The popular TV series "Shang Food" stands at the starting point of the peak of "food culture" in the Ming and Qing dynasties, trying to show the profundity of Chinese food culture. People's evaluation of TV dramas is not high, but the topic it leads to is quite valuable, that is, why did Chinese food culture come all the way and finally bloom into a brilliant chapter?
- Editor
Today, Chinese diners have long been accustomed to the honor of "Chinese cuisine in the world", street shopping malls are lined with snack bars, and the walls often like to hang a legend of more than a thousand years - although most diners will not take these stories with Qianlong, Zhuge Liang, Qin Shi Huang and even the Yellow Emperor and Nuwa seriously, but it seems that it is not too exaggerated to look at the five thousand years of Chinese history as a five-thousand-year history of food.
However, historical truths are often surprising. Although Chinese history has a long history, the Chinese food culture is actually very late: "southern food" and "northern food" were gradually divided until the Tang and Song dynasties, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, peppers and other ingredients were not introduced until the Ming Dynasty, the "four major cuisines" were not formed until the early Qing Dynasty, and when the "eight major cuisines" were grandly debuted, China's feudal era has come to an end. Many popular snacks and dishes, such as large plates of chicken and snail powder, were not born until after the founding of New China, and "cuisine" as a proprietary term was not included in the Chinese Culinary Dictionary until 1992.
Yes, Chinese cuisine is indeed broad and profound, but its growth path is also tortuous and difficult.
Understanding the long road behind the glory of Chinese cuisine, in the years of great material life, diners may have a deeper understanding of the ancient adage of "one porridge and one meal, when thinking is not easy to come by". Chinese cuisine is beautiful, gorgeous, exquisite, but also tough, tenacious, and reclusive. Chinese food culture is ancient and long-standing, but it is also a late bloom. Three generations later, five thousand years of time seems to be a long dormancy, in order to only at a certain time, the most brilliant chapter erupted.
What is even more worth recalling is that this period of outbreak is precisely the era when Chinese actively absorb advanced ideas and systems in the face of great changes and reshape the glory of China. In fact, the way of eating, the way of being a person, and the way of seeking the country are also common on a certain level: diners are staggering, and when pushing the cup and changing the cup, it is not difficult to find that the most important thing in Chinese cuisine since ancient times is the inclusive temperament and ability. If Confucius had known about it, when he saw this scene, he probably would no longer insist on "a gentleman seeking food without seeking food" - in the way of seeking food, there is the most tenacious original intention of a nation.
Tang Dynasty murals depicting scenes of feasting and drinking
The imagination forced out by "the people take food as the sky"
Sima Qian's quotation of "the people take food as the sky" refers not to the blind enthusiasm of the people for food, but to the portrayal of the survival pressure of traditional farming society. As an ancient agricultural country, China has experienced population and ecological pressure earlier than other civilizations, which has created miracles such as the Lingqu, Dujiangyan and the Grand Canal, and has also greatly stimulated the imagination of Chinese on ingredients.
Chinese's gastronomic pursuit is not a natural path to "taste first". Before the Qin Dynasty, the Chinese diet was more closely integrated with health care and medical treatment, and the winds of the Two Han Dynasties were prevalent, and the atmosphere of diet and health care was far more attractive to the scholar class than the staggering between the banquets. The long-standing custom of cutting valleys is, in a way, even anti-gastronomicism.
When later generations talk about "prosperous times", most of them will look at the Han and Tang dynasties. These two dynasties, national unity, cultural prosperity, martial arts, national prestige spread far and wide, until thousands of years later, "Chinese characters" and "Chinatown" are still synonymous with Chinese culture. But even in these two dynasties, the food crisis Chinese is still more than history. In the Book of Han, there are records of "great famine, cannibalism" and "hunger, or cannibalism", and the emperor of the Tang Dynasty temporarily moved the capital to Luoyang more than ten times due to lack of grain, leaving behind the historical terms of "chasing grain tianzi" and "eating the eastern capital". Emperor You is like this, how can the people be embarrassed.
In the face of the huge food crisis, it is inevitable that the ancient Chinese did not have enough imagination about food. During the Three Kingdoms period, when the Central Plains were in turmoil and the world was divided, Cao Cao lamented that "white bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no chicken chirping in a thousand miles", while compiling China's first independent food book", "Four Hours Of Food System". During the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, wars continued for many years, natural disasters occurred frequently, and the work "Qi Min Zhi Shu", which is a collection of the culmination of the northern folk disaster reduction ideas and experiences, came into being. After the Jin Dynasty entered the Central Plains, the Song Dynasty and the northern scholar class moved south on a large scale, and the "Book of Chen Shi Nong", with rice cultivation as the main content, came out. The Yuan Dynasty built the largest empire in human history with the help of powerful cavalry, but also made countless fertile and fertile fields become devastated, and Si Nongsi was commissioned to compile the official book "Nongsang Jijiao", and then Wang Zhen's "Nongshu" and Lu Mingshan's "Nongsang Summary" appeared almost simultaneously, and this series of agronomic maturities is no accident.
Covering up, I have to think of the cooking techniques and ingredient range of Chinese cuisine, compared to the cuisine of other countries is simply rich to the extent that it is amazing, is this because of the survival situation and the formation of imagination?
Henan Yanshi Jiuliugou Song tomb excavated kitchen lady brick carving rubbings
"Grains" hide inclusiveness
If it is said that maximizing the utilization rate of ingredients is "throttling", then actively introducing exotic species for their own use is "open source"; if "throttling" shows the vastness of Chinese cuisine, then "open source" reveals the inclusiveness of Chinese gastronomic culture.
As the saying goes, "People eat grains and grains, and they can have no diseases." "'Five grains' can be said to be a representative of Chinese food culture." There are two theories of "five grains", one is what Zheng Xuan believes is "hemp, millet, millet, wheat, beans", and the other is what Zhao Qi believes: "rice, millet, millet, wheat, and yarrow". Either way, wheat, which here refers primarily to wheat, is one of the most important and universal staple foods of Chinese since ancient times.
However, wheat is not a native crop of China. In other words, the wheat that has supported China's thousands of years of civilization and brought infinite glory to Chinese cuisine is actually a genuine imported product. Wheat originated in the Fertile Crescent, and the remains of wheat from 2000 or 300 BC were found in the northwest regions such as the ruins of the Gray Mountain in Minle East of Gansu and the ancient tomb ditch on the peacock river in Xinjiang, which allowed later archaeologists to roughly outline the route of wheat into China. Wheat is called "koji" in ancient times, in the oracle bones, "come" is the image of wheat plants, and the meaning of "coming" of "coming" is derived from the imported identity of wheat. Of course, the localization of wheat has also experienced hundreds of years or even thousands of years, until the Northern Song Dynasty, Chinese farmers accumulated enough experience and knowledge in soil cultivation, seed treatment, cultivation management and other technical levels, so that wheat has achieved a core position in the northern planting system.
China's staple food is known as "north of south rice", behind which is the "north wheat south rice" on the crop. There is no doubt that China is one of the origins of rice, but in the vision of the "Huayi Order" in ancient China, rice originated from the domestication of the ancestors of the Baiyue people, and it was not a pure Central Plains product. For the Xia Dynasty centered on Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong, Dayu's approach was undoubtedly an attempt to introduce species, but because the introduction history was too long, and the Yangtze River civilization eventually became an inseparable part of Chinese civilization along with the Yellow River civilization, so it was forgotten.
But even so, the history of the introduction of rice has not stopped, and the Song Shi And Food Goods Chronicle says: "The fourth year (1011) of the Great Zhongxiang Fu ... The emperor took the slight drought in Jianghuai and the two Zhejiang provinces, that is, the paddy fields did not ascend, and sent envoys to Fujian to take 30,000 yuan of rice in Chamcheng and distribute them to the three roads as seeds, and chose the people's fields to admire the highest people's fields, and to build dry rice... Rice is longer than the Chinese ear and has no mango, the grain difference is small, and it grows without choosing the land. "The Champa rice mentioned here originated from the small country of Champa in southern Vietnam in ancient times. Champa rice is highly adaptable and has a short growth period, so it has been introduced into the Yangtze River Basin in Dazhong Xiangfu to cope with the difficulties of famine.
In the 1940s, during the most arduous period of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a sad and indignant poem "On the Songhua River" was circulated in the northeast region, and the first sentence was: "My home is on the Songhua River in the northeast, where there are forest coal mines and soybean sorghum all over the mountains." ”
The word "sorghum" is very northeastern and very Chinese, but don't be surprised – the origin of sorghum is not China, not even East Asia, but far away Africa. The time and route of sorghum introduction to China are more difficult to verify, because it was known as "Shulin" and "Bahe" in its early days, which may have been gradually introduced to the Central Plains from the southwest region until the Song and Yuan dynasties became an important staple food for northerners.
In addition to staple food, Chinese pair of vegetables, melons and fruits are more extensive. On the recipes of the Chinese, there are three types of ingredients that can be seen from the name of their "overseas origin": the first type of name with "Hu", which was basically introduced by the Northwest Land Route during the Han and Jin Dynasties, mainly including hu bean (broad bean), courgette (cucumber), hu garlic (garlic) and so on. Carrots also originated in West Asia, but were introduced to China a little later. The second type of name with "fan", mainly introduced by the southern Song Dynasty, Yuan Ming and early Qing dynasty by the banyan, such as tomato, sweet potato (sweet potato), pepper (pepper) and so on. The third type of name with "foreign", mostly introduced by the Qing Dynasty and even modern times, onions, potatoes (potatoes), cabbage (cabbage) and so on. Today, these exotic species have long been integrated into Chinese cuisine, and even become the soul of some foods - without garlic paste, the hot pot will be eclipsed; without peppers, the whole Sichuan cuisine will be "dud"; without tomatoes, how many people learn the first stir-fried dish (tomato scrambled eggs) may have to change its name...
Part of Ming Qiuying's "Spring Night Yan Peach and Plum Garden Map"
The delving heart behind "Suiyuan Food List"
When Chinese diners talk about the way of Chinese cuisine, they often like to quote Confucius's eight words of "food is not boring, and it is not tired of detail". In fact, Confucius's statement that "food is not boring, and it is not boring", focuses more on the attitude of eating during sacrifice than on the pursuit of taste. In the late Spring and Autumn period of Confucius's life, the cooking, scooping and cutting meat processes were relatively primitive, and the "food" was made "fine" and "fine" and "fine", reflecting the serious and sincere attitude of the cook and the eater. In contrast, Confucius has the thesis that "a gentleman has no food to eat" in response to the desire of the mouth and belly, and pursues the luxury and refinement of food, which itself runs counter to Confucius's concept.
Behind Confucius's concept of food is his heart's etiquette. In fact Chinese earliest connection with food is not taste, but etiquette. According to the "Book of Rites", "at the beginning of the ceremony, the beginning of the diet", to the effect that "the etiquette system and customs begin with the diet ceremony"; according to the "Zhou Li", more than half of the duties of the more than 4,000 magistrates of the Zhou royal family are related to diet, and it is not difficult to find that the ancient food is inherently strict and restrained. The most famous chef of the Spring and Autumn Period, Yi Ya, who is also the "ancestor" of later generations of chefs, whose exquisite cooking skills are not so much the qualities of the craftsmen, but rather the footnotes added by the history books to outline their cruelty, from which it is not difficult to taste the hidden contradiction between food and virtue.
The "indifference" to food in ancient China was not only due to the slow accumulation and fusion of ingredients, but also to the "suppression" of the appetite of Confucian culture. On the one hand, Confucius's teaching that "gentlemen seek the way and do not seek food" made the scholar-doctor class often stay away from the kitchen and take the cultivation of Qi Zhiping as its own responsibility; on the other hand, since the Han Wudi Emperor Liu Che "deposed the Hundred Schools of Confucianism", the scholar-doctor class had a smooth career, and "learning and excellence" also had rich practical returns. Until the Tang Dynasty, the literati paid little attention to the matter of diet.
Although the food culture, especially the style of feasting, has developed greatly in the Sui and Tang dynasties, under the influence of the shengshi Wenzhi martial arts, the pursuit of the scholar class is still in the "raising the pen to settle the world, immediately fixing the Qiankun", and the feast of "cooking sheep and slaughtering cattle" has not bred a comparable food culture. The Tang Dynasty's once-great feast was only a feast for the secretaries of state and doctors, far from being enjoyed by ordinary people.
The twist came from the Two Song Dynasties: from an individual point of view, the prosperity of the culture of the Two Song Dynasties led to an increasing number of readers to the point that the threshold for career was raised, and at the same time, the weakness of martial arts made it difficult for many people to be rewarded. From the perspective of the imperial court, in view of the pain of the division of the Tang Dynasty's feudal towns, the Song Dynasty encouraged the courtiers to "choose a good field and a good house for their children and grandchildren, to sing and dance more, and to drink and celebrate every day, so as to live forever." Hiding under the house, I can't help but turn my attention to food and drink. Su Shi of the Northern Song Dynasty was known for his love of food, and his career of a half-life who lived more or less also reflected the relationship between the diet of that time and the Confucian tradition of pursuing this and the other.
After the unification of the Yuan Dynasty, the Han scholars became more and more marginalized. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the center of the imperial court was mostly monopolized by the Manchus, and the road of "learning and excellence" was no longer unimpeded, and the interest of the literati naturally turned more and more to the sound of dogs and horses. For example, Zhang Dai, who is famous as the "Sketch Saint Hand", boasted smugly in the "Tao An Dream Memories" that "the more the Middle is clean, there is no surplus", from the Apple Po Guo in Beijing to the Jiang Yaozhu in Taizhou, from the smallpox in Shanxi to the pillow melon in the sea, the cuisine of the two capitals and thirteen provinces of Daming was tasted by him. Another example is the opera master Li Yu, while indulging in the pleasure of the pear garden, while not forgetting the "household affairs" such as fresh clothes and food, and added a "drinking and eating" part to the theoretical masterpiece "Idle Love and Occasional Mail", systematically expounding his "original taste, seeking truth and fun" food aesthetic ideas and the concept of "zong natural, respecting umami" food culture.
The special background of the times made the "people who eat" no longer be despised, so a large number of gourmets came into being in the first half of the Qing Dynasty, and in this context, the "food saint" Yuan Ming appeared.
Yuan Ming openly proposed in the "Book with Xue Shouyu" that "the so-called immortals of Fu must not be Zhou, Kong and then immortal." Yi Zhi Shooting, Qiu Zhiyi, and Yu Zhizhi can all be immortal", and he himself regarded the way of eating as a cause comparable to that of Confucius of the Zhou Dynasty, so he could have no scruples: "Every time he eats and is full of a certain clan, he will make the family cook go to the other stove and perform the gifts of his disciples.".
Yuan Ming's poems take the "sexual spirit theory" as the proposition, believing that the poem directly expresses the soul and expresses the true meaning, and this proposition is also integrated into the diet: he believes that before cooking, it is necessary to understand the ingredients, respect the materiality, pay attention to the collocation and time grasp between the ingredients; he opposes extravagance and waste, proposing that "the dish is not much money", and the beauty of the ingredients lies in the full use of the material; he introduced humanism into the diet, preaching that "things are used for people, making them die, making them die and having to be"; he emphasized the importance of cooking theory. Thinking that The Chinese cooking method is completely based on the experience of the chef is not conducive to inheritance, in order to set an example for future generations of diners and cooks, he painstakingly wrote the "Suiyuan Food List" - this masterpiece of southern and northern cuisine, once again opening a new era for the development of Chinese cuisine.
Before the "Suiyuan Food List", there was no shortage of food works in Chinese dynasties, but the description of the preparation method was often too brief, such as the "Food Classic" and the "Burning Tail Feast Food List" and even flowed to "report the name of the dish". After the Song and Yuan dynasties, the cooking methods of food and beverage works gradually became clear, but they also stayed at the level of "metaphysics". The "Suiyuan Food List" completes the final transformation of food culture from experience to theory. For example, the "Notice List" and "Abstinence List" sort out all aspects of physical properties, ingredients, washing, adjustment, collocation, heat, utensils, serving dishes, etc., and the "Salt should be first, the light should be after; the thick should be first, the thin should be later" in the "Instructions for Serving", etc., are all pioneering summaries and arrangements of China's millennium cooking experience.
After Yuan Ming and his "Suiyuan Food List", Chinese food culture from the "metaphysical" level to a new level, in the following hundred years, the help of the mouth cuisine gradually developed, "four major cuisines" and "eight major cuisines" gradually took shape, until the Qing Dynasty national gate was forcibly opened by the cannon of the jianchuan, Sun Yat-sen can still confidently write in the "Founding Strategy": "My modern Chinese civilization has evolved, after everything has fallen behind, only the progress of diet is still unattainable by civilized countries. ”
"Dream of the Red Chamber" The sixty-third time Shouyi Hong Qunfang opened the night feast, Tan Fenghuan painted
Author: Jiang Yinlong
Editor: Fan Xin
Planner: Fan Xin
Editor-in-Charge: Xueying Wang
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.