Eating utensils, ancient and wonderful

The "Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Food Culture" was recently held at the National Museum of China, exhibiting a large number of utensils closely related to the lives of ancient people, showing people a comprehensive and profound ancient Chinese food culture. Among them, food molds have attracted much attention, with a variety of varieties and unique characteristics. For example, the Yuan Dynasty blue glaze printed pastry mold, the Qing Dynasty wooden mooncake mold, rao mold and so on. The dumpling mold was a common thing in the Qing Dynasty, and it was an indispensable utensil for dim sum shops and steamer shops, and thus derived from the industry of "mold making".

The well-made "mold" is not only beautiful in style, but also exquisite in its depth. As an encyclopedic work, the classical literary masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber", in addition to literary value, there are many descriptions of the food culture at that time, and it is also a record of the social life of the Qing Dynasty. In the book, there is a description of a food mold - "soup mold".

In the thirty-fifth episode of "Dream of the Red Chamber", Jia Baoyu was beaten by Jia Zheng and recuperated in Yihong Hospital, and Jia Mu, Madame Wang, Aunt Xue and others went to visit him. Madame Wang asked him what he wanted to eat, and Jia Baoyu said, "I don't want to eat anything, but the soup of the little lotus leaf little lotus peng'er that I made that time is better." Sister Feng asked people to find four pairs of "soup molds". What does a "soup mold" look like? The original text has an introduction:

When Aunt Xue took over and looked at it first, it turned out to be a small box, which contained four pairs of silver molds, all more than a foot long and one inch square, chiseled with the size of beans, chrysanthemums, plum blossoms, lotus puffs, and diamond horns, a total of thirty or forty samples, and the play was very exquisite.

It can be seen that these "soup molds" are not directly used for soup, but use them to make chrysanthemums, plum blossoms, lotus puffs, diamond horns and other 30 or 40 kinds of noodles, and each is only the size of a bean, and these noodles are cooked together with chicken soup. It is similar to the knotty soup familiar to northerners, except that the "knots" in the soup have their own images, increasing the fun of drinking soup. No wonder Jia Baoyu couldn't forget it after eating it once. These small pastry in the shape of lotus puffs and diamond horns are pressed by molds, and they can be made to ensure that they are fast and not out of shape, which is really a kind of ingenuity.

In fact, the tradition of making pastry from molds is still preserved and carried forward. Nowadays, cake shops make bread, cakes, mooncakes, etc., most of which are inseparable from molds. According to news media reports, the Luoyang Museum exhibited nearly 100 mooncake molds collected from the people in 2015, these molds in addition to the common round, as well as shou peach shape, bat shape, lotus shape and other novel shapes, molded moon cakes with "shou", "xi", "peace" and other words, as well as with Chang'e, moon rabbit, shou xing and other patterns. The material of the mold is mainly wood, but also pottery, ranging from the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China to modern times.

In addition to the mold, the life of the ancients is also inseparable from tea. In the exhibition, many tea sets are also exhibited. For example, there is a Liao Dynasty begonia fancy silver tray with a fixed bracket in the tray, and the bracket is a tray. This exhibit is also very informative. In the past, the more exquisite family, to give tea to people is not directly with both hands to hold the tea cup to pass, nor to use the tea tray to serve the past, but to place a cup in the tray first, in the cup and then place the tea cup (that is, the tea cup), the role of the cup is to prevent the tea cup from pouring. Some tea trays are also designed with a fixed cup holder. When serving tea, even the cup is served with a cup, otherwise it is very rude.

Mainland tea culture has a very long history. Not long ago, the archaeological team of Shandong University published the "Analysis of Tea Remains in the No. 1 Warring States Tomb of Xigang Cemetery in the Ancient City of Zoucheng, Shandong" (Archaeology and Cultural Relics, No. 5, 2021), officially announcing that in the original porcelain bowl buried in the No. 1 Warring States Tomb of the Xigang Cemetery in Zoucheng City, Shandong Province, the tea samples unearthed are boiled (brewed) tea residues, which is the earliest known tea remains in the world. Previously, the earliest physical tea objects found by archaeology were excavated from the Western Han Dynasty Jingdiyang Mausoleum. This discovery of the Ancient City of the Kingdom of Qi traces the physical evidence of the origin of tea culture back to the early Warring States period (453 BC to 410 BC), more than 300 years earlier.

In the thousands of years of tea drinking, there are many records about tea in the history books. In the pen of the literati, drinking tea has also become an elegant thing. It is interesting to note that some classic teas that have been submerged in history have been passed down by word of mouth by later generations because of the popularity of some literary works. The classical masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber" is a representative of this phenomenon.

The forty-first episode of "Dream of the Red Chamber" has this text:

Only to see Miao Yu personally holding a small tea plate filled with begonia fancy carved lacquer filled with golden Yunlong offering, which put a kiln multicolored small lid bell, holding with Jia Mu. Jia Mu said, "I don't eat Lu'an tea." Miao Yu smiled and said, "I know." This is the old Junmei. ”

Because of this dialogue, Lu'an Tea and Lao Junmei are widely known. And these two kinds of tea are not Cao Xueqin's delusion, they are historical records.

Lu'an tea originates from Lu'an, Anhui Province, which is located in the Dabie Mountains and has produced good tea since ancient times. The Qing Dynasty Wang Shizhen's "Chibei Even Talk" records, "Shangyou Li Confucian subjects, Decouplus give feasts yingtai, and Hanlin officials are with them." At noon, Shi Chan was with Chen and Ye Er. During the month of April and May, cherry apples and cherry pulp, cheese tea, Lu'an tea and other items were awarded on sunday. Its tea is sealed with a yellow luo seal and has the red seal of Lu'an Prefecture on it. This shows that "Lu'an tea" was once used by the Qing Dynasty court.

Lao Junmei was also a valuable tea in the Qing Dynasty. It is recorded in the "Records of Min Production" written by Guo Baicang of the Qing Dynasty and in recent years, the "Chinese Tea Ceremony" edited by the China Tea Museum, and according to reports, it is produced in Guangming County, Fujian. About 20 kilometers east of Guangming County, there is Wujun Mountain, which is the middle section of the Wuyi Mountain Range, with a north-south direction of about 20 kilometers, more than 30 large and small peaks, and the highest peak is 1477 meters, which has the geographical and climatic conditions for producing high-quality tea. The Qing Dynasty's "Gloss County Chronicle" said, "Tea is named after Lao Jun's eyebrows, and there are before and after Wujun Mountain... Tea is born on top. ”

At the "Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Food Culture", a Han Dynasty copper oven with a hollowed-out stove wall is exhibited. It can be seen that in the Han Dynasty, the eating habit of grilling meat and wine was popular. When used, put charcoal in the stove and place meat skewers or pieces of meat on the stove. In fact, the Han Dynasty oven on display is more used to grill meat skewers or cut into small pieces of meat, and when grilling meat skewers, the iron brazel with small pieces of meat can be placed directly on the stove frame; when grilling meat slices, an iron grate needs to be placed on the stove and the meat slices are grilled on the grate.

Coincidentally, another exhibition hall adjacent to this exhibition is holding the "Haiyu Youtong - Guangzhou Qin and Han Archaeological Achievements Exhibition", in which a square copper oven is exhibited, which is excavated from the tomb of the Nanyue king of the Western Han Dynasty in Xianggang, Guangzhou in 1983, and its shape is very different from the oven in the "Food Culture Exhibition". Not only that, the square copper oven also exhibited a long-handled fork for grilling meat, and the relevant personnel also drew a schematic diagram of the ancient people's barbecue. A total of 3 such ovens were found in the tomb of the King of Nanyue, and when they were excavated, the furnaces were equipped with a variety of accessories for grilling, including chains, forks, iron brazes, iron hooks, etc., and 2 piglets were each cast on the furnace wall of the oven. From the above introduction, it can be inferred that this kind of oven is specially used to grill large pieces of meat.

The story of the Hongmen Banquet written in the "History of Xiang Yu Benji" is familiar to everyone, and there is a detail in it, Zhang Liang brought Fan Duo to the banquet, Xiang Yu first "gave him wine", and then "gave him a shoulder", Fan Duo "covered his shield on the ground, added his shoulder, drew his sword and cut it." ”

From the above description of the "Xiang Yu Benji", everyone should eat roast meat at the Hongmen banquet, and the way to eat it is about to cook the whole pork knuckle on the stove and cut it off. The oven used by Xiang Wang and others is similar in shape to the square copper oven displayed at the "Guangzhou Qin and Han Archaeological Achievements Exhibition". King Xiang boasted that he was "trying to pull up the mountain and be angry with the world", and he felt sorry for Fan Duo's courage, so he gave him wine and shoulders. However, Fan Huan drank with raw meat, and his fierceness and heroism surprised King Xiang, achieving the effect of shocking and confusing King Xiang, and finally being able to help Liu Bang escape smoothly. Just think, if the Hongmen feast was not eaten with roast meat, it would be impossible to explain why Xiang Yu would give Fan a "raw shoulder".

Photo: Zhang Debin

Source/Beijing Evening News