Serial (Ninety-two)
Preface to "Illustrated History of China's 770,000 Years of Food Culture"
The way of eating reflects the rich and colorful cultural connotations. The remains of food culture precipitated in the long river of history can clearly observe its long history, and looking back at this vast cultural source, we can understand where the strong foundation of Chinese civilization lies.
Exploring and sorting out the precious heritage of mainland food culture to serve the people's health is the mission entrusted to us by history and the requirement of the times. Today, we are pleased to see that there is such an expert in the catering service industry, who has been poor for more than 20 years, unswerving, tireless, and has made positive contributions to promoting Chinese food culture and promoting the development of China's catering industry.
Reading "Illustrating the History of China's 770,000 Years of Food Culture", people can not only fully appreciate the 10,000 years of Chinese civilization, but also witness the 770,000 years of cooking process of the Chinese nation, explore the source of natural brewing and drinking for 18 million years, and trace 45 million years of human beings
footprint......
There are more than 1,500 precious pictures and informative text descriptions in "Illustrated History of China's 770,000 Years of Food Culture", which reproduce the concise process of human evolution, culinary evolution and food culture development in the form of pictures and texts, systematic and unique professional theories. The book has a unique perspective, based on the renewal and evolution of cooking utensils, and visualizes the historical process of Chinese food culture
Summarized as eight stages -
Stage 1: From the emergence of the "Century Ape" in Shanxi about 45 million years ago to the "Beijing people" who learned to cook food with fire 770,000 years ago as the "pre-cooking period". For example, 1.7 million years ago, the Yuanmou people in Yunnan or the Lantian people in Shaanxi 1.15 million years ago, they ate the fruits of grass and trees, the flesh of birds and beasts, and lived an uncivilized diet life of "drinking blood and chewing alive", and they did not know the taste of "cooked".
Stage 2: The birth time of Chinese cooking is about 770,000 BC to 30,000 BC as the "cooking period without cooking utensils". For example, at the site of the Ape Man Cave in Zhoukoudian, Beijing, the remains of human use of fire were found, and Chinese archaeologists made the thesis that "Peking people" invented fire cooked food, proving that this is the birthplace of Chinese cooking, with a history of about 770,000 years. In 2009, Professor Shen Guanjun of Nanjing Normal University and others used the latest archaeological method "aluminum beryllium burial dating method" to re-determine the sites of "Peking people" and the remains of fire, believing that these ancient humans lived 770,000 years ago. The great significance of the birth of cooking is that human beings have since drawn a clear line with animals and moved toward civilization.
Stage 3: The late Paleolithic period in history (about 30,000 BC – 10,000 BC) is the "Stone Cooking Period". For example, when the cave people on the top of the mountain found barbecue meat, small pieces of raw materials accidentally fell on the stone, the meat matured quickly, and it would not be baked paste, so the stone was used to cook food, thus giving birth to stone cooking.
The fourth stage, the Neolithic Period (about 10,000 BC – 2600 BC), is the "Pottery Cooking Period". For example, in 1962, the earliest pottery in China was excavated in xianren cave in Wannian County, Jiangxi Province, and then it was widely used in life, and Chinese cooking entered the "pottery cooking period".
Stage 5: Bronze eating utensils were widely used from 2600 BC to 475 BC as the "copper cooking period". For example, bronze ware was found at the Majiayao cultural site, and with the gradual appearance of bronze cookware and eating utensils, Chinese cooking entered the "copper cooking period".
Stage 6: After the excavation of iron kettles from the Warring States period in Pingshan County, Hebei Province, iron cookware gradually appeared and was widely used from 475 BC to 1911 AD as the "iron cooking period". Because the Warring States in Chinese history to the Qing Dynasty lasted for more than two thousand years, it was divided into: the Qin, Han, Wei, and Jin Dynasties were in the early days of iron cooking, the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties were in the middle of iron cooking, and the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties were iron cooking in the near future.
Stage 7: From 1911 to 2006 AD, with the gradual emergence of electrical cookware, and widely used, it was the "electric cooking period".
Stage 8: In 2006 AD, molecular cooking appeared abroad and was introduced into domestic restaurants, and Chinese cooking began to enter the "molecular cooking period".
This new formulation is unique in the history of Chinese food culture research, which is the first of its kind, so that readers have a more systematic and clear understanding of Chinese food culture.
Guan Weixiong made a long and arduous exploration for the compilation of the book "Illustrating the History of China's 770,000 Years of Food Culture". He plunged headlong into the ocean of 770,000 years of Chinese food civilization, consulting books, collecting materials, searching for experts, visiting provincial and municipal museums, historical sites and sites across the country... In more than 20 years, no one can count how many obscure food classics Guan Weixiong has chewed on and how many tens of thousands of words of reading notes he has made, and no one will know how much sweat he has spilled and how much effort he has put into the long journey of examining food culture sites!
"Perseverance and abandonment, decaying wood does not break; perseverance, gold and stone can be skeletonized." After a long period of research and repeated revision, Guan Weixiong finally compiled a draft of "Illustrating the History of China's 770,000 Years of Food Culture". This book not only awakens the long-sleeping food culture plot, but also puts forward a creative interpretation for the promotion of Chinese food culture. Especially in the study of food culture, he not only systematically, comprehensively and deeply summarized and sorted out Chinese food culture, but also took a unique path and produced fruitful new theoretical achievements, which have valuable originality.
I am convinced that "Illustrating the History of China's 770,000 Years of Food Culture" will surely be welcomed and loved by the public, because it is a great blessing for the Chinese nation and the pride of the sons and daughters of China, so let us look forward to its early publication. I firmly believe that "Zhen can cook, you can also cook", success without it, just with heart!
International culinary master Zhen Wenda
