#Shi Jun on the evolution of Chinese vegetables # I really want to give this book Amway to all people who like to read, read it!
A very interesting popular science book. Anthropomorphic vegetables, can be cute and lovely.
After going through the table of contents of the book, I knew that the book must be interesting.
The author is a Doctor of Botany, so the book should be rigorous and unambiguous.
(1) What are the dishes in different periods of ancient times? Which dishes are native to China?
In the history of vegetables in ancient China, the Han Dynasty was an important dividing point. Thanks to Zhang Qian's successful mission to the Western Regions, since the Han Dynasty, various types of vegetables have been continuously introduced into China, which can be examined:
In the Han Dynasty, garlic, shallots, and spinach were introduced.
During the Wei and Jin dynasties, cucumbers (originally known as "courgette"), lettuce, and coriander were introduced.
Carrots were introduced during the Yuan Dynasty.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, peppers, tomatoes, beans of the four seasons, and Jerusalem artichoke (devil's ginger) were introduced.
In other words, in the pre-Qin period, the edibles on the table of the ancients were basically vegetables native to China, to be precise, various wild vegetables (the names of wild vegetables are basically hidden in the "Book of Poetry", and the "Book of Poetry" says "Cai So", "So-and-so" is basically a wild vegetable name at that time, such as "Cai Wei", "Cai Xuan", "Cai Bitter", etc.). The author summarizes the reason in one sentence - there is no vegetable garden under the Ida system.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, the people had selfish hearts and refused to devote themselves to public land, but devoted themselves to their own private land. As a result, the public land became private land, and the wild vegetables entered the vegetable garden.
Wild vegetables also began to evolve. In fact, in the long river of history, whether it is vegetables, crops, or fruits, there is a process of continuous evolution and integration with alien species.
(2) Vegetables also need to evolve continuously
The most typical ones are white cabbage, cabbage and so on.
"Laid off from the grain department and returned to work on the vegetable stalls," the author describes as the evolutionary process of "Zibai". The ancestor of the cocoon is "菰", which was once a grain juxtaposed with "five grains", but unfortunately the rice is too small, the flowering period of the spp. is long, and the maturity of the seeds is inconsistent, so later, when the stems of some sppilla are infected by fungi and mutate into "cocoon white", the ancients resolutely gave up the cultivation of the rice and devoted themselves to cultivating it into "cocoon white". After the Song Dynasty, the rice was completely "laid off" from the grain crops, and posterity only knew about the whiteness, but did not know the rice.
The evolution of cabbage is a bit complicated. Cabbage is actually a "mixed race", its ancestors are pineapple and vine, popularly speaking, it is a hybrid of greens and radishes, it is conceivable that the early cabbage was very thin. "Cabbage lamb porpoise, out of the soil out of the palm", Su Shi actually ate the taste of meat in cabbage...
The book was seen in an editor's circle of friends and immediately caught my attention. Because of the epidemic, many people have begun to grow vegetables at home, and the appearance of this book is very timely. I also planted a few small tomatoes, because I know a little about the history of vegetables, and the fun of growing vegetables and eating vegetables has also doubled!
The author also has a copy of "Fruit History", which is also good!
History of vegetables + history of fruits
