Recently, the cliff-like cooling in the north has reached more than 10 °C, which is very cold. However, there are many kinds of vegetables sold in the wet market, such as red pall, cucumber and eggplant, which are sold all year round.
The reason why out-of-season vegetables can be supplied to thousands of ordinary people is inseparable from the development of modern logistics and the promotion of greenhouse planting technology. People always like to pursue the diversity of food varieties, and the ancients were no exception. Although science and technology were backward in ancient times, people still tried all kinds of ways to enrich the vegetable basket in winter.
"Xinyi Ink Cabbage" (Ming) depicts an ordinary cabbage vividly Shen Zhou's painting
Han dynasty
Summoning the letter to the "greenhouse"
Zhao Xinchen was a minister of the Western Han Dynasty and was more famous in history. He served as a punctual ruler in Nanyang County, vigorously developing agriculture and water conservancy. He personally surveyed the water sources, opened ditches, built dams and water gates, built dozens of water conservancy projects, and the irrigation area increased year by year, so that the Nanyang area became rich. In order to strengthen irrigation management, Zhao Xinchen also formulated an irrigation management system, and the "water equalization constraint" was engraved on the stone tablet next to the field. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Nanyang Taishou Du Shi repaired Pichi and opened up farmland. Du Shi often does good deeds, and when others ask for his name, he says "Du", which is falsely rumored to be Du's mother, and the people of the time praise: "There is a calling father before, and there is a Du mother in the back." This is the origin of the ancient Chinese "parent official".
After ranking Jiuqing, Zhao Xinchen did an "evil thing" to reduce the winter "vegetable basket" of the palace and make a group of concubines in the harem gnash their teeth, and it was recorded in the history books. It turned out that during the Western Han Dynasty, there were already people planting out-of-season vegetables in winter, but they were stopped by Zhao Xinchen.
Common vegetables in the Han Dynasty were sunflower (winter amaranth), leeks, shallots (scallion), rue (rape), reeds (radish), woad (cabbage), green onions, etc. Kwai vegetables were very common to grow and eat at that time, and the first sentence of the Han Yuefu "Long Song Xing" that has been recited to this day is "Kwai in the green garden, and the morning dew waits for the sun." Among them, "Aoi" is the sunflower of the time. Li Shizhen also wrote in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Kwai was often planted and eaten in the Han Dynasty. In addition, Zhang Qian's envoy to the Western Regions brought back cucumbers, garlic, coriander, alfalfa, pomegranates, grapes, walnuts and other vegetable and fruit varieties, which greatly enriched the vegetable basket of the people of the Han Dynasty.
Summer vegetables such as cucumbers were grown in the winter by farmers in the Han Dynasty, which was too difficult. The farmers of the Han Dynasty may have experimented but were unsuccessful, so they set their sights on slightly hardy vegetables such as onions and leeks, and after some research, they really found a solution.
Ban Gu, a famous historian and writer of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote in "Hanshu - The Biography of Zhao Xinchen": "Taiguan Garden planted winter onions and leeks, covered with roofs, lit a fire day and night, and waited for the warmth to be born. The faithful thought that this was an occasional thing, and that it was not suitable to be offered to others, but that it was illegal food, and that it would save tens of millions of years. "Taiguan Garden is the vegetable garden of the Western Han Dynasty, and the Taiguan is under the jurisdiction of the Shaofu, and the official position is the Taiguan Order, and the responsibility is to be responsible for the emperor's meals and swallow enjoyment. This passage recorded by Ban Gu in the history books shows that Taiguanyuan, which was specially designed to supply vegetables to the court of the Western Han Dynasty, had built a special greenhouse in winter, planted leeks and other vegetables, and raised the indoor temperature by burning firewood day and night, so that vegetables could grow normally.
When Zhao Xinchen was too punctual in Nanyang County, he advocated frugality and prohibited extravagance and waste. In the first year of Jingning (33 BC), he was conscripted into Shaofu and ranked as Jiuqing. The function of Shaofu is to manage private wealth and life affairs for the Western Han royal family, and Shangguanyuan is a subordinate institution of Shaofu. The industrious and thrifty ministers were not accustomed to the wasteful behavior of the royal family. He played the emperor, suggesting that no more money should be spent on repairing the palace annexes that the emperor had rarely visited such as Shanglin Yuan, and asked to reduce the advocacy, acrobatics, guards, and utensils in the Yellow Gate of Yuefu by more than half. Zhao Xinchen also said that the "greenhouse" costs too much, and the vegetables grown in the "greenhouse" are not grown according to the season, which is harmful to people, and the "greenhouse" should be discontinued, so that a large amount of money can be saved every year.
Tang and Song
In winter, leeks are sold
During the Tang Dynasty, one of the ways officials invited favors was to provide fresh vegetables for the emperor in winter. The Book of Tang said: "When Taizong returned to the border of Yizhou, Sima Chen Xuanxuan (shú) ordered the people to plant vegetables on the pit, and the slight fire was warm, and he wanted it to grow quickly, so as to intend to supply it." When Taizong heard this, he accused him of flattery and dismissed the official. This record shows that Li Shimin, Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, is worthy of being a Ming Jun, and Chen Xuanxuan was originally an invitation to pet, but he unexpectedly ended up being dismissed. It can be seen that in ancient times, it was too expensive to use "greenhouses" to grow out-of-season vegetables in winter, as was the case in the Han and Tang dynasties.
The original work of Tang Taizong Yan Li in "Bu Yuan Tu" (Tang).
In order to enrich the variety of winter vegetable baskets, officials in the Tang Dynasty also tried their best. According to the Taiping Imperial Review, the palace would purchase a large number of fresh vegetables in advance, mainly by chilling and cellaring them for winter use. At that time, the number of various vegetables stored in the palace for winter was very large, up to about two million catties. Allocating winter vegetables to officials is also an errand that can easily offend people. The Book of Tang contains: "In the winter of the seventh year of Zhenyuan (791), Si Nongqing Li Mo was dismissed. At the beginning, Sinong should supply 2,000 cars of winter vegetables for Sanguan, and the value of the car was slightly cheaper, and the rain and vegetables were defeated, and the model was used as an excuse for the degree of support. The upper reprimands him for not hearing it first, so he is exempted. First of all, there is a shortage of agricultural dishes in the mold, so please Jingzhaofu City. Yin Xue Jue and Wan Nian Ling Wei Tong are forbidden to sell privately. It was ordered to take the Jue in January, and in March. "Si Nongqing is a high-ranking official in charge of agriculture, warehousing, and the supply of hundreds of officials in the palace, and he is ranked as the ninth secretary. Li Mogui was the secretary of agriculture, but he was dismissed because of the supply of vegetables, which shows the importance of ensuring winter vegetables in the Tang Dynasty.
By the Song Dynasty, cucumbers were more abundant, but still scarce. Lu You, a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote in the poem "Growing Vegetables": "The white endive and cucumber are scarce on the market, and there is a brilliance in the plate; Some researchers believe that the Song Dynasty was able to supply cucumbers in winter, but I am afraid that there is insufficient evidence. Lu You's poem does not say that cucumbers are on the market in winter, and there is no record of the technology and facilities that can grow cucumbers in winter in the Song Dynasty.
However, during the Tang and Song dynasties, there was already a method of promoting the early blooming of flowers. In the Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi's "Twenty Songs of Hechun Shen" has "I am accustomed to seeing greenhouse trees and full of bathhouse flowers." The poem was named after the Tang flower. Zhou Mi of the Song Dynasty pointed out in "Qi Dongye Yu Ma Cheng Art Flower": "Those who bloom early in the flower are called Tang Flower." He heard and witnessed this method in Hangzhou: "Decorate the secret room with paper, dig the ground as a ridge, reel bamboo, put flowers on it, and use oxen to sulfur in the dung, and do the best to cultivate the method." Then put the boiling soup in the kan, wait less, the soup is fumigated, then fan it with a breeze, full of spring melting, and the flowers will bloom after staying. This method is also used in the Qing Dynasty, Qing Wang Shizhen's "Ju Yi Lu" contains: "Today's Beijing Shi Layue is to sell peonies, plum blossoms, scarlet peaches, spring exploration, all flowers are stored in the warm room, baked by fire, the so-called Tang flower, also known as Tang Hua is also. ”
"I gradually felt that the east wind was cold, and Artemisia annua and yellow leeks tried the spring plate. Su Shi, a great poet of the Song Dynasty, said in the poem "Sending Fan Deru" that he felt the breath of early spring in the gradually cold days, and tried to place artemisia annua and yellow leeks in order to welcome the arrival of spring. Elder Meng recorded in "Tokyo Menghualu": "In December, the market sells Buddha flowers, leeks, lettuce, orchid sprouts, ......" Lu You also said in the poem "Drinking with Village Neighbors": "Chicken planters should be white, and pork shoulders are mixed with leeks." This proves that in the Song Dynasty, in addition to cultivating Tang flowers in greenhouses, people were able to grow rare vegetables such as leeks and sprouts. The record of "Tokyo Menghualu" shows that greenhouse cultivation is no longer the patent of a few powerful people, and ordinary people can eat it, so that it is sold in the market.
Ming and Qing dynasties
The "greenhouse" is already capable of producing cucumbers
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, farmers generally used the simple and inexpensive method of cellaring and burning for the production of winter vegetables, fruits and flowers. Dig the soil into a cellar, transplant the crops to be cultivated into the cellar where the wind does not shine, and burn horse manure to keep it at room temperature. At the same time, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was also a greenhouse that was most similar to modern times - a greenhouse with an earthen wallpaper and window structure. The greenhouse is built with loess walls, and the south side is a paper window slope, which not only increases the room temperature, but also enables the crops in the house to photosynthesize. The house is also equipped with heating facilities such as stoves and ondols. In terms of structure alone, it is very similar to the solar greenhouses in the modern north of the continent. And this kind of cellar-style or semi-cellar-style house is also called "warm cave".
Ming Zhao Qian recorded in "Five Miscellaneous Quirks and Things" that "there are yellow sprouts and leeks in the middle of winter in Beijing, all of which are cultivated in the fire pit of the cellar of Fujia. The people of the Qing Dynasty called the vegetables, melons and fruits produced in this kind of warm cave "cave goods". During the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were many varieties of vegetables and vegetables produced in the warm cave, including cucumbers. Cucumber is also called king melon, "School Garden Yu Shu" said: "King melon out of Yanjing is the best, planted in the fire room, forced flowers and leaves, in early February that bears seeds." Regarding Wang Gua, Emperor Qianlong said in the poem "Twenty Songs of Shengxia Still Use Yuanwei's Shengchun Poetry Rhyme": "Where is the summer early, in the summer lettuce garden." The king gourd is raw and dewy, and the bitter herbs are showing. The decoration frame hangs well, and the stacking plate is melting. Shabby has a true taste, don't ask about eating a single bush. ”
It is worth mentioning that even if you are the emperor, for Qianlong, cucumbers in winter are also rare. He said in the poem "Cucumber": "The best dishes on the plate are the most Yanjing, and it is not a sure comment to taste the new in February." The pressure frame is partial to the fence, and the scenery of the Tian family is painted with true feelings. "February of the Qianlong Dynasty is the lunar calendar, and according to the current solar calendar, it is March. Qianlong recited a poem excitedly because he ate cucumbers in March, looking at now, in the cold winter season, vegetables in all seasons are available, regardless of status, you can buy some to try, how can we modern people not thank the progress of the times?
(Beijing Evening News, Five Colors of Earth|Author: Chao Hua)
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