Nowadays, whether it is a family or going out to a banquet and gathering, public chopsticks are popular for sharing meals, but in the past, Chinese food gatherings mostly used the method of eating together around the table, which showed both grandeur and warmth, but also warmth and intimacy. Although sitting around and eating together has become an important tradition of Chinese food culture, it has been divided since ancient times. The history of the meal-sharing system can undoubtedly be traced back to prehistoric times, and the birth of the combined food system was roughly in the Tang Dynasty, and then gradually developed a meeting food system with modern significance.
Check the divided meal system from the literatureFrom the records in the literature, we can find evidence of the ancient meal-sharing system.
One is an example from the Warring States period, according to the "History of Meng Weijun", Meng Weijun Tian Wen recruited guests and corporal Lixian, and he treated the thousands of diners who came to him equally, regardless of whether they were noble or destitute, they all ate the same food and wore the same clothes as themselves. One night, Tian Wen invited the new knight who came to defect, someone inadvertently blocked the light, a knight thought that there was a famous hall here, and the meal he ate must be different from Tian Wen, otherwise there was no need to deliberately block the light, so he decided that Tian Wen was a hypocrite. Tian Wen quickly brought his own food to the warrior and confirmed that everyone had the same diet. When the knight knew the truth, he was full of shame, and immediately drew his sword and apologized for the crime of misunderstanding. A small misunderstanding caused a brave man to lose his precious life. Imagine if it were not for the meal system, if the host and guest were all gathered around a large table to "annihilate" the same dish, how could you suspect that there was a difference between thick and thin? This life will not be so easily lost. This is the best example of the implementation of the meal-sharing system in the Warring States period.
The other is an example from the Southern Dynasties. According to the "Biography of Chen Shu Xu Xiaoke", Xu Xiaoke, the wine of the Guozi Sacrifice, did not move his chopsticks or eat a bite when he accompanied Emperor Chen Xuan to drink, but the food in front of him decreased. It turned out that Xu Xiaoke quietly hid the food in his arms and brought it home to honor his old mother. This made the emperor very moved, and ordered that the food at the imperial banquet in the future could be generously taken home by him whatever was placed in front of Xu Xiaoke. This story proves that at least until the Sui and Tang dynasties, people maintained a one-person food sharing system.
In addition, "The World Speaks New Language" records that Gu Rong once attended a banquet and saw that the person serving the barbecue showed an expression of wanting to eat the barbecue, and "because he quit his own charity", he gave him his share of the meal, indicating that the banquet at that time was indeed one food per person.
The ancient way of eating and eating in separate meals was accompanied by corresponding etiquette and customs.
In the pre-Qin period, the etiquette system directly guided people's behavior, and the etiquette of eating was particularly important, and there was a saying in the "Book of Rites" that "at the beginning of the husband's etiquette, it begins with food". This ritual system reflects different grades through differences in food and utensils, and the use of a divided meal system is more convenient for the implementation of these norms.
At that time, people ate on their knees on mats, and a low table was placed in front of each person to hold tableware and food. A "feast" is also laid under the mat. The banquet and the banquet are both seats, and Zheng Xuan's commentary on the "Rite of Zhou" said that "lay out the banquet and use it to know the banquet", the difference between the two is that the banquet is large and small, and the banquet is on the table, and later the banquet has become a synonym for the banquet. Confucius said that "the seat is not right and does not sit", when eating, people should sit on the mat in a well-behaved manner and eat the food in front of them, which is a typical meal system.
Light utensils were placed on the snack case, and heavy and large utensils were placed directly on the ground outside the mat. It is recorded in the "Book of the Later Han and the Biography of Yimin": Liang Hong, a hermit of the Eastern Han Dynasty, married his wife Meng Guang, lived in seclusion in the Baling Mountains, and later transferred to Wu County to help others. Whenever Liang Hong returned from his part-time job, Meng Guang prepared food for him, raised the food case to the level of his eyebrows, and held it in front of his husband to show respect. Meng Guang's case raised eyebrows, which has become an ancient story for husband and wife to respect each other.
According to the Book of Han and the Legend of Foreign Qi: "Empress Xu... The Empress Dowager was in Changle Palace and personally served the case for food. "Because the food case is not big or heavy, it is generally limited to one person, so it is a breeze. The later wife's respect for her husband was no less than Meng Guang's, and her filial piety to the elders was no less than Empress Xu's, but it was difficult to raise the case with eyebrows, and the small food case became a large dining table, how could a weak woman be able to lift it? Habits and etiquette also had to change due to changes in eating and eating utensils, and it was also possible to hold bowls in both hands without raising cases, which could also express respect.
Check the meal system from archaeological findsEvidence of the ancient meal-sharing system can also be found in the physical objects and painting materials found by archaeology. The famous "Hongmen Banquet" of the Han Dynasty, King Xiang and Xiang Bo sat eastward, Fan Zeng's south seat, Liu Bang sat north, and Zhang Liang sat westward. This meal-sharing scene is reflected in the murals and portrait tiles of the Han Dynasty.
For example, in the mural depicting the banquet scene unearthed from the Dahuting Han Tomb in Xinmi City, Henan Province, people sit on the ground, and each person has a food case placed in front of them. On the murals, portrait stones and portrait tiles of Han tombs excavated, you can often see the scene of sitting on the floor and one person at a time, but you cannot see the scene of many people sitting around and gobbling up a meal.
The low food cases are designed to adapt to the habit of sitting on the floor, and from the Warring States to the Han Dynasty, many food cases have been unearthed, mostly made of wood, often decorated with beautiful lacquer patterns. The Han Dynasty also used a kind of case plate, either round or square, to present food, both physically excavated and with images depicted by portrait stones. If the plate supporting the food is added with three or four legs, it is a case, as Yan Shigu said in the note of "Urgent Article": "There is no foot to know the plate, there is enough to know the case, so Chen Ju also eats."
The method of eating in small food cases was invented at the latest at the end of prehistoric times. Archaeological excavations have revealed a wooden case from 2500 BC, and although the wood has decayed, the shape is still quite clear.
During the excavation of the Xiangfen Tao Temple cultural site in Shanxi Province from 1978 to 1980, archaeologists found some wooden cases used for diet. The plan of the wooden case is mostly rectangular or rounded rectangular, about one meter long and about thirty centimeters wide. Under the case is a bracket made of wooden strips, which is only about 15 centimeters high. The wooden cases are painted in red, and some also have a border pattern painted in white. When the wooden cases were unearthed, they were placed in front of the coffin of the deceased, and there were also various kinds of drinking utensils on the case, including cups, yao, and canes for warm wine. In the smaller tomb, instead of a wooden case, a thick wooden board fifty centimeters long was placed in front of the coffin, and wine vessels were also placed on the board as usual.
Tao Temple also found wooden tricks similar in shape to the wooden case, which are also rectangular and slightly smaller than the wooden case. On top of it are stone knives, pork chops or trotters and pork knuckle. This is the earliest set of kitchen utensils that can be seen today, and it is conceivable that the housewives who were good at cooking at that time must have sat on the ground during operation, and the height of the wooden trick was no more than 25 centimeters. Han Dynasty cooks still worked in this way, and many of the kitchen figurines unearthed were all squatting on the ground, with low cases in front of them, piled with raw food.
The discovery of the Tao Temple site is very important, it not only mentions the history of the food case 4,500 years ago, but also indicates the origin of the emergence of the meal system, the development of the ancient meal system is inextricably linked to the small food case we mentioned. However, it is certain that the eating activities earlier than the Taosi culture did not rely on the use of wooden cases, and the prehistoric ancestors may not have thought of what other cases to use for eating, or the most rudimentary wooden boards were not used.
In the primitive clan commune society, "the world is one family, and selflessly weaves private farming, sharing the cold and hunger together." People follow a common principle: joint possession of property and equal distribution of it. In some primitive tribes with late civilization, the food in the clan was publicly owned, and after the food was cooked, it was divided equally according to the head, there was no kitchen and dining room, and there was no dining table, and everyone ate standing or sitting after getting the meal. The distribution of meals, first for men, then for women and children, is saved. Although this is the most primitive meal-sharing system, although it is essentially different from the meal-sharing system of the later hierarchical civilized society, it is difficult to say that they are two unrelated things when examining the origin.
Check the food system from the food case seatThe history of the meal-sharing system can undoubtedly be traced back to prehistoric times, and the birth of the combined food system was roughly in the Tang Dynasty, and then gradually developed a meeting food system with modern significance. In the Zhou, Qin, Han and Jin dynasties, the reason why the food distribution system was implemented, and the use of small food cases to sit on the ground was an important reason. Although it cannot be absolutely said that a small food case hinders the change in eating style, if the food case does not change, there is no big change in eating style.
After the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Xiongnu, Qiang, Xianbei, Di, Qiang and other ethnic groups living in the north entered the Central Plains one after another and successively established their regimes, which is the Sixteen Kingdoms period in history. Frequent wars and changes in the dominant ethnic groups of the country have made the traditional customs, living order and ritual system closely related to the Central Plains established since the Yin Zhou Dynasty have been strongly impacted again and again.
Through the study of furniture history, Mr. Yang Hong came to this understanding: it is this new historical background that has led to a new trend in the development of furniture, and the traditional way of sitting on the floor has also changed, and the common kneeling posture has been impacted by a more relaxed hanging foot sitting posture, which has promoted the use and popularity of high-foot seats. In the 5th and 6th centuries AD, the new high-legged sitting with a tunic round stool, square stool, beard bed, and chair gradually replaced the mat spread on the ground, and the traditional requirement of "sitting without sitting properly" slowly lost its meaning.
On the murals of the Western Wei era in Cave 285 of Dunhuang, the earliest backrest chair figures are seen, and it is extremely interesting that the immortals on the chairs still use the usual squatting and kneeling posture, and their feet do not hang down to the ground, which is obviously a phenomenon that may occur when the high-footed seat is not used soon or is not common. However, in other murals of the same era, people sitting on the bearded bed (mazazi) are seen hanging their feet calmly on the ground. The Buddha statue sitting on a round stool seen in the relief of Luoyang Longmen also has one leg hanging to the ground.
By the Tang Dynasty, a variety of high-legged seating equipment had become quite popular, and sitting with hanging feet had become the standard posture, and people had basically abandoned the way of sitting on the floor, and it was very inconvenient to eat with a low food case. Therefore, the high-footed dining table came into being, called the "food bed".
Excavations in Xi'an in 1955 of the tomb of Gao Yuanjie, the brother of the Tang Dynasty eunuch Gao Lishi, found a tomb owner sitting on a chair in the mural of the tomb, with his feet placed side by side on the ground, which is evidence of the standard sitting posture after the middle of the Tang Dynasty. It is safe to say that in the Tang Dynasty, at least in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, Chinese had basically abandoned the way of sitting on the floor, and finally completed the revolutionary historical change of sitting posture, providing an opportunity for everyone to sit around and eat together.
Murals from this period show many scenes of dining with high tables and chairs, such as the mural painting in Dunhuang Cave 473, which depicts nine people sitting on both sides of a rectangular dining table. Guests sit together at a bed, but the main dishes and food are "distributed as needed" by the chef or servant. Only staple foods such as cakes or soups are served together.
At the time of the fifth dynasty of the late Tang Dynasty, the ostensibly enthusiastic way of meeting food has become a trend, but it is only a meal-sharing system with a meeting atmosphere, and the famous work of Southern Tang painter Gu Hongzhong "Han Xizai Night Banquet Map" reveals relevant information. In this long scroll, Han Xizai and several noble children are depicted, sitting on a bed and a large chair with a backrest, listening to the performance of a pipa girl. In front of them were several small tables, and in front of each of them were exactly the same portion of food, fruits and delicacies served on 8 plates. There is also a set of eating utensils, including spoons and chopsticks, on the side of the bowl.
It seems that it is not the way of eating, but a manifestation of the nostalgic contemplation of the nobility. In fact, this also shows that the traditional constraint of the meal-sharing system is still very strong, so there is a long transition period from the meal-sharing to the meal, which is not the meal-sharing system in the atmosphere of today's meal-sharing and meal-sharing.
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