History|Technology and ruthlessness, a good egg "wind and clouds"

Eggs have been loved since ancient times.

There was a novelist named Xia Jingqu in the Qing Dynasty, who wrote a novel "Ye Cer Exposed", which is set in the Ming Dynasty and tells the story of an unambitious scholar named Wen Suchen in Wujiang County, Suzhou Prefecture, who has experienced hardships and soared. This novel mentions many ways to eat eggs, such as "fried eggs", "fried eggs", "wine-stuffed eggs" and so on.

Xia Jingqu has been quite downtrodden in his life, but he also knows the fancy way to eat eggs, which shows how much people like eggs in their daily lives.

"Chicken picking" is a specific custom of the Hanshi Festival

The ancients often used eggs to compare heaven and earth, which can be reflected in ancient poetry, such as Xu Quan in the Three Kingdoms period said in the "Three and Five Calendars": "Heaven and earth are chaotic like chickens, and Pangu is born in it." ”

In ancient times, there was a tradition of "carving eggs", which was formed in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period or even earlier, and there was a phrase in the "Pipe Extravagant Chapter" that "carved eggs and then boiled", which means that eggs are carved first and then boiled.

This "carving" does not have to be carving, but it can also be a pattern drawn on the eggshell. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Tang Dynasty, "freaking chickens" became a specific custom of the Cold Food Festival, such as Zong Yi in the Southern Dynasty excerpt in the "Jing Chu Dynasty": "Carve eggs, and then sing them, so they accumulate and scatter all things." "It means: carved eggs and then boiled and eaten, which means that all things have begun to recover after experiencing the accumulation of winter.

However, carving patterns on eggs is also a luxury, for example, Yang Xuanzhi of Northern Wei mentioned in "Luoyang Jialan Ji" that Shi Chong, a wealthy man of the Jin Dynasty, painted egg carvings, as if painting eggs as a symbol of poverty and luxury. People have a popular cold food festival to carve patterns on eggs, and then use them to appreciate, give, and compare.

The Northern Qi customs record "Jade Candle Treasure Book" mentions: "This festival (cold food festival), the city especially has a lot of chicken egg fighting. It records the custom of people fighting with carved eggs for entertainment during the Cold Food Festival at that time, so the chicken is also called cockfighting and cockfighting.

Because the carving of eggs pays attention to technology, ordinary people cannot afford to carve, Sheng Tang Prime Minister Zhang said that "Fenghe Holy System First Entered Qinchuan Road Cold Food Should System" has "the curtain that can cut chickens, the palace is skillful and skillful in hair", recording the superb skills of skilled craftsmen in the court to carve eggs. As for painting and cooking on eggs, this is something that ordinary people can do.

Luo Binwang, one of the "Four Masters of the Early Tang Dynasty", also has the poem "Chicken Picking", saying that during the Tang Dynasty, eggs were carved into the appearance of various human faces, and they were also painted, "carving flowers to compete for faces, writing moons and competing eyebrows." Tang Bai Juyi's "He Chun Shen" No. 16: "Where the spring is deep, the spring is deep and the cold eaters." Delicate chicken, like colorful flowers. Yuan Shu's poem "Cold Food Night" also mentions carving eggs, "When red dyed peach blossoms and snow press pears, when the delicate chicken fights and wins." "It can be seen from the poem that the carved eggs should be compared together to see who is the most beautiful.

The custom of fleeking chicken during the cold food festival continued in the Song Dynasty, such as the "Wenchang Miscellaneous Records" written by Pang Yuanying, the second son-in-law of the Northern Song Dynasty writer Ouyang Xiu: "Cold food includes fake flower chicken balls, fretwork chicken, zitui steamed cakes, and glutinous porridge." However, after the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, this custom is rarely recorded in the classics, probably the chicken can not be carved by ordinary people, and it requires skilled craftsmen to perform, and the egg engraving is time-consuming and laborious, but it is difficult to preserve for too long, so it may not be lost later. In fact, in the Tang Dynasty, the use of chickens would cause a large waste of resources, and during the reigns of Emperor Taizong of Tang and Emperor Gaozong of Tang, they both banned the folk cold food to carve chickens and other behaviors on the grounds of "extremely large expenses".

In addition, eggs have some other functions. For example, egg whites are relatively viscous, so they can be used for ink writing. "Jin Shu Dai Kui Biography" records that Dai Kui, when Dai Andao was a teenager, used white tile chips and egg juice to stir into ink and write a Zheng Xuan stele, carved by himself, and the literature was wonderful. Jia Sixun's "Qi Min Zhishu" also recorded Wei Xian's method of ink making, and when the ink was combined, it was needed: "Put the chicken white, remove the yellow five." From this account, it is not difficult to see that egg whites were used in the ink making process of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Xu Guangqi of the Ming Dynasty developed the method of "filling the magnetic bowl" in the "Complete Book of Agricultural Government": "First heat the magnetic bowl, and use chicken to clear the lime to make up for it, very firmly." ”

In addition, eggs also have medicinal functions and were used as a traditional Chinese medicine in ancient times. For example, in many medical texts represented by "Bencao Gangmu", the method of treating diseases with eggs has been recorded, and the egg white, egg yolk, egg shell, etc. of eggs can be separated separately, all with different curative effects.

It is a common ingredient, but there are also "sky-high eggs"

Chinese has a long history of eating eggs. For example, the Nanjing Museum once exhibited a can of Western Zhou eggs dating back more than 2,800 years. Chinese has a long history of raising chickens, and for ancient farming families, chickens can be described as one of the must-raise poultry. There is also an allusion to "seeing eggs and asking for chickens" in "Zhuangzi Qi Theory of Things", which means that when you see eggs, you think that the eggs will turn into chickens to report to report, which is too early to use as a metaphor.

Liu Xiang, a literary scholar of the Western Han Dynasty, also mentioned a god called Zhu Jiweng in the "Legend of the Immortals", judging from the title, this should be a chicken farmer surnamed Zhu, and later, he sold chickens and eggs, "getting tens of millions of dollars", becoming a typical example of getting rich. Zhu Jiweng is not necessarily a real person, but according to this story, there were outstanding large-scale chicken farmers in the Han Dynasty, and the large production of eggs can also be seen.

In the eyes of the ancients, eggs should not be particularly valuable. There is a story recorded in "Zeng Zi Ren Xian" that Zi Si, the grandson of Confucius, said to Wei Guojun: "Your subordinate Gou Cheng is a talent who can become a general, you can reuse him." Wei Jun said embarrassed: "I know that he has talent, but he has a problem with his work style, I used to let him serve in the local area, but he ate two eggs for nothing when he was working." ”

Zisi advised: "A saint chooses a virtuous and capable, just as a skilled craftsman chooses wood, taking its strengths and giving up its weaknesses." Then he gave a few examples: "Now you are in troubled times, but because of two eggs, you gave up the general who defended your home and country, this is because of a small mistake, and this kind of words cannot be spread." Wei Jun listened and was convinced: "You are right. So he reappointed Gou.

Eggs are not expensive, but in ancient times, there were still some "sky-high eggs".

The common people love eggs, and the emperors of ancient times also love eggs. For example, the "Ming Huidian" records that in the ten years of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty, there were 5,540 chickens in the "Fan Education Department", of which 4,757 were hens, which means that most of the chickens raised by the government were hens that could lay eggs. At that time, the Guanglu Temple, which was in charge of the diet, "took 5,000 chickens and 120,000 eggs" every year, which meant that the royal family ate 120,000 eggs a year.

However, the eggs eaten by the emperor may really be "sky-high eggs". For example, Li Yuerui during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty recorded a story of the Qianlong Emperor eating eggs in "Spring Ice Room Wild Ride". It is said that the Qianlong Emperor summoned the minister Wang Youdun one day and greeted, "Have you had breakfast?" Wang Youdun replied: "Weichen's family is poor, and he can only eat four eggs every morning. ”

The Qianlong Emperor was taken aback: "Eggs can get ten taels of silver, you have to spend forty taels of silver in the morning, you dare not be so indulgent, you dare to cry poor?" Wang Youdun suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, and quickly defended: "The eggs sold outside are all defective products, and Weichen can buy them cheaply, and each one is only a few dollars." Listening to Wang Youdun's words, the Qianlong Emperor nodded: "So it is." ”

In fact, the price of eggs itself is not expensive, but the corruption of the internal affairs office in the Qing Dynasty caused the problem of sky-high eggs. Wang Youdun knew the reason and did not dare to break it, and the Qianlong Emperor, who ate sky-high eggs every day, took it for granted that a good egg was worth ten taels of silver.

Egg fried rice, the easiest and the most difficult

How did the ancients eat eggs?

Ancient popular leeks and eggs are eaten together. The "Book of Rites" mentions that "the common people recommended leeks to eggs in spring", because the productivity of the pre-Qin dynasty was low, and the common people were limited by economic conditions and social status, so they used leeks and eggs to sacrifice their ancestors in the spring. But at that time, leeks and eggs should be similar to the form of leek custard or leek egg soup.

As for scrambled eggs, they first appeared in the "Qi Min Zhishu" during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, which included the "fried chicken method": "Break, in the copper bell, stir the yellow and white mixed." "It is to beat the eggs into a copper pan and stir well, and then add chopped green onion, salt, tempeh, sesame oil and other spices in turn to scramble the eggs. Copper bells with faster heat conduction during the Northern and Southern Dynasties have appeared, which makes it possible to scrambled eggs. There is also a boiled egg in "Qi Min Zhishu": "Break, boil soup, float, that is, plunder, raw and cooked, that is, add salt and vinegar." "Break the eggs and pour them into the boiling soup, scoop them up and enjoy them with salt and vinegar.

The well-known predecessor of egg fried rice may have appeared in the Qin and Han dynasties, and there are records of the food "egg xi" in the bamboo tablets unearthed from the Mawangdui Han tomb in Hunan Province. "Xi" means fierce fire, "egg xi" is a dish that combines eggs and rice under the blessing of fire, and some experts speculate that this is the prototype of "egg fried rice".

It is also mentioned in classics such as "Qing Yilu" that Yang Su, the Duke of Yue in the Sui Dynasty, once created a kind of "broken golden rice", the specific cooking process of which has been lost, but some people believe that eggs are added to this broken golden rice, because the eggs are like broken gold after scrambling, so it is called "broken golden rice", which may be the earliest authentic egg fried rice.

Zan Yin, a medical scientist of the Tang Dynasty, recorded an egg porridge in the "Food Medical Heart Guide", the specific method is to boil rice for porridge, break the egg and put it into the rice porridge when the porridge is almost cooked, and it can be eaten when it is cooked. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Ji compiled a book of common knowledge of daily life called "Pluripotent Contemptibles", which also recorded a method of making "chicken thread" with wine: "When boiled in a thin wine pot, the chicken was stolen, salt was added, mixed with tendons, swirled out, and made like a thread, and served with wine." ”

Song Xu, a gourmet in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, recorded a kind of egg noodles in the "Song Family Health Department": "Take chicken with water, mix yellow and white, and noodles, open the shaft thinly, fold and cut like thin wisps." "Egg noodles are made by rolling them out, folding them and cutting them into thin strips. There are also egg wonton skins, which are also rolled out with eggs and noodles, but cut into small squares to wrap the filling, and finally folded into a pocket.

For Xu Xiake, a traveler of the Ming Dynasty, there is probably no food more convenient and affordable than boiled eggs, and when traveling in Yunnan, he once boiled eggs in spring water, and confessed that the taste was better than ordinary water!

Fancy ways to eat eggs

Historically, there have been some well-known foodies who have eaten eggs out of tricks.

Qing dynasty man Li Huanan recorded some ways to eat eggs in the "Records of Awakening Garden", such as when making lard balls, you must first cut the lard finely, then add egg yolk, mung bean powder, and then mix with soy sauce and wine, and then pinch the balls and boil them in boiling water. When making shrimp soup, the head, tail, feet and shell of the shrimp are peeled, the meat is cut into thin slices, then eggs and other ingredients are added, soybean oil and wine are added to mix well, and finally boiled into soup according to a series of processes.

Li Huanan also recorded some deep processing methods of eggs, such as making sauce eggs: "Wash the egg with the shell, marinate it in the sauce, and eat it in January, but you don't need to boil it." In addition, there is a way to make egg rolls: first break the eggs and stir them well, put them into an iron spoon rubbed with raw oil to make a thin egg cake, and then stir pork, mung bean flour, egg white, etc. to make a filling, use omelette to roll up the filling like a roll pancake, gently fold the two ends, wrap them one by one, and steam them in the steamer, the taste is "very beautiful".

At the same time, there is also the method of steaming chicken cake: one pound of noodles with ten eggs and half a kilogram of white sugar, mix well and put it on the stove to ferment, and then put it into the steamer to steam after a meal, and slice it after it is cold. If it is a steamed American cake, then the ingredients are different, that is, one pound of noodles must be accompanied by sixteen egg yolks, and then rice wine juice and noodles must be added. Li Huanan also recorded a "milk egg", that is, milk with eggs, plus rock sugar steamed into egg soup.

For steamed eggs, the most well-known foodie of the Qing Dynasty, Yuan Zhang, had his own experience, and he mentioned in the "Suiyuan Food List": "The more boiled the tenderer, the waist, eggs and the like." "The eggs get more tender the more steamed. There are many egg dishes recorded by Yuan Zhang, and some dishes in which eggs are just ingredients, such as when making desanded meat and fried chicken slices, you need to stir them with eggs first to improve the taste of the meat.

In addition, Yuan also has a way to make "fake milk" with egg white blends and honey rice wine. The method of boiling "tea eggs" with eggs, salt, and coarse tea leaves is also recorded. At the same time, there is also "smoked egg": "Simmer the egg with ingredients, slightly smoked dry, slice it on a plate, and it can be used to accompany the meal." "Sometimes, eggs are also used to decorate the plate, such as making "shelled steamed crab", in which the crab meat and roe are removed, then put back into the crab shell, and five or six crabs are steamed on raw eggs, which is quite interesting when served.

Qing Dynasty scholar Yu Yu recorded in the "Three Banknotes of the Tea Fragrance Room" a kind of "Dapeng egg", which is actually to break dozens of eggs into the pig cell, tie it tightly with a thread, place it at the bottom of the well with a lower temperature, and then take it out overnight, at this time you can see the yolk in the inside, the egg white solidified in the outer layer, at first glance it is a "giant egg", so it is called "Dapeng egg".

Some people love eggs, and some people are picky eaters who don't. In the late Qing Dynasty, an author with the name of "Duyi Wo Retreat" wrote a notebook novel "Laughing and Laughing", which contains a joke about a southerner who does not eat eggs came to the north, rested and ate at a roadside hotel, and asked what was delicious in the store, and the guy successively recommended Muxi meat, yellow vegetables, and nest fruits to him, and when the dishes were served, the southerner found that these dishes had eggs, and finally he could only go hungry.

The sweetness and bitterness of those eggs

Inside the small egg, there is also the bittersweet and bitter of the ancients.

For example, there is "fun" in eggs, and Liu An, the king of Huainan of the Western Han Dynasty, recorded an interesting experiment of "mugwort makes chickens fly" in "Huainan Wanbishu": a small hole is opened in the eggshell, the egg liquid is poured out, and the burning wormwood is put into the eggshell through the small hole, and the eggshell can fly away along the wind, which is very similar to the principle of hot air balloons in later generations, but because of the simple record, this experiment has also been questioned by later generations.

However, Su Shi of the Song Dynasty recorded a similar interesting experiment in "The Feeling of Things": "The chicken opens a small trick, removes the yellow and white, enters the dew, and pastes it with oil paper, and when it is exposed to the sun, it can rise from itself and rise three or four feet from the ground." "Make a small opening in the egg, pour out the liquid egg, then paste the shell opening with paper and expose it to the sun. Some people believe that the gas in the shell is heated and expanded, the oil paper is squeezed, the powerful air flow is ejected from the opening, and the eggshell is also driven out under the reaction force of the air flow.

For the poor people in ancient times, eggs were only willing to be eaten on happy days, such as Fan Jinzhongju in "The History of Rulin" was happy and crazy, and everyone in the neighborhood took some eggs, wine, and rice to treat the "fathers on the newspaper". Shen Bang of the Ming Dynasty recorded in the "Miscellaneous Notes of Wanji" the banquet meal in the township examination hall at that time, at that time, Xiucai passed the township examination and became a banquet for people, and 280 eggs were needed.

There is also "bitterness" in eggs, and Zhang Dai recorded a story in "Fast Garden Daogu": it is about a six-year-old child named Qi Shipei, whose wife likes to eat eggs and eats several a day. One day, a maid underneath stole eggs, Qi Shipei brought a basin of water for the maids to drain their mouths one by one, and the person who stole the egg really spit out the yolk water.

There are also eggs in "Dream of Red Mansions", and in the sixty-first episode, Si Qi wanted to stew tender eggs, but the Liu family said: "Somehow, this year's eggs are very short, and I can't find it for ten dollars." "Compared with an egg for a penny, this egg is indeed expensive, but compared with the one for ten taels of silver, this egg is very cheap." Later, the Liu family still steamed a bowl of eggs for people to send, but was "all splashed on the ground" by Si Qi, for her, eggs are not a valuable thing at all, but she does not know that for many low-status maidservants, it is also a luxury to eat eggs on weekdays.

In contrast, the eggs in "Journey to the West" are all metaphors. For example, the yellow-robed monster spits out a "relic Linglong Neidan" from its mouth, which is the size of a chicken. There is a chicken eating episode in "Water Margin", but there is no mention of eggs. There are no eggs in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", but there is a place in the "Records of the Three Kingdoms", which says that Zhuge Ke, a powerful minister of Eastern Wu, had an opinion when he was playing with the prince when he was a child, and the prince scolded angrily: "Yuanxun (Zhuge Ke's character) can eat horse arrows." Zhuge scowled, "May the prince eat chicken eggs." Sun Quan listened and asked curiously: "The prince told you to eat horse manure, why did you still ask him to eat eggs?" Zhuge replied, "Because they all come out of the same place." Sun Quan couldn't help but laugh after hearing this.

As mentioned earlier, the Qianlong Emperor also liked to eat eggs, perhaps because the eggs he ate were too expensive, so that he always couldn't forget to think when chewing, so he couldn't help but send out soul torture: "No chicken eggs do not give birth, no eggs can not be made." Who starts the cycle, Qianpi chicken egg commentary. "Is there a chicken or an egg in this world?

Photo courtesy of Qiu Junlin

Editor/Wang Jing