Author: Qiancang Shui
Li Shizhen (1518-1593) "Crab" in the forty-fifth volume of the Compendium of Materia Medica first explains the general knowledge of crabs with explanations, collective interpretations, and repairs, and then explains the medical functions of crabs with smell, indications, inventions, and appendages.
Chrysanthemum crab figure Wang Xuetao / painted
Crab wine Tuqi White Stone / Painted
In "Xiuzhi", Li Shizhen said:
Crabs, raw cooking, salt storage, bad harvest, wine dipping, sauce dipping, are all excellent products. But stay easy to sand for a long time, see the lights and sand, get pepper easy to beak. Soap pods or garlic and shao powder can be obtained to avoid sand. If you get Bai Zhi, you will not disperse. When the shallots and schisandra are cooked together, the color remains unchanged. The Tibetan crab is called the bat crab.
This passage begins with five ways to eat whole crabs. Raw cooking, or boiled crab, is to put fresh crab in water to cook, this method is long, convenient, common, retain the original taste without compromise. Salt storage, also known as salt crab or pickled crab, is to put the crab into the brine water impregnation, so that the salt penetrates into it, remove part of the water, in order to inhibit the reproduction of microorganisms, to achieve the purpose of antiseptic and preservation, can be stored for a long time, can be transported. Bad harvest, commonly known as bad crab, add lees (lees or wine brewing) and salt, wine, vinegar sealed, luscious, unique flavor, can "eat until next year will not flood", can "borrow bad travel thousands of miles". Wine soaking, also known as wine crab or drunken crab, soaked in wine, with salt, vinegar, etc., three or five days or half a month can be used, the meat is tender, light and fresh, the wine is fragrant. Sauce dipping, commonly known as sauce crab, a simple method, first the crab is tied with hemp silk, and then the sauce is coated with mud, packed into a jar and sealed, edible after February, the sauce is fragrant and delicious. These five ways of eating the whole crab, although the language is short, in Li Shizhen's view, may just be the popular eating methods at that time, but for history, it is the first comprehensive induction, complete and complete (when the sugar crab has disappeared, steamed crab has not yet risen), should be regarded as an integrated summary, and said "all are good", giving an inclusive affirmation of the diversified eating methods of the masses in history. Nowadays, the raw cooking of crabs is still common, wine soaking is rare, salt storage, harvesting, sauce dipping are almost absent, but with Li Shizhen's records, it can be seen that the ancestors have explored various ways to eat, reflecting the wisdom of diet.
He then talked about many experiences in the production of whole crabs. Crabs should take advantage of the fresh time, that is, eat or make, otherwise stay easy to sand for a long time (light and boring), like making bad crabs and so on to avoid the lights, otherwise see the lights are sandy, and "get the pepper easy to be", how to do it? Although Li Shizhen did not indicate it, he actually quoted Yuan Jiaming's "Dietary Instructions" Volume VI "To obtain soap pods or garlic and Shao powder can be free of sand", he replied. Then, along with this, continue to use the "Dietary Instructions" "to get baizhi is not yellow" and "to get onions and schisandra cooked together, the color is unchanged". All kinds of operational experience are accumulated by the ancestors in the long-term practice process, and Li Shizhen's quotation is not only a supplementary explanation of the five whole crab eating methods, prompting attention, but also showing thoughtfulness. Today, it seems that such experiences are far away, but because they are practical and effective, they have been widely followed throughout history.
Finally, a "bat crab" is added. Crab, or crab, commonly known as crab sauce, that is, the crab is mashed and marinated with salt and wine, put into a container, can be made in 100 days, powdered, thick, pastey, a state of "Xu Xuran". This is the oldest way to eat crabs, Han Zhengxuan's "Zhou Li" notes that Zhou Tianzi thought it was a "good shame" and eaten. Why did Li Shizhen add? In the "invention" section of the cloud "for the best of the bat", it can be seen that he most appreciates a crab eating method. Delicious or not? Song Huangtingjian said that "crab Xu and bamboo meng are not beautiful sheep cavity", until modern times, Liang Shiqiu also said in the essay "Crab" that a Wuhu classmate "brought me a small altar of crab sauce from my hometown, opened the jar, Huang Chengcheng's crab oil layer, the aroma is fragrant." A bowl of Yangchun noodles, added with one or two spoonfuls of crab sauce, is it not just 'clear water into chicken soup'"?
In "Invention", Li Shizhen continues to talk about eating crabs:
All crabs are cold and not poisonous, and they are the best for bats. Fresh crab and ginger vinegar, alcohol, chewing yellow claws, slightly appreciating the flavor, what is poisonous? The gluttonous person eats ten pieces, mixes with meat, eats and drinks, stomach and intestines are wounded, abdominal pain is also caused, and blamed on crabs, crabs also blame?
Make a point comment first. "All crabs are cold", "cold" or "cold", this saying originates from the Shennong Materia Medica, and has been followed to this day. "There is no poison", which is consistent with the "smell" that says "there is a little poison", why? There are different theories, among which Li Shizhen said in the "collective solution" that "there are insects in the belly of crabs, such as small wooden turtles and white, inedible", (now commonly known as "hexagonal worms", hexagonal hexagons, thin pieces, gray-white, in the middle of the chest cavity, in fact, the heart of the crab, containing toxins), when related. "Fresh crab and ginger vinegar", that is, eat raw crab to dip ginger and vinegar, ginger stomach sweating, vinegar nutrition sterilization, can go to the cold to add cooked, quit fishy detoxification. By the way, historically dipped in salt, orange, plum, pepper, etc., and later tended to ginger vinegar, and continues to this day, Li Shizhen's recommendation is a turning point. "Drink some good wine" to warm your stomach and soothe your stomach. "Abdominal pain tuli (diarrhea)", such as Cai Mo in the early Eastern Jin Dynasty, seeing cockroaches after crossing the river, daxi, cooking, eating, "spitting down the wei dun" (see Southern Dynasty Song Liu Yiqing's "World Speaking New Language"), for example, zhao xuan of the early southern song dynasty tasted "diarrhea" because of "eating more crabs in the lake" (see Song Zhao's "Raising Boils"), which was mostly thought to be caused by crab poisoning in the past. Blame, fault, sin.
In this passage, From the perspective of a doctor, On the one hand, Li Shizhen instructed the correct way to eat crabs, "and ginger vinegar, you use alcohol", in order to avoid the cold, increase the flavor, add excitement, "chew yellow claws, slightly appreciate the flavor", and then appreciate the deliciousness of yellow paste and chelation meat, and get a happy enjoyment, so, "What is poisonous?" A rhetorical question clarified the rumors that fresh crabs have always been poisonous and inedible. On the one hand, it points out the wrong crab-eating behavior, those who are crab-loving and insatiable, they have to eat more than a dozen at a meal, and then they go to eat other meaty foods, "eating themselves, stomach wounds, abdominal pain and profit, and will also cause", and end up with such a result, but they go to the crab, in fact, "what is the crab to blame?" Another rhetorical question cleared away the sins that had always been inflicted on crab eating. Li Shizhen freed his hand, and the passage he said in the "invention" must have been observed, experienced, and thought for a long time, and he took this opportunity to accumulate thick hair and condense expression. So it's very profound and incisive. Moreover, the feelings are abundant, the attitude is clear, the words are sonorous and powerful. Preaching the crab, defending the crab, can become the motto of all crab eaters.
Guangming Daily ( 08/03/2021)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily