History of Chinese Flower Eating: How Did the Ancients Put Flowers on the Table? (Top)
Flower cakes, flower tea, hibiscus chicken slices, lotus chestnuts... Flowers have a long history in Chinese history.
The dietary structure of the Chinese ethnic group has always been vegetarian, and people have studied flowers while eating plant roots, stems, leaves and fruits, and gradually promoted and eaten them in their diets. So how has the Chinese nation put flowers on the table for thousands of years?
The development of ancient Chinese flowers
In the pre-Qin period, flowers were eaten as vegetables. Yi Yin, a famous minister of the Shang Dynasty, listed the delicacies of the world and identified the flowers of the two plants in Shoumu and Guqu as "beauty of vegetables" and "leaves of Genki" and "Yanghua Zhiyun" and other ingredients.
And this tradition of using flowers as vegetables continued until the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, and the great poet Qu Yuan's poems have many descriptions of making flowers into vegetables, such as the description in the "Recitation" of "Mashing Mulan to correct Hui Xi, and Giving Shen Pepper as grain", that is, "Mashing Mulan and then mixing it with Hui Grass, scooping up Shen Pepper to make it into grain."
Qu Yuan not only used flowers as vegetables, he would also grow them for food, and in "Leaving the Troubles", he described that "Yu is both the nine trees of Zilan and the hundred acres of trees". It can be seen that Qu Yuan's love for eating flowers also reflects the eating habits of the nobles at that time.
In the Han Dynasty, the nature of people's flower eating also changed with the development of society, from the initial hunger filling function to other added value of flower ingredients.
For example, in the special meaning and sustenance of specific festivals, it is recorded in the Xijing Miscellaneous Records that there was a custom in the Han Dynasty Palace of "September, Pe zhu zhu, eating fluff bait, drinking chrysanthemum wine". Then this custom eventually developed into the exclusive custom of the Chongyang Festival on September 9, and the zhuyi and chrysanthemums at this time were also given a specific meaning unique to the festival.
Then the medicinal value of flowers was gradually discovered at this time, and the "Shennong Materia Medica" written in the Qin and Han Dynasties recorded the medicinal value of many flowers such as peony and peony, and in the book it was written that "chrysanthemums are light and resistant to aging, and lilies tonify spleen and qi ..."
The medicinal special effects of flowers have been proven in today's scientific research, and the ancients have gradually found the mystery through years of experimentation.
However, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the deep sense of sadness of the political situation, the shortness of life, and the impermanence of life gradually spread in society. The role of flowers has also changed quietly, and it has gradually become people's spiritual sustenance and dependence.
Taoist Taoists and immortal alchemists were very popular in this turbulent era, and under their advocacy, more people believed that they could escape the suffering of reality and ascend to the Immortal Realm by taking the elixir.
Coupled with legends such as Peng Zu's frequent consumption of Guizhi to live for eight hundred years, Wenbin's costume chrysanthemum, earth skin, mulberry parasitism, pine nuts and immortality, eating flowers seems to have become a necessary thing to feather into immortals at this time.
After entering the Wei and Jin Dynasties, both the government and the public began to eat flowers consciously and purposefully. At this time, chrysanthemums have been believed to have the miraculous effect of "those who serve eternal life, and those who eat are theosophical".
Even Emperor Wen of Wei believed in the miraculous effect of chrysanthemums, and he presented chrysanthemums to Zhong Xuan in Chongjiu "to help Peng Zu's technique." The emperors were so sought after, so the degree of fire of picking flowers, refining flowers, and eating flowers among the famous people of Wei and Jin needless to say, those flowers simply became a panacea, and had the effect of reviving the dead.
In this way, the value of those unremarkable flowers also soared, and even became a gift of grace to the emperor's courtiers. During the reign of Emperor Wu of Jin, Jiaozhou paid tribute to a basket of cardamom flowers, which was identified as the effect of "breaking the breath of flowers, eliminating phlegm, and doubling the wine", so Emperor Wu of Jin gave it as a grace to his close subjects.
Entering the Sui and Tang Dynasties, ancient Chinese society ushered in a golden age, the turmoil has passed, the people's livelihood has ended, the tang dynasty has made most people feel safe and happy, and the spirit is more to pursue the enjoyment of reality than the bliss of those feathered immortals and the afterlife. Therefore, the consumption of flowers has a more lifelike and secular atmosphere.
In the court, the emperor would also give flowers or flower products to his favored courtiers, but the flowers at this time were more as noble and delicious food for reward than as immortals in the Wei and Jin dynasties.
For example, Wu Zetian once went to the Flower Dynasty Garden, ordering the palace women to pick all the white flowers, mash them with rice, and steam them into "Hundred Flower Cakes" to give to their subjects. Tang Xianzong once picked phoenix and plum flowers, brewed bone mash, and rewarded it to the Duke of Jin who had meritorious service in Pinghuai.
The fashion of eating flowers in the Tang Palace spread to the people, attracting the people to follow suit, such as in the early spring cold food festival is when the Yang flowers are flying, the people will collect the Yang flowers and use them to cook porridge; In the summer, when the lotus flowers are in full bloom, they will pound the lotus flowers to make bifang wine to cool off;
In the autumn Chongyang Festival, chrysanthemums are used to make chrysanthemum wine... And at this time, eating flowers has also become an art, "when Yang Ke encounters flowers, he takes the flowers under the flowers, sticks them on the woman's clothes, slightly uses beeswax, and mixes the flowers with wine, in order to be quick." "(Gezhi Jingyuan)" The meal flower also has an aesthetic connotation on the basis of eating.
In the Song Dynasty, the most appropriate era of scholars, the pride of the literati, for the diet at this time added a cultural atmosphere, and the Ancient Chinese food flowers also entered a new stage of development at this time.
While enjoying the food, the Song people also consciously collected and sorted out the production techniques and processes related to the flower recipe.
For example, Zhu Mu's "Fang Yu Jisheng" records the simple production method of pomegranate flower wine; Pang Yuanying's "Miscellaneous Records of Wenchang", which compares the two kinds of flower brewing, fermented wine and molded flower hanging wine;
And Lin Hong's compilation of "Mountain Family Qing Offering" can be described as a collection of pre-Song flower dishes, plum porridge, pine yellow cake, hibiscus flowers and tofu boiled together to make Snow Xia soup... It can be described as a complete set of recipes for flowers, and these literati are attached to elegance when writing, making these recipes full of fireworks in the world carry the elegant atmosphere of the literati.
Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, the consumption of flowers has stood on the shoulders of predecessors and further refined. From wildflowers and wild grasses in the field to precious flowers and trees, they are all collected into food, just like the "Five Miscellaneous Tricks" wrote that "all the flowers are fragrant and fragrant" can order soup."
This kind of variety that is not limited to flowers, the flowers of the four hours are used in the meals of the four hours, so that the table of the Ming and Qing people is full of feasts all year round. #古代史 #
