Beijing Evening News Five Color Earth
Editor's note:
Wang Renxing, the author of "Essence of Chinese Cuisine", was born in Beijing in 1946, has been studying Chinese food culture for a long time, accumulating more than 30 years of achievements, from the world's classics, oracle bone texts, Mawangdui simple hand, Dunhuang ancient medical books and other unearthed documents and ancient cooking vessels, ancient tomb murals, portrait stones, compiled more than a thousand recipes, related records, ancient vegetable relics and pictures of representative famous dishes of the past dynasties, and explained in depth one by one from a professional perspective. Today, this edition introduces several national cuisine essences unearthed by archaeology to feed readers.
"The Essence of Chinese Cuisine" Wang Renxing Life Bookstore Publishing Co., Ltd
●One of the earliest famous dishes in soup
Mawangdui soup soaked in beef slices
In Chinese cooking methods, "dipping" is a relatively unique heating method, the main ingredient (such as chicken or fish) is put into hot oil or boiling water (soup), and then the fire is smaller, and generally use low heat to warm oil or water (soup) to heat and mature, which is "dipping". From the heat transfer medium of immersion, there are oil immersion and water immersion, and water immersion is different from water immersion, soup immersion and brine immersion, Cantonese cuisine Wuliu carp, barrel chicken, etc. are all representative Chinese dishes made by the "dipping" method. Mawangdui soup-immersed beef slices is a famous pre-Qin food treatment dish made by soup dipping, and as far as is known, it should be the earliest soup-infused famous dish in China.
In 1973, in the ancient medical book "Health Formula" unearthed in the No. 3 Han Tomb of Mawangdui in Changsha, there was a therapeutic dish made with beef slices as the main ingredient, with Xuan Xuan as the concoction (medicine) material, and using the soup immersion method, and clearly stated that this dish has the effect of "removing the middle and invigorating qi". According to this recipe provided by the unearthed "Health Recipe", to make this dish, first cut the beef into thin slices, cut the beef into inch segments, and then put the beef slices and the beef into the clay pan (casserole) with clear water, remove the pot from the heat when the water boils, put the pot on the heat after a short stop, and remove the pot from the heat when the soup is boiled, so that after three times, you can take out the beef slices and eat. Keep the soup and sprinkled in the beef slices for the next time you make this dish, but throw them away after three uses.
From the above preparation process of this dish, it can be seen that the soup is turned off the heat to prevent the beef slices from becoming old due to the soup continuing to boil. After a short stop, the pot is put on the heat, and during the short stop, the beef slices can be used to absorb the taste of the soup, and secondly, the beef slices can be soaked in the soup below 100 ° C to soften and play a tender role. By repeating this three times, the beef slices are both tender and delicious, and the medicinal effects of the sprinkles are attached.
The bronze ding of the Xia Dynasty, unearthed in 1975 in Luoyang Yanshi Erlitou. Guo Yazhe from Luoyang Museum
●The first famous dish of steamed beef
Zeng Hou Yi steamed beef
This is the earliest known famous dish of steamed beef in China, and archaeological excavations show that it should be the masterpiece of Zeng Guojun Zeng Marquis Yi more than 2,400 years ago.
In 1978, archaeologists found a copper bell next to the bell stand of the copper chime unearthed in the tomb of Zeng Marquis Yi. Ironium is a steaming cooker with the function of a steamer and a steamer in later generations, and the upper part of this 甑 is a copper cooker, that is, a steamer; The lower part is the copper pipe, that is, the steamer, and when it is unearthed, the copper pipe is placed in the groove in the upper part of the copper pipe. Among the 117 eating vessels and 32 bronze vessels with cooking functions unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Marquis Yi, only this one has a steaming function. What is even more rare is that when this rhineous was unearthed, there were animal remains in the rhizoma. According to the identification of animal experts of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the remains of these animals are cow bones, which are the remains of a bone-in piece of cow back meat more than 2,400 years ago. In ancient texts, there are more records of steamed grains. From the pre-Qin dynasty to the Han, Tang, Ming and Qing dynasties, steamed beef was also relatively rare in recipes of previous dynasties.
At that time, the steamed beef back meat, from the perspective of cooking raw materials, mainly included the upper brain and flat meat of the beef, etc., the upper brain fiber was slender and contained thin fat, the protein and fat content were high, the meat quality was tender, easy to cook and rotten; Flat meat, however, is pure lean meat, tender and easy to cook, and is indeed the preferred raw material for steaming among the 14 edible parts of beef. It seems that more than 2,400 years ago, it made sense that Chef Zeng Hou Yi chose this part of bone-in meat as the main ingredient for steamed beef.
As for the seasonings used in this steamed beef, ginger, cinnamon, peppercorns, dates, chestnuts, sugar, honey, salt, etc. are recorded in pre-Qin documents such as the "Rite of Zhou", and have also been unearthed in several Spring and Autumn Warring States tombs in Hubei Province, and it is possible that Zeng Marquis Yi's imperial chef chose some of these spices for use in this steamed beef. Regarding the production process of this steamed beef, the author believes that the cooking skills of Chef Emperor Yi of Zeng Hou Yi more than 2,400 years ago should not be underestimated. Archaeological reports show that before the archaeological excavation of the tomb of Zeng Marquis Yi, copper urns from the early Shang Dynasty and early Western Zhou Dynasty were unearthed in Hubei Province, and in 1971, the Zeng Guo Tomb in Xinye, Henan Province also unearthed Zengguo copper urinium in the early Spring and Autumn Period. It seems that by the time of Zeng Marquis Yi, the use of copper urn to make steamed dishes in the cooking of the Zeng Guo court had at least 1,000 years of cultural accumulation in a large aspect; From the perspective of Zeng Guo's court cooking itself, it has accumulated two or three hundred years of technical experience.
So how exactly is this steamed beef made? There is no relevant written record of the excavation of the tomb of Zeng Marquis Yi, but from the "rooster soup" in the pre-Qin book "Fifty-two Sick Formulas" unearthed in the No. 3 Han tomb of Mawangdui in Changsha, and the "steamed bear", "steamed porpoise" and "steamed sheep" in the "Food Classic" and "Food Times" quoted in the "Qi Min Zhishu", it is generally made by boiling the animal raw materials half-cooked, pickled with soy sauce, and then steamed in the boiled with rice impregnated with the juice, and finally poured with cooked lard and other seasonings. At that time, Zeng Hou Yi's imperial chef made steamed beef, and its production process should not be very different.
The pottery pipe was a popular cooking vessel in the Shang Dynasty, and this gray pottery was unearthed in the ruins of Zhengzhou Shangcheng. Dang Chunhui at the Zhengzhou Museum in Henan
●Evidence of Zhou Ren cooking fish with ding
Ji's biological mother Ding cooks fish
Ji's biological mother was a female nobleman in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, and ding cooking fish refers to ding with fish bones.
This ding contains fish bones, which should be a rare proof that the Zhou people in the Western Zhou Dynasty already cooked fish with ding. Its origin, the Zhou Yuan Ruins, located in the area of Baoji Qishan County and Fufeng County in Shaanxi Province, are ancient ruins from the 11th century BC to the 8th century BC, and are also the birthplace of Zhou culture and the settlement of the Zhou people before the extinction of commerce. It is no accident that fish bones have been unearthed on the ground. Because the Zhou people used ding to cook fish, it is recorded in the classics. When talking about the duties of officials in the Zhou royal family's offerings and banquets, the "Zhou Li Tianguan Tsukazai" stipulates that the "foreign food" should be responsible for "Chen Qiding, Qi, and the real animals, fish, and wax." According to the explanation of Zheng Xuan and Kong Yingda in the Han Dynasty, the so-called "濡" is "Heng (cooking) with juice and also", that is, "Heng (cooking) boiled with its juice", indicating that Ding cooking fish has the characteristics of original taste.
In the history of the development of Chinese cuisine, using cooking utensils such as Ding to boil fish, the current Ji Shengmu Ding should not be the earliest, in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, Henan Anyang Yin Market has been unearthed. However, relevant records in classics such as the "Rite of Zhou" show that the Zhou people were obviously much more advanced than the Yin merchants in cooking fish, meat and other foods with ding. When "Zhou Li Tianguan Tsukazai" records the duties of "Heng (cooking) people", he emphasizes that "the palm is together to give water and fire qi (agent)", which means that when cooking fish and meat, you must master the amount of water and heat, and these two points are the two keys to the cooking method with water as the heat transfer medium. The boiled fish enjoyed by Ji's biological mother before her death was made in this technological standard environment recorded in the "Rite of Zhou".
●A famous dish from more than 3,000 years ago
Boiled fish with pottery
This is a fish dish popular among small slave owners or upper-class freemen in the capital city of the Yin Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, and this fish dish may have been made with fish such as grass carp or carp. Its discovery provided a rare ancestral origin for the traditional famous dish boiled fish in later generations.
Yin Wu was the capital city of the Yin Dynasty in the late Shang Dynasty, located in the northwestern suburbs of present-day Anyang City, Henan, straddling the north and south banks of the Huan River, and was a rare capital city in the world at that time where you could catch fish at your doorstep. In the late 50s and early 60s of last century, experts from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences unearthed 70 pieces of pottery pipes from 67 Yin tombs in the nursery north on the south bank of the Huan River and Dasikong Village on the north bank of the Huan River, of which 56 were identified by archaeological experts as practical cooking utensils. These clay pipes made of fire-resistant sand-filled pottery have smoke marks on the abdomen and bottom, and the pottery pipes unearthed in the seven tombs contain fish bones, most of which are broken and difficult to identify. Archaeologists believe that the tombs were owned by small slave owners or upper-class freemen at the time, dating from the Wuding to Zujia period, that is, from about 1250 BC to 1148 BC.
The beard is an ancient cooking vessel, the body of the beard is a bit like an open jar, and the three legs below are hollow. The archaeological data I have seen so far show that the pottery pipe appeared about 7,000 years ago. In other words, from the time of the pottery pipe to the Yin era, the people in this area have a history of more than 4,000 years of craftsmanship using the pottery pipe to cook food. In the traditional literature, pottery pipes were generally used to boil grain or as steamers. The clay pipes unearthed in Yin Wu are used to cook fish, which provides new information for people to understand the function of the pottery pipes. Regarding the fish cooked by these clay pipes, according to Mr. Wu Xianwen's "Remembering the Fish Bones Unearthed in Yin Wu", it can be seen that after scientific verification, grass carp, carp, blue carp, yellow jaw carp and red-eyed trout are produced locally in Yin Wu, of which grass carp has the most bone pieces. However, Mr. Wu stressed that the Yinxu people ate more than five or six kinds of fish at that time. From this, it can be inferred that the fish cooked by these unearthed clay pipes may be grass carp, carp, etc. As for the cause of the fish bones, according to the data provided by the archaeological report such as the caliber and crotch height of these clay pipes and the size of the fish at that time, it can be presumed that it was caused by the human knife handling before the fish were boiled.
Finally, let's talk about the seasoning used to boil fish with clay pipes at that time. The author believes that salt and plum are possible. Therefore, this Yin dynasty pottery boiled fish is likely to be salty and sour. (Responsible editor: Li Zhengrong)