salt
Hello everyone, I'm Lantai.
Today, Lantai would like to talk to you about one of the biggest shortcomings of Chinese cuisine - it was not until 1915 that he mastered the intermediate technology of salt purification.
01、
Some friends may ask, even if the salt purification technology was not mastered in China until around 1915, it cannot be said that this is the shortcoming of Chinese cuisine.
Isn't it possible to make delicious food using unpurified table salt?
Unpurified salt can certainly make delicious food, but food made without purified salt is likely to cause diarrhea, dehydration, and gastrointestinal disturbances in the consumer.
This is because the sodium chloride content in unpurified table salt is too low, and there are more other impurities.
Among them, in addition to sodium chloride, the most coarse salt is sulfate.
Modern medical research has long proved that once the human body consumes excessive sulfate, it is easy to cause symptoms such as diarrhea, dehydration and gastrointestinal disorders.
In addition to sulfate, magnesium sulfate is also included in the impurities of coarse salt, and excessive intake of magnesium sulfate can also cause diarrhea and even kidney failure in severe cases.
Zigong well salt
There are more harmful impurities in the well salt represented by Sichuan Zigong well salt, among which the most harmful to the human body is barium.
Once the human body ingests excessive barium, it will cause extreme weakness, difficulty breathing, salivation, inflammation of the mucous membrane of the mouth and eyes, colitis, dyspeptic diarrhea, stomach bleeding, irregular heartbeat, tachycardia, increased blood pressure, urination disorders, and sometimes hair and eyebrow loss.
Of course, the ancients were not stupid, and they also knew that there were too many impurities in coarse salt and needed to be purified, but due to ancient technical limitations, it was difficult to achieve complete purification.
Even the top "snowflake salt" in the Ming and Qing dynasties can only achieve a sodium chloride content of 90% at most, which is far less than the ordinary edible salt with a sodium chloride content of 99% on the market today.
Moreover, the "snowflake salt" that can achieve a sodium chloride content of 90% is only for the emperor and a small number of princes and ministers, and top salt merchants; The vast majority of ordinary people can't eat this "snowflake salt" with 90% sodium chloride content.
What's more, due to the long-term implementation of the "salt monopoly" system in ancient China, in the process of producing and manufacturing salt, workers have insufficient motivation to purify, and in many cases, the impurities contained in official salt exceed those of private salt.
For example, in 2018, during the archaeological survey of the salt industry on the west bank of Bohai Bay, archaeologists found a number of large salt-making sites in the Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties in the coastal zone.
Judging from the archaeological research of these salt-making workshops from the Sui and Tang dynasties to the Song and Yuan dynasties, it is found that the development speed of ancient salt purification technology is relatively slow, and the "ash spraying method" purification technology that appeared in the salt workshops in the Tang Dynasty is still in use in the Yuan Dynasty, and there is not much improvement in technology.
Even the Song Dynasty historical materials mentioned the "salt method by pouring soil", this method is still used in some parts of China. For example, in 2017, a paper was published in the journal "Research on the History of Salt Industry", entitled "Soil Salt Production Technology in Huanghua Salt Area: A Case Study of Zhongwangman Village".
Soil salt production
The paper mentions that the "soil leaching method" is still used in some rural areas.
Not only that, historians and archaeologists have also conducted large-scale investigations and studies on salt wells in Sichuan and Yunnan, and found that both Sichuan and Yunnan well salt do have barium chloride exceeding the standard (according to the current salt standard).
In fact, in historical materials, there are many records about the problem of salt impurities.
For example, in the Song Dynasty's "Jisheng Rongzhou Scenery Continuation", "the salt of Rongde is slightly red, the salt of the senior official is pure black, and it is not the pure white salt of the only spirit contained in the boat."
In the "Continuation of the Long Chapter", it is recorded that "Xichuan, Qiongzhou, Puzhou and other places produce salt and mixed sand, which is deeply harmful to the people. ”
The Qing Dynasty's "Sichuan Salt Law Chronicle" recorded that "Sichuan salt is white and dry, and Sichuan sellers are strange because of it." ”
Do you see that the "Sichuan Salt Law Chronicle" records the "white" color of Zigongjing salt in Sichuan, and you think that there are few magazines in Zigongjing salt?
According to 1937, the Sichuan Salt Transportation Agency and the Salt Inspection Branch found that the average sodium chloride content of Zigongjing salt was only 83%:
The pure salt is only 83% and contains a large amount of potassium salt...... If they are no longer qualified, they should be banned.
In 1941, there were also many cases of barium chloride poisoning in Yibin, Sichuan, which caused citizens to be poisoned by barium chloride because of excessive barium chloride in edible salt.
Ying-hsien
It was this poisoning incident that made the Republic of China make great efforts to investigate the well salt in various districts of Zigong and found a large amount of yellow brine.
Barium chloride is a white crystal, soluble in water, and stored in yellow brine.
This is also because of the introduction of modern testing equipment, the first scientific investigation of Sichuan Zigongjing salt, the preliminary understanding of the impurity components in Zigongjing salt and the first time for Zigongjing salt to set a standard: in order to protect the life safety of eaters, it is stipulated that the content of barium chloride does not exceed 5 parts per 10,000.
salt
02、
Of course, there were no more impurities in ancient Chinese salt than in Western salt in the same period.
However, since the first industrial revolution, the West has advanced by leaps and bounds at the scientific level, and it has really left China far behind.
Europe and the United States have mastered the technology of vacuum salt production as early as the late 19th century, and have the ability to produce high-purity salt with a sodium chloride content of 99%; At this time, Japan was the only country in Asia that had the technical capability to produce medium-purity table salt, which contained 95% sodium chloride.
The first to bring this technology back to China was Mr. Fan Xudong, who is known as the founder of China's heavy chemical industry and has the reputation of "the father of the national chemical industry".
Fan Xudong was born in Xiangyin County, Hunan Province in 1883, and his father was a private school teacher. Fan Xudong lost his father at the age of six and moved to Changsha with his mother Xie and brother Fan Yuanlian.
After the failure of the Wuxu Reform, Fan Yuanlian, who was a reformist, was wanted by the Qing government, and Fan Xudong was also forced to flee and later went east to Japan.
In 1910, Fan Xudong graduated with honors from the Department of Science and Chemistry of Kyoto Imperial University in Japan.
Fan Xudong
In 1914, Fan Xudong founded China's first modern chemical enterprise, Jiuda Refined Salt Company (changed to Jiuda Salt Industry Company after 1919), and China's first refined salt factory, Jiuda Refined Salt Factory.
The reason why Fan Xudong founded Jiuda Refined Salt Company was because China's salt purification technology was too backward at that time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, European and American countries had clearly stipulated that salt with a sodium chloride content of less than 85% was not allowed to be used as feed; In many parts of China, salt containing less than 50% sodium chloride is still used for human consumption.
Some European and American media even ridiculed China as a "land-eating nation".
In 1914, Fan Xudong founded Jiuda Refined Salt Company with a share capital of 50,000 yuan in Tianjin.
He began developing refined salt in the fishing village of Tanggu, which soon reached a purity of more than 90 percent, producing the first batch of refined salt made in China. Its quality is clean, uniform and hygienic, and the varieties mainly include grain salt, powder salt and brick salt, etc., and the coarse salt produced by the traditional salt making method cannot be compared with it at all.
This is also the first time in China's history that edible salt with a sodium chloride content of 95% has appeared.
03、
Why is the backwardness of salt purification technology a major shortcoming of Chinese cuisine?
This is because if a food country cannot guarantee the safety of even the most important and basic condiments for a long time, how can it say that it is a food country?
I don't know what you think, welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss.
END
Resources:
"Industrial Pioneer Fan Xudong", Wei Fen, People's Daily Overseas Edition, October 18, 2013, 10th edition;
"The Change of Salt Standards", Xu Zhuqi, Research on the History of Salt Industry, 1993.12;
Archaeological Research on Salt Industry in the Sui and Tang Dynasties of the Northern Dynasties in the Southwest Coast of the Bohai Sea, Cao Yang, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Shandong University;