What did the common people eat in the Tang Dynasty: millet porridge in the morning, dead dough cakes at noon, and kimchi are the top delicacies

Starter 2024-04-17 23:51 Lantai

Death Mask

Hello everyone, I'm Lantai.

It's been a long time since I've talked to you about ancient history, but today I'll talk to you about the Tang Dynasty, which is known as the most powerful Tang Dynasty in China, and what its ordinary people eat.

Why do you want to talk about this topic with you?

This is because many people think that the common people of the Tang Dynasty ate and drank even better than the modern people who were extremely rich in materials:

It is said that porridge is a simple and nutritious thing, and it is also the favorite of the Tang people, such as Bai Juyi's "This spring is cold, ask yourself what you want." Su Nuan shallot, white wine, milk and rehmannia porridge. Another example is Pi Rixiu's "There are wheat dumplings in the morning food, and cloth clothes in the morning." "The gluttony in it is also porridge. At that time, the variety of porridge practices was not much better than that of contemporary times, and in the Tang Dynasty's medical work "Food and Medicine Xinjian", there was a special part of porridge, which mentioned various practices, raw materials from rice to white sorghum rice, corn, barley, wheat, japonica rice, and auxiliary materials from vegetables to meat to fruits to dried fruits, which can be called all-inclusive.

The main meal of the Tang Dynasty, of course, said that the meat was the first mutton, at that time the mutton was not very rich, to name a few famous: raw mutton, this dish was handed down from the Sui Dynasty, simply put, raw mutton chopped and mixed with seasonings, the taste of what you can imagine.

In fact, this kind of cognitive problem is very big, because this is actually the diet of the high-ranking officials and nobles of the Tang Dynasty, and it does not represent the diet of ordinary Tang Dynasty people at all.

For example, Bai Juyi's actual highest position in the Tang Dynasty was a high-ranking official at the vice provincial level, while Pi Rixiu's highest position in the Tang Dynasty was a researcher (full professor) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Tang Dynasty high society night banquet

How can they be used to represent the vast majority of ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty?

In fact, according to the historical materials collected by Lantai, the diet of ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty was very poor, and it was seriously lacking in protein.

In the late Tang Dynasty, Tang Zhaozong and other dignitaries and nobles couldn't stand it after eating real "civilian food" for a few days, and demanded to make peace with the rebels as soon as possible.

Next, Lantai will briefly introduce to you the diet of the real commoners of the Tang Dynasty.

Rice dumplings

01、

According to Professor Huang Zhengjian, doctoral supervisor of the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, his academic work "Research on Clothing, Food, Housing and Transportation in the Tang Dynasty", the middle class in the Tang Dynasty had no official capital and less land.

They generally can't afford to eat meat or oil, and take rice porridge as their staple food all year round.

Some people say that they drink porridge every day, and they are still middle-class?

Counted.

Because although they eat rice porridge as their staple food all year round, they can at least have some land and raise some livestock.

According to the Tang Dynasty system, officials such as magistrates went to the countryside, and their food was served by the wealthy families in the village.

Written in the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, the "Chaoye Zai" recorded many folk deeds from the early Tang Dynasty to the Kaiyuan period of Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, and there are a large number of stories reflecting the lives of grassroots officials and grassroots people.

Among them, it is said that in the era of Wu Zetian, a county official went to the countryside to inspect and chose to eat at the richest person in the village, and the richest person in the village was called Wang Xing, although he was known as the richest man in the village, but there was only one old hen that laid eggs at home, and the chicken was slaughtered to entertain the county order.

Old hen stew

And ordinary civilians in the Tang Dynasty who were worse off than Wang Xing, the true middle class of the Tang Dynasty, their food was even worse.

According to Professor Huang Zhengjian, ordinary civilians in the Tang Dynasty, because they couldn't afford to eat salt, mostly took light food, and they could eat some pickles, which was already delicious in the world.

In the 9th century, a Japanese monk named Yuanren came to China, and he traveled through more than 20 prefectures and 60 counties in 7 provinces, which lasted nearly 10 years.

In this book, the Japanese monk Enren records in detail what he saw and heard on the way from Shandong to Chang'an, and finally back to Japan.

He mentioned that in Shandong, which has always been known as wealthy, ordinary people eat the most cold rice dumplings made of millet, and because the local people believe in Buddhism, they only take out their treasured kimchi to entertain Yuanren when they see the monks coming to turn their fortunes.

Today's Sichuan kimchi

Although Yuanren is very grateful for the hospitality of the people of Shandong, he also said that he has eaten too many cold rice balls and kimchi in northern Shandong, and his chest hurts from eating.

He even found out in Shandong that he only ate one meal of millet dumplings a day, so that when he went to Huayuan, people told him that he didn't eat at home.

As for the slaves below the commoners, it is even more miserable, and it is recorded in the "Chaoye Zai" that during the Kaiyuan Dynasty, a county commander named Xiahou Biao in Sichuan treated the slaves very cruelly, and whipped them at every turn; but even so, his slaves could not help but steal the meat he had released.

It can be seen how bad the diet of the slaves in the Tang Dynasty was.

In the Tang Dynasty, only the wealthy families could eat meat pies

02、

There are also many people who directly understand the "Hu cake" in the Tang Dynasty as a meat filling baked cake, but this is also wrong.

The meat stuffed cakes in the Tang Dynasty were called "Gulouzi", and they were not eaten by wealthy families.

Shi Hao's family eats a catty, a pound of mutton, layers are spread in the giant hu cake, the interval is peppered with tempeh, moistened with crisp, forced into the furnace, waiting for the meat to be half cooked, called "ancient building". - "Tang Yulin"

In fact, according to the physical "Hu Cake" unearthed in Turpan in 1969, as well as Turpan documents and related historical records, the "Hu Cake" in the broad sense of the Tang Dynasty is closer to today's dead dough cake, and there is no oil, no sugar, no meat, and even very little salt.

Moreover, according to the documents unearthed in Turpan, Hu Cake is made without oil, and Hu Cake with oil has a special name at that time: Oil Hu Cake.

Speaking of which, according to the Tang Dynasty documents unearthed in Turpan, we can today have a more intuitive understanding of the lives of the general public in the upper class of the Tang Dynasty.

According to the documents unearthed in Turpan, even in the prosperous era of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, the life of ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty was still very bitter (compared to ordinary people today).

How bitter is it?

Fengzi

Today's common people are no longer very fond of eating fried noodles such as twist flowers, steamed dumplings, and fried hu cakes, which were used to entertain important guests in the Tang Dynasty.

It is also called "fine offering" in the documents unearthed in Turpan.

So, who can enjoy fried pasta such as twist flowers, steamed dumplings, and fried hu cakes in Turpan?

According to historical records, it must be the envoy of the Western Regions to Chang'an to meet the Son of Heaven himself, so that he can eat the twist flowers, steamed dumplings, and oil cakes provided by the Tang Dynasty government in Turpan.

And the dumplings that the common people are accustomed to today only appear once in the unearthed documents of Turpan, which was at the dinner of the highest-ranking officials in Turpan in the Tang Dynasty.

And the vast majority of ordinary people, even those who read, mostly bake dead dough cakes without oil as their main food.

In the late Tang Dynasty, the dietary conditions of ordinary people deteriorated even further.

soybean oil

According to the relevant historical materials unearthed in Dunhuang, Zhang Huaishen, the envoy of the Guiyi Army who occupied Dunhuang in the late Tang Dynasty, personally approved the envoy to give the envoy himself a "fine offering" when he entertained the envoy of the Ganzhou Uighurs, the most important ally of the Guiyi Army in Gansu, and could also enjoy the "oil eight combinations".

This "oil eight he" is less than 2 catties of oil today.

That is to say, in the late Tang Dynasty, for a military force like the Guiyi Army that occupied Dunhuang, the envoy who entertained his most important ally could only get the best treatment with less than 2 catties of oil to cook for him.

It can be seen that there was a shortage of oil at that time.

As mentioned earlier, during the period when Tang Zhaozong was besieged in Fengxiang by Zhu Wen's troops, due to the lack of materials in the city, he had to enjoy the recipes of ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty at that time: drinking millet porridge all day and eating dough soup all day and all day.

Today's dough soup

After eating for a few days, Tang Zhaozong couldn't stand it anymore, so he specially called Fengxiang's real "boss", the military leader Li Maozhen, and asked him to quickly talk to Zhu Wen:

Ding You, summoned Li Maozhen, Su Jian, Li Jiyu, Li Yanbi, Li Jiqi, Li Jiyuan, and Li Jizhong to discuss peace with Zhu Quanzhong, and said: "Below the kings of the sixteen houses, there are several people who die of freezing and discouragement. The kings, princesses, and concubines in the country have eaten porridge and soup cakes a day. What do you mean?" Shang said: "Quickly reconcile your ears!"

To sum up, Lantai does not deny that the high-ranking officials and nobles of the Tang Dynasty could enjoy delicacies such as mutton mixed with shallots, but for the vast majority of ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty, their lives were very lacking in animal protein and fat was also scarce.

Millet porridge, rice balls, dough soup and dead dough cakes without oil were the most eaten foods by ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty, and for the vast majority of ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty, pickles/kimchi were the top delicacies.

Source: Guangming Daily

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