1 million years ago, human beings learned to use fire; 10,000 years ago, human beings began to use clay pots; in 1000 BC, Fang Ding for single use appeared in the banquets of the nobility, "Baizhajing Jiding" can be said to be the earliest "small hot pot"; in 140 BC, Zhang Qian went out to the Western Regions and brought back garlic, sesame seeds, flax, pepper and other seasonings; in 187, Cao Pi invented the "five cooked kettles"; in 1250, Mongolian soldiers often ate shabu lamb during their conquests, and the hot pot began to spread to the public and has continued to this day.
There is a saying that goes: "There is nothing that cannot be solved by one hot pot, and if there is, then two!" "That's the charm of hot pot. For the vast majority of Chinese, hot pot is not only a way of cooking, but also a dining custom; not only a food dish, but also a cultural heritage.
Eating at a table, men, women and children, people from all over the world are difficult to reconcile, and hot pot is the most inclusive choice. Diners can not only take their favorite ingredients out of the pot to get what they need, but also be full of friends and talk and laugh.
A hot pot meal is eaten with ingredients, bases and sauces, but the taste is the human touch between friends and family. In the steaming heat, what emerges is red and red, it is a gathering, and it is also a variety of life.
The original meaning of hot pot is to cook utensils. Today's different materials of hot pots, such as: ceramic pots, iron pots, stainless steel pots, copper pots, etc., then what is the earliest hot pot like? How many evolutions has the hot pot undergone in the long river of history?
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > the evolution of hot pot utensils</h1>
1. Tao Ding: The prototype of hot pot utensils
In the primitive social period before the invention of the stove, people had two ways to make cooked food: 1. Directly put it on the fire and grill it. 2. Heat the food in stone tools and bamboo tubes. After entering the Neolithic Age, Tao Ding became a typical cooking vessel.
Place meat, vegetables, water and grain in the belly of The Big Ding, and support the body under the feet to facilitate the fire. Some pottery dings are also equipped with a lid, which can accelerate the increase in the temperature inside the ding, make the food ripen quickly and play a role in heat preservation.
At that time, Tao Ding was relatively simple, and the shape was not completely standardized, mainly used as a cooking and food utensil, mainly for eating.
2. Bronze Ding: The symbol of royal power returns to ordinary eating utensils
From the primitive society into the slave society, Tao Ding gradually withdrew from the historical stage, the bronze Ding replaced, the shape of the Ding was gradually standardized, the appearance of three feet and two ears, becoming a treasure of mixed cooking and delicious food.
Since Dayu cast the Nine Dings, the identity of the Bronze Ding has slowly risen, becoming a heavy instrument of etiquette, no longer a tool for eating large pots of rice. Ding's body is often engraved with special meanings of the motifs and inscriptions, symbolizing the mysterious power of the Mandate of Heaven, or recording the great deeds of the owner, and even sometimes as a cruel torture device to punish criminals.
The size and number of Ding, forming a set of hierarchical use system, can not be used casually, from the words "Bell Sound Ding Food", "Column Ding and Eat", "Human Voice Boiling" and other words can be seen in the pomp and circumstance of the use of Ding at that time. At this time, "Ding Food" is divided into three categories:
1. Cook
2. Firmly release livestock
3. Put the seasoning in shame
This is similar to the modern people who eat hot pot and cook it in a large pot, eat in a small bowl, and put a small dish with dipping sauce. In addition, during the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was already a "single small hot pot". At the banquet, everyone sat separately, and in front of each person, there was a small ding on the table, and there was a compartment in the ding, and the lower layer was open, which could be put into the charcoal fire, and the upper layer was filled with hot soup and boiled ingredients.
The princes and nobles sat one by one, and they personally enjoyed the delicious ingredients in their own small pots, which was very useful. At the end of the Zhou Dynasty, the princes fought in chaos and the lile collapsed, and the royal significance of Ding gradually weakened, and Ding returned to the identity of ordinary meal utensils.
3. Dyeing cups, wok buckets, five cooked kettles: when the hot pot is carried out
In the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, it was popular to use dyeing cups and dyeing stoves, warm the cup with charcoal fire, and dye the meat and eat it again. The dyeing cup is a cup-shaped cooking tool with ears, in a small shape, but with a capacity of 300 ml. The dyeing furnace is a charcoal stove, hollowed out on all sides, with a rectangular disc body that receives charcoal ash on the lower part, and a dyeing cup that can be moved on the upper part.
The Three Kingdoms and the Southern and Northern Dynasties periods were the era of the popularity of wok fighting. It is a three-legged, round-bellied bronze eating utensil with a pair of handles. As a result, another special eating utensil, "Five Cooked Kettles", was gradually developed. When Emperor Cao Pi of Wei was still a son of the world, in order to reward Xiangguo Zhongxuan, he specially gave him a chic pot, and left a message praising this pot, saying that the Yellow Emperor's three dings and the Zhou King's nine dings are all one ding and one taste, which is comparable to my pot, and can make five kinds of dishes at the same time, and the five flavors are complete.
This pot is a five-cooked kettle, which is actually divided into several grids in a pot, which is a bit similar to the current nine-square grid pot. The manufacturing technology of this pot is not difficult, but the design innovation is very valuable, which also shows that the food culture of hot pot is gradually maturing.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > from "warm pot" to "dial Xia" real hot pot molding</h1>
Chinese loves hot pot. This love is not the exclusive complex of contemporary people, and since ancient times, many literary masters and emperors have been obsessed with hot pot. Many of the delicious hot pot recipes that have been handed down to this day are from their hands. Every hot pot is a story, which not only satisfies people's appetites, but also witnesses the ups and downs of history.
The Tang Dynasty had a prosperous economy, developed culture, and rapid development of handicrafts, and the ceramic industry made unprecedented progress during this period, known as "Southern Qing and Northern Bai" (Yue kiln, Xing kiln). Therefore, the hot pot utensils at this time are mostly made of ceramics, called "warm pot".
Bai Juyi", "Ask Liu Nineteen": "Green ants are newly brewed wine, and the red clay small stove is cooked." Late to the day want snow, can you drink a cup of nothing? ”
Liu Nineteen was Bai Juyi's cousin Liu Yutong, a wealthy merchant in Luoyang, and the two often had contacts. One day, Bai Juyi was bored at home, remembering the lively scene of the two brothers drinking wine while eating hot pot, so he felt the feeling and wrote this poem. In the poem, the "small red clay stove" is a small hot pot made of pottery.
The hot pot is not only noisy, but also sunny spring white snow. To say that the most elegant way to eat hot pot, it is not the Southern Song Dynasty poet Lin Hong", "cooking rabbit in the snow". Lin Hong is a gourmet who wrote a book called "Mountain Family Qing Offering", which records the cooking methods of vegetables, fruits, mountain fowl, river (sea) fresh and other ingredients grown in the fields of the mountain forest. One of the passages writes about his story of "cooking rabbits":
One snowy day, Lin Hong went to Wuyi Mountain to visit the Stop Division, and halfway caught a rabbit rolling down the mountain rock, so he thought of roasting it to eat. However, the Stop Master recommends another way to eat:
Cut the rabbit meat into thin slices, marinate it slightly, put a small stove on the table, prepare half a pot of soup, wait for the soup to boil, and use chopsticks to hold the rabbit meat and swing it in the soup until the meat is cooked and dipped in some sauce (wine, sauce, pepper, cinnamon, etc.) and eat it deliciously. This is actually shabu-shabu, which is not much different from today's traditional shabu-shabu hot pot.
At that time, there was heavy snow outside the house, and two or three friends in the house sat around a table, eating hot, talking and laughing, and it was really happy. Almost finished eating, Lin Hong looked out the window, only to see a red glow reflecting the white snow, and couldn't help but blurt out: "The waves are surging and the river is snowing, and the wind is shining on the sunset." Borrowing the scene of the red xia in the snow, he named this rabbit meat "Dial Xia Offering". Later, Lin Hong also specifically mentioned in his diet book that pork and mutton can be eaten in this way. Today's "Eight Raw Hot Pot" is derived from the "Dialing Xia Offering". The so-called "eight lives" refers to eight kinds of fresh ingredients.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > hot pot was promoted by the Qing dynasty royal family</h1>
Although the Song Dynasty had a similar way of eating hot pot to today, it was not widely spread. By the Time of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the most popular hot pot variety, "Shabu Lamb", was popular among the Mongolian aristocracy. Hundreds of years passed in a hurry in the Ming Dynasty, and hot pot did not spread among the people. To say that it is the guide to really promote hot pot, it is the royal family of the Qing Dynasty.
"Hot pot" was originally called "hot pot", and the word came from the Qing Palace. In the "Feast of a Thousand Sorrows" held by the Kangxi Emperor, there is a "wild game hot pot" that is very exquisite, and a large pot is served with twelve dishes: venison slices, pheasant slices, wild boar meat, wild duck breast, squid rolls, fresh fish meat, flying dragon breast, roe deer ridge, thorn dragon tooth, large leaf parsley, eleutherococcals, and fresh bean sprouts. In the Imperial Meal Archives of the Qing Palace, wild game hot pot, raw meat hot pot, mutton hot pot, and chrysanthemum hot pot often appear.
By the time of the Qianlong Emperor, his love for hot pot far exceeded that of his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor, and he could hardly eat hot pot. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs' "Meal Bottom File", on August 16, 1779, when the heat was not gone, the Qianlong Emperor's table was placed on a hot pot. In the month since, he has eaten 23 different types of hot pot, a total of 66 times.
Good on the top, the next must be effective, coupled with the unique charm of the hot pot itself, the hot pot soon became popular in Beijing, and the influence soon radiated to the whole country.
How popular was hot pot at that time? Yuan Ming, a gourmet who settled in Nanjing, wrote a special article for this purpose, "Quit hot pot", which was included in the "Suiyuan Food List", and made a big crusade against hot pot.
"Winter feasts, habitual hot pot, noisy to guests, is disgusting ... Then the bad taste can be known. ”
It is this criticism that makes people understand the popularity of hot pot at that time. Nowadays, with the advancement of science and technology and the development of cooking skills, the varieties of hot pot are also dazzling and readily available. According to the classification of fuel, there are carbon, electricity, etc.; according to the size of the classification, there are large pots, single pots; according to the classification of soup bases, there are soup brine hot pots, stew hot pots, boiled hot pots, etc.; according to the regional classification, there are mutton hot pots in Beijing, seafood hot pots in Guangdong, Mao belly hot pots in Chongqing, etc., all kinds of varieties and everything.
Chinese hot pot is not only a delicacy, but also contains a rich and colorful food culture. From the emperors and generals to the ordinary people, it has a large base of diners. Tasting each kind of hot pot is not simply for food and clothing or appetite, but a historical and cultural inheritance. The reason why every table of hot pot is warm, it is because the hot pot makes everyone have a sense of personal participation.
You can feel involved in the selection of ingredients, you can feel involved in the preparation of dishes, you can evaluate, you can communicate. In the cold and lonely winter, on the night of the long-goodbye reunion, whether at home or in the restaurant, every bite to the mouth delicacy is your own selection, self-hot, self-seasoning. The entrance is hot and spicy, indicating "closeness"; the pot and pan mouth is round, indicating "reunion"; the ingredients do not reject meat and fishy cold vegetarians, the seasoning with ingredients does not distinguish between east and west, south and north, mountain treasures, seafood, river fresh, seasonal vegetables do not refuse, indicating "and help the world", in general, the hot pot embodies a kind of "fusion beauty" of the Chinese nation.