The food culture documentary "Fresh History" was launched on CCTV-9 at 19:00 last night. This documentary focuses on the stories between Lu Xun, Su Shi, Cao Xueqin and Bai Juyi, four literary figures, and food. Perhaps, it will open up a new world of gastronomy for us.
"People can't eat and drink, and they can rarely know the taste."
This sentence in "Zhongyong" comes from the Warring States period more than 2,000 years ago. In the long process of establishing a food culture in Chinese, a set of "standards" related to the pleasure of eating and drinking has gradually been formed. Those who organize, write, and disseminate "standards" are what we call "foodologists."
But only scholars who sublimate food into culture are the ones who really give meaning to food, and we call them "foodies" who truly "know the taste".
Among the famous artists who have left words for food from ancient times to the present, the "History of Fresh Life" has selected the most representative four: there are "fighters" who love sweets; there are novelists who rely on food to support and write down their heirlooms; and there are laymen who have been degraded all the way and eaten all the way.
01
Lu Xun
"For a while, I have repeatedly recalled the vegetables and fruits I ate in my hometown as a child: diamond horns, Luohan beans, zibai, and melons, all of which were extremely delicious and delicious, and they were all demagogies that made me homesick." Lu Xun wrote this in the small quotation of "Chao Hua Xi Shi". This collection of essays documenting his life as a teenager revisits many of his childhood memories and mentions many memorable teenage foods. This taste is like a kind of magical magic, dotted with Lu Xun's life, but also makes our hearts yearn for more than a hundred years later.
As a Shaoxing native, Lu Xun sat on a black canopy boat and listened to the sound of oars and shook, what kind of hometown delicacies were he most familiar with? He once mentioned, what is the method of shrimp caught with excavated earthworms? The folk snack fennel bean in "Kong Yiji", in addition to being economical, why is it unforgettable?
02
Cao Xueqin
Cao Xueqin, the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber", one of the four famous works, can be described as a golden food when he was young, and after moving back to Beijing with his family, what memorable hutongs did he eat in his childhood memories? Do you want to smell the melon kernel oil muffins, sugar steamed puff pastry and other foods mentioned in this huge work?
01
Su shi
Not only is it about food, in the character story of "Fresh History", how to get Su Shi's name less. What is the trick in his method of Dongpo meat, which no one knows, to be so loved by everyone for hundreds of years? What other dishes are named after "Dongpo" today? In Su Shi's official career of "high open and low walk" in his life, what is the taste of hometown food that has been unforgettable for a long time after traveling around?
04
Bai Juyi
Not only Lu Xun, but also Bai Juyi, the great realist poet of the Tang Dynasty, could not stop the delicious taste of the lake. When he was 54 years old, he invited himself to Suzhou, what local food did he taste? In Bai Juyi's poem, what is the "lettuce" in the very interesting "Even Yin", which is mentioned in "There is a sea bass lettuce, coming to spring or planning to go to Jiangdong"?
All of these can be found in the "Fresh History".
From April 29 to May 10, every day at 19:00, CCTV Documentary Channel, "Fresh History" will show the wonderful interaction between characters and food based on historical materials and works, interpret the local food culture and the owner's food concept in reality; also in a relaxed and modern way, in the classic texts that have been circulated for thousands of years and the current real life, flexibly jump around, with the joy of ridicule and rigorous evidence, let the audience enjoy the real and classic food culture fun without burden.
New Performing Arts Studio
Author: Sun Jiayin
Editor: Wu Xuying
Image: Poster and stills of "Fresh History"
Xinmin Evening News Cultural Department