearly 3,000 years in China. Ancient cold drinks are rich in varieties, the most popular of which are plum pulp, plum juice, plum soup, which is what we call "sour plum soup". There are "six drinks" in the Zhou Li, and Zheng Xuan of the Han Dynasty explains in the Zhou Li Commentary that "醷, plum pulp." "Although it is difficult to conclude that the pre-Qin already had plum juice made into drinks, it can be determined that plum juice drinks have appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty at the latest."

By the time of the Northern Song Dynasty, sour plum soup was already very common, and the "diet fruit" article recorded in the "Tokyo Dream Record" mentioned the sale of "plum juice" and other summer cold drinks on the streets of Beijing. The "brine plum water" mentioned in the Southern Song Dynasty's "Past Events of Wulin" is also a refreshing drink similar to sour plum soup.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, sour plum soup swept through the countryside and cities, and both rich and poor drank. The Qing Dynasty's Chongyi "Miscellaneous Records of the Dynasty and the Wild Since Daoxian" recorded, "Cold drinks in summer, with sour plum soup as a good product." It is made of ume and rock sugar water, surrounded by external ice, and cools itself over time, does not hurt people, and dispels the heat. Interestingly, the "grandfather" enshrined by the vendors selling sour plum soup at that time was Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Taizu, because they believed that Zhu Yuanzhang was the inventor of sour plum soup. Regarding Zhu Yuanzhang's claim that Wumei was trafficked, it was first seen in the Ming Dynasty novel "The Biography of Yinglie", which wrote: When Zhu Yuanzhang was 18 years old, he once followed Guo Guangqing to sell plums to Jinling, "In Jinling, plague is everywhere, and the wumei soup is healed, so the plums are expensive, and they are all done in a short time, and they have already made great profits." "Later generations spread false rumors, and zhu Yuanzhang became the inventor of sour plum soup, and was enshrined as the grandfather of the industry. In front of the old Beijing sour plum soup stall, there are more crescent shovels, made of white copper, because Zhu Yuanzhang once entered the Buddhist gate, and the crescent shovel is a Buddhist instrument, in order to pay tribute to the inventor. Even when walking the streets and alleys, two small copper bowls, called "ice cups", are used to hit each other in two phases to attract customers. Manchurians have always had the habit of eating acid after meals to relieve fishiness, ferment cornmeal to make sour soup before entering the customs, and begin to drink sour plum soup after entering the customs. The Qing Dynasty scholar Hao Yixing wrote in the "Poetry of the Shushutang": "The bottom whiskers are curved and the water is diverted, and the summer is naturally cool in Yanshan." The sound of copper bowls in the street, an ou of ice water and plum soup. ”

Love Go around the bed to get green plums

"Mei" and "media" are harmonic sounds, the ancients regarded Mei as the fruit of matchmaking, and in poetry, Mei Shi often symbolized marriage. "Guofeng Zhaonan, Shu Youmei" is one of the "Poetry Classics", "There are plums, in fact, seven xi!" Pray to me, sir!" It means that the plums have fallen to the ground, and there are still 70% of the trees left. Boy who has the heart to ask me, please don't delay the good day. Because "folding" has the meaning of falling or throwing, Wen Yiduo's "New Meaning of the Book of Poetry" examines the ancient custom of "throwing plum marriage proposal", and Yuan Mei's "Translation of the Book of Poetry" believes that this poem is a song of "throwing plum marriage proposal". As the ancestor of Chunsi's courtship poem, "Picking Plum" uses the prosperity and decline of flowers and trees to compare the flow of youth, and pursues marriage and love in a timely manner by lamenting that youth is easy to pass away.

Because of one of Li Bai's "Long Dry Lines", "Lang rode a bamboo horse and went around the bed to get green plums." Cohabitation in the long dry, two small guesses. "Plum" gave birth to a beautiful meaning - green plum bamboo horse, which is often used in later generations to refer to the love that men and women have gradually developed from childhood. Since then, Qingmei has been injected with the connotation of love, and is often used in works involving love, Bai Juyi's "Silver Bottle at the Bottom of the Well", "Concubines make Qingmei rely on short walls, and the king rides a white horse to hang on Yang." The head of the wall immediately looked at each other, and when he saw the king, he broke his intestines. "It tells that when the women were picking green plums on the wall, they saw Prince Charming under the weeping yang and fell in love with each other at first sight. Li Qingzhao of the Song Dynasty "Dotted Lips": "When you see the guests coming in, the socks are cut off and the gold is slipped." And shyly walked, leaned on the door and looked back, but sniffed the green plum. "Write that when the woman is leaving, she sniffs the green plum, glances at the visitor, and the shyness and nervousness of the girl jump on the paper. And Liu Xueji's "people ask, because who is thin, twisting green plums, idle eyebrows" contains a lingering melancholy.

Allusions to Ome boiled wine on heroes

Throughout the ages, there have been many allusions and poems related to Qingmei, but the driving force behind Qingmei's rise to the stage of history is none other than Cao Cao.

The most well-known is the "Hero of Ome Boiled Wine". When Liu Bei was not yet a climate, he was honored as an imperial uncle in Xuchang, and Cao Cao invited Liu Bei to the Qingmei Pavilion to drink together, and to drink and cook wine on Qingmei and discuss current affairs. Unexpectedly, the sentence Today's hero, only the ambassador and the ear frightened Liu Bei even to the ground with chopsticks. Fortunately, at that time, there was a thunderclap in the air, and Liu Beiqiao used the thunder to cover up the past, "the power of a shock, and even here", in fact, it covered up his ambition to "embrace the world". Luo Guanzhong's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" wrote this section very carefully, Cao Cao's calmness, cunning, and temptation, Liu Bei's disguise, maneuvering, and wit, interpreting a sword and light sword shadow, soaked with plum fragrance and wine fragrance, making people sigh "a pot of turbid wine is happy to meet." How many things in ancient and modern times are in the process of laughter. ”

The Southern Dynasty literary scholar Liu Yiqing recorded another story of Cao Cao and Qingmei in the "New Sayings of the World": "Wei Wu lost his way in battle, and the army was thirsty, but It was Ling Ling: 'Before there was Da MeiLin, Rao Zi, and sweet acid can quench thirst.'" When the soldier hears it, the mouth comes out of the water, and the source is taken advantage of. This is Cao Cao's clever use of the hint of "looking for plums to quench thirst" to boost morale. Later generations have written poems praising" that "with a whip, Merlin is born, and the army is not dry." Out of nothing, there are wise people's strategies, and they use soldiers to plot orally. It is difficult to learn on paper, and it is not simple to guide it because of the situation. If there is no improvisation, it is useless to read all the soldiers' books. Shen Kuo, a politician and scientist of the Northern Song Dynasty, said in "Mengxi Pen Talk": "The Wu people mostly call plums 'Cao Gong', and they taste plums to quench their thirst."

In addition to Cao Cao, during the Three Kingdoms period, there was also a story of Sun Liang, a monarch of the State of Wu, who ate mei and caused adultery, which was also widely circulated, and the story was from Chen Shou's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Sun Liang went to Xiyuan to play in the hot day, and wanted to eat raw plums, so he sent a eunuch to hold a silver bowl with a lid to get honey from the official in charge of the royal warehouse. The eunuch had always had a grudge with the warehouse officials, so he put a rat in the honey and said that the warehouse officials were derelict in their duties. Sun Liang immediately asked the warehouse official to bring the bottle containing the honey and asked, "Since the honey is covered very strictly, there should be no rat droppings." Didn't that eunuch ask you for anything? The warehouse official bowed his head and said, "He once asked me for a mattress for the palace, but I didn't give it to him." Sun Liang said: "He must be for this reason, and it is easy to figure it out." He ordered the rat droppings to be crushed and found it dry. Sun Liang smiled: If the rat had fallen in the honey long ago, it should have been wet inside and out; Now it is dry inside, so it can be seen that you have wronged him. The eunuch had to bow his head and confess his guilt.

Medication Eclipse One Plum keeps safe

As the saying goes, "plum removes three poisons", folk believe that green plum can remove poison in food, poison in blood and poison in water. Because the plum is astringent, it can kill insects, and there is a set of prevention and control of diarrhea, roundworms, and food poisoning.

The ancients often processed green plums into ume and white plums, and the "Compendium of Materia Medica" records that "take the green plum basket and smoke it black on the protrusion", that is, it becomes a ume, "If it is moistened and steamed with rice ash juice, it is fat and not beetle." "Take the big green plum and stain it with salt juice, and stain it in the sun and night", and become a white plum in ten days. Doctor Zhang Zhongjing recorded in the "Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases" that Qingmei has the effect of quenching thirst, cough, diarrhea, hemostasis, and pain relief, and the famous recipe "Wumei Pill" he created is to make honey pills from the processing of Chinese medicinal materials such as pitting Wumei, Fine Spices, Dried Ginger, Huanglian, etc., for the treatment of abdominal pain, vomiting, etc. caused by roundworms, this classic prescription is still in use. In China's first clinical emergency medical book, Ge Hong's "Elbow Reserve Emergency Formula" of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, "The Fourteenth Prescription for the Treatment of Qi Diseases and Diseases", there is a formula for boiling Wumei soup to cure the disease: "I can't sleep again." Pain in the eyes, soychi, fourteen pieces of ume, four liters of water, first boil the plum to take two and a half liters, na sauce to take one and a half liters, divide and then serve." Traditional Chinese medicine literature records the efficacy of Wumei in curing diseases, and internal use can quench thirst, stop vomiting, stop cough for a long time, stop diarrhea, detoxify fish, and relieve alcohol.

In neighboring Japan, plums have played a very important role in Japan since the Tang envoys brought plums from China to Japan. In the earliest medical work in Japanese history, "Healing Heart Formula", the characteristics of ome are recorded in detail: "sour taste, flat, non-toxic." The famous Japanese medical scientist Fujikawa Yu wrote in the "History of Diseases in Japan": "In the twelfth year of Genroku, there was a cholera pandemic in Edo, and during the epidemic, residents boiled Nanten fruit and plums to take, which could prevent cholera, otherwise they would die from infection." "Literature records that in 1884 and 1893, there was an epidemic of dysentery in Japan, and people used various foods made from plums, which were often prepared at home for the treatment and prevention of dysentery, and were very effective. Later, many Japanese people who traveled would carry dried plums made of salt with them to prevent diarrhea and gastrointestinal discomfort, and traditional Japanese still rely mainly on plums to prevent intestinal diseases. The Japanese saying about ome reflects the deep feelings of the Japanese people for ome: "Plums can escape the disaster of the day."

Protection Reuse salt plums to try to wash

In addition to the above effects, plums also have many peculiar effects, such as maintenance of silverware, forensic autopsies, dyeing, mask protection, etc., which cannot be underestimated.

The Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi described it this way in the "Sending Two Silver Hammers and Pei Shilang Two Absolute Sentences": "The habit and the 匊 (pronounced jū) tillers (pronounced niè) can be sheng or not, and the salt plum is reused to try to wash it." The small instrument does not know how to tolerate a few, And the Xiangyang rice wine rises wide. Bai Juyi gave his friend two silver cups containing wine, and kindly reminded his friend to scrub it with salt grains and plum pulp. Song Ci of the Song Dynasty recorded a peculiar autopsy method in the "Collection of Washed Grievances": plum cake wound testing. If you fight with someone before life and want to test whether this person was injured before death after death, you can use the plum cake injury test method to verify. The specific method is as follows: mash the white plum, spread it on the surface of the body that needs to be examined for the scar, and then apply it with lees and vinegar paste to see. If you still can't see it completely, take the white plum meat, add green onion, pepper, salt, bad, etc., mix it together and grind it, make a cake, put it on the fire and bake it, burn it on the damaged part, and lin the paper below to see the scar. In the Ming Dynasty Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu" recorded that wumei can be used for dyeing, "the safflower cake is flavored, fried with wumei water, and then used lye water several times." or rice manuscript ash alkali, the same function. It is clear many times, and the color is even brighter. ”

According to Japanese history, the Japanese in the Edo period found a large amount of silver in the mainland, but the workers who mined the silver mine developed "mine disease" because they inhaled too much dust. In order to resist this disease, people stuffed the flesh of the green plum into the barbed wire, and then wrapped the barbed wire with very thin silk, and the workers who wore this special mask successfully resisted the problem of "mine disease".

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Carved Plum: A delicacy that is carefully carved

"The little green plum is on the fingertips, and the skillful hand is turned into a magnolia orchid; the honey impregnation is delicious, and it is suspected that the fairy has fallen into the world." This poem is written about the traditional snack of the Bai people in Yunnan, the carved plum, which is both a delicacy and a carefully carved handicraft.

The carved plums are made of fresh green plums, and the Bai girls carve patterns on them, put them in a basin of water, sprinkle a little salt to remove the sour taste of the plums, and then put them into a clay pot, and then add brown sugar and honey for several months, and when the plum cakes are golden, they can be taken out of the altar and eaten.

According to historical records, as far back as the Nanzhao period of the Tang Dynasty, Yunnan had the custom of visiting relatives and friends to give each other carved plums. The craft of carving plums often becomes a measure of whether a girl is skillful or not. According to local custom, when a girl gets married, the greeting gift presented to the in-laws includes a plate of elaborate carved plums.

Source Beijing Daily

Author Mother Ice

Process Editor: Wang Mengying