Among China's many intangible cultural heritages, food culture should actually be ranked first - the people take food as the sky. To study China's food culture, the "Golden Plum Bottle" created by the Ming Dynasty literati has extremely high historical value and cannot be ignored. In this novel, Zhu Shou sends shou noodles, offers plaque food, Lapa Drinks Porridge, Eats Lantern on the Fifteenth day of the First Month, and Dissolves Fragrant Dumplings in the Dragon Boat Festival in May... Many customs are still passed down today. Exploring the evolution of some of these foods provides a glimpse of the development of Chinese food culture.
The "Nandu Fanhui Map" shows the prosperity of urban commerce in the Ming Dynasty
Cooking cakes, steamed cakes, steamed buns
The first food that appears in the novel "Jin Ping Mei" is the cooking cake sold by Wu Song's brother Wu Dalang. In some film and television works, the cooking cake sold by Wu Da was replaced by a burnt cake. Wuhan University's cooking cakes are steamed and placed in cage drawers to carry a burden and sold along the street. The burnt bread is baked. Hou Baolin's master cross-talk "Change of Line" has a singing section that imitates the big drum artist Liu Baoquan selling burnt cakes, which sings: "The hanging oven burnt cakes are round and round, and the fried twist flowers are crisp and sweet." Japonica rice porridge is sold cheaply for two children..." It can be seen that the burnt cake is sold while baking at a street stall, which is not the same as the cooking cake of Wuhan University.
What about the pancakes? It's steamed cake. "Jin Ping Mei" is triggered from "Water Margin", and the story takes place in the Song Dynasty. Cooking cake is the name of steamed cake in the Song Dynasty. Because Song Renzong's name is Zhao Zhen (赵祯), Zhen (祯), pronounced close to "steaming", "steamed cakes are called cooking cakes all over the inner court".
Steamed bread, also called cage cake, is a steamed bun. The Biography of He Zeng in the Book of Jin says that He Zeng was "sexually extravagant" and "did not eat crosses on steamed cakes". The steamed cake with the split cross is what we call "flowering buns" today.
Why is steamed bun called bread? When the ancients said "bread", they meant "quality", not "shape". In the Han Dynasty Liu Xi's "Interpretation of the Name and Interpretation of Diet", it is said: "Cake, and also." The noodles make the merge also. That is to say, all food made with water mixed with flour is called "bread." In the "Examination of Ancient and Modern Food" written by Wang Sanping of the Ming Dynasty, it is said: "Whoever uses noodles as a food utensil is called a cake." Therefore, the fire-burning and eaters call for burnt cakes, the water-soaked and eaters call for soup cakes, the cage steamers and the eaters call for steamed cakes, and the steamed buns are called cage cakes. ”
There are both steamed cakes and steamed buns in "Golden Plum Bottle". The steamed buns in "Water Margin" are stuffed. Mother Night Fork Sun Erniang opened a black shop in Cross Slope, selling "human meat steamed buns". The cooking cakes of Wuhan University have no filling, and when they eat, they must eat meat and vegetables. In the fifth time of "Golden Plum Bottle", Wu Dalang "took a few cooking cakes, bought some meat, and begged for a piece of wine", and asked Brother Yun to eat.
It is said that steamed buns were invented by Zhuge Liang. In the "Chronicle of Things", it is said that when Zhuge Liangnan crossed the Lushui River, the locals said that it was necessary to use human heads to sacrifice the river god. Zhuge Liang did not want to kill innocents, so he wrapped flour with meat stuffing to make a human head to make a sacrifice, "the name of the steamed bun began here." To this day, southern steamed buns are still stuffed.
Isn't it allowed to have filling in steamed cakes? Not quite. In the eighteenth time of "Golden Bottle Plum", Pan Jinlian called Chunmei, "Take the steamed crispy fruit pie I ate with your brother-in-law." Don't today's Beijingers sometimes steam a pot of sugar steamed buns?
Powder dough, plaque food, wonton soup
"Jin Ping Mei" has a lot of after-a-break words, playful words, vivid, humorous, intriguing. For example, "Breaking a life, beating the emperor" "Nanjing Shen Wansan, Beijing Dry Tree Bay, the name of a person, the shadow of a tree"... These are still easy to understand; some are more puzzling. In the eighth time, a witty remark said by Xiao Wei tortoise an is more puzzling: "Since eating your flour dumplings, I bumped into a barbarian who knocked on the board and called grievances--the account of the rice and guts." Because Pan Jinlian gave Tortoise An a plate of steamed dumplings and gave dozens of yuan, he asked him to carry a letter to Ximen Qing to "come and go." If Ximen Qing does not come, "it is all on you (Tortoise An) little grease mouth." So Tortoise said that. The gist of it is: it is more troublesome, but because it has eaten you, it has to be done.
What is the powder dough in this witty remark? The author has asked several old qualified Beijingers, and they all said that they did not know. Later, I found the answer, and it turned out to be the Lantern Festival. According to the "Jiashen Dynasty Chronicle", one day the Chongzhen Emperor wanted to eat the Lantern Festival, and the eunuch in charge bought a bowl from outside. Chongzhen asked: How much is it? The answer is: consistent (i.e. a thousand dollars). Chongzhen smiled, "When I was in the mansion, I would buy a bowl for thirty yuan of money." Now count consistent yeah? In this account, the author specifically notes: The Lantern is the powder ball. The author Dynasty is a native of Zhejiang, so it can be seen that Fantuan is the name of the Lantern festival in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
However, "Jin Ping Mei" is still called Lantern. In the fifteenth time, the description of the New Year's Eve Lantern Market has the sentence "Selling the lantern high pile of fruit filling". The characters of "Jin Ping Mei" live in Qinghe County, Shandong Province, on the banks of the Grand Canal, which is a major transportation route after the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and the cultural integration of the north and south must also be reflected in food, so it is not surprising that a food has different names from north to south.
The eighth time, Pan Jinlian "made a cage of stuffed meat horns and waited for Ximen Qing to eat it." Some versions of this sentence are called "wrapped in stuffed meat horns". The wrapped words do not make sense, and it is suspected that the scribes have changed it falsely. What is "exaggeration"? Because it is not a local practice. Quart, that is, the false loan word for "侉".
Pan Jinlian's stuffed meat horns were steamed, and thirty of them were steamed in a cage, and Ying'er stole one. The boiled one is called water corner. The seventy-seventh time, Ximen Qing braved the snow to come to Zheng Aiyue'er's house, "Yatou took three Ou'er yellow bud leek meat wrapped in an inch of water corner", together with two powder heads, each ate an Ou'er - the water corner is only one inch large, or eaten in a small bowl, this is not wontons.
The ravioli we are talking about is called gǔduò in the Golden Plum. The second time Ximen Qing asked the princess: Is Pan Jinlian the wife of "selling steamed bread and Li San"? Ming Ren Fang Yizhi's Tongya Diet: "Yun Yi (yin yuntun, that is, wontons)... In recent times, it is also known as the Crane Protrusion". The falcon is another way of writing a bird's nest. It seems that there are too many names for wontons: wontons, wontons, scribes, and I am afraid that there is another name: wontons.
Wontons, all explanations say noodles. However, the old woman of the monster in "Liaozhai Zhiyi And Wonton Dumplings" lifted up her clothes and "threw dozens of ravioli into the soup from her waist pocket" - can this be noodles? Later, it was found that the old woman's ravioli was originally made of earth turtle worms! If the ravioli is noodles, it should be an earthworm after it is in its original form!
There are also wontons in "Golden Plum Bottle", but they are far from the wontons we have today. On the seventy-sixth occasion, Ximen Qing instructed Chunmei to make him a bowl of wonton soup: "Beat the meat and fish with a few eggs, add sour bamboo shoots and leeks, and a large bowl of fragrant wonton soup." "This soup should be called "mixed stew."
"Plaque Food" appears twice in this novel. Once, from the mouth of the princess, it was said that among the things sold by the Wu people were "dried meat wrapped with vegetable meat plaque dumplings" (the second time); once, on the sixty-seventh time, Ximen Qing looked at Yingchun and gave Li Bottle'er a tablet before "setting up a soup and rice, and the plaque food was down." Under, it means "boiling in the lower pot"; steaming, saying "steaming in the upper cage drawer". A "down" word indicates that the plaque food is boiled. Plaque food is what we call dumplings at the moment. To this day, many places in Shanxi still call dumplings plaque food. Isn't there a witty saying: "Dumb eat flat food - the heart counts." Interestingly, the Mongolian language says that eating dumplings is also "plaque food Yi di (eating)".
Illustration of "Golden Plum Bottle"
Bubble snail nut aiwo nest
There are also foods in the novel that make us listen to strange and unknown things. For example, in the fifty-eighth time, there is a kind of "ghee snail" that "sprinkles the heart like manna and melts in the mouth", and the color is white and red. Sixty-seventh time, also made "butter bubble snail". Wen Xiucai praised after eating it: "This thing comes from the Western Regions, and it can be found in the non-human world... The taste of the top. "It is estimated to be a cream product, and the practice has been lost. There is also "hejue": on the twenty-third time, Song Huilian took out the silver and asked Tortoise Tortoise to "take a large bowl and swing two hejue juices" and put it in the "chorus (sound hanging, small pot with a handle)", and the two of them ate a bowl one by one. Dang, suspected to be a false loan of the word "盪", means to be punched with hot soup. When it is the first month, it is natural to eat while it is hot. Is the juice a tea soup or noodle tea?
The novel also talks about many dried fruits, but there are no peanuts. The author believes that peanuts do not appear, but only appear in the name of "nuts". The twenty-third time, Xiao Yu came to urge Huilian to serve tea to Yue Niang and the others. Huilian said that the tea was available, waiting for Xiao Yu to go and get the nuts. After taking the tea leaves and peeling the nuts, the tea was brought to everyone to eat. It can be read from other places in the novel that when people drank tea, tea should also add some dried fruits, preserves and the like, what walnut pine nuts to make tea, salt shoots sesame wood to make tea, one of which is nut tea. There is an explanation on the Internet that nuts are a general term for a variety of dried fruits. This statement is difficult to establish, because in the twenty-second time of the "Golden Bottle Plum Words", the porridge of Laba drink is "loaded with all kinds of hazelnuts, pines, chestnuts, nuts, and plum gui", which shows that the nuts are a separate species.
Peanuts, folk also known as marigold fruit, longevity fruit; until today, Tianjin and other places will be shelled peanut kernels called nuts. The time when peanuts were introduced to China from foreign countries is different. There is a saying that Zheng He brought it back from the West. Zheng He's last voyage to the West was in 1433.
The earliest record of peanut cultivation in China is found in the "Chronicle of Changshu County" in the fifteenth year of Hongzhi (1520), and it has been sixty or seventy years since the "Golden Plum Bottle" was written. Peanuts along the Grand Canal north to Shandong, it is entirely possible.
"Jin Ping Mei" also mentions a food familiar to Beijingers: Aiwowo. The seventh time, Meng Yulou's sister-in-law sent her four pieces of yellow rice noodle jujube cake, two pieces of sugar, and dozens of Aiwowo for Xue's sister-in-law.
Aiwowo has a long history, and it began as a court dim sum of the Yuan Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty Inner Prison Liu Ruoyu's "Zhi Zhongzhi", it is said: "With glutinous rice with sesame seeds as a cold cake, and the balls and filling as nests, that is, the ancient 'no falling clip' is also"
Do not fall into the clip, and do not fall pods. According to the Ming Dynasty scholar Li Xue's "The Old Man's Man's Pen of the Jie'an Temple", the imperial court gave hundreds of officials to eat outside the noon gate every year. In the "Yandu Tour Chronicle" written by the Ming Dynasty man Sun Guoxuan, it is said: "Do not fall into the clip, gaiyuan yuanren language also." I have consulted mongolian compatriots about this, and the answer to me is: "I have not heard of it." ----------------------------------
Liu Ruoyu also said in the "History of Wu": "Do not fall into the clip, wrap glutinous rice with reed leaves, which can be four inches long and one inch wide, and the taste is the same as that of rice dumplings." "Therefore, some people think that the so-called non-falling clip is a cold cake." In the "Analysis of Jinzhi" written by Zha Yuanren, among the food offered to the emperor by the ministers of the Dragon Boat Festival, only fragrant rice dumplings and cold cakes were served, and there was no Ai wo wo. Aiwowo may be a cold cake of the Yuan Dynasty or not fallen pods.
Another theory is that Aiwowo originated from the Uighur ethnic group and was brought to Beijing by Xiangfei from the Xinjiang region. This argument obviously cannot be established, one is that Xinjiang does not produce glutinous rice, and the other is that Xiangfei entered the Qing Palace later than the "Golden Bottle Plum".
The history of Aiwowo may have predated the Yuan Dynasty. According to the Song Dynasty Wu Jue's "Miscellaneous Records of Northern Yan", in the Liao Dynasty, every afternoon of the Dragon Boat Festival in May, bohai cooks would offer mugwort cakes to the emperor. Bohai, referring to the ethnic minorities in ancient northeast China, may be the Jing people, or it may be Goguryeo people. Did Aiwowo evolve from Aiwo? Will the name Ayowow be Jurchen or Goguryeo?
From the evolution of food such as powder dough, plaque food, nuts, bubble snails, and Aiwowo, it can be seen that China's food culture is not only the product of multi-regional exchanges, but also the product of the integration of multiple ethnic groups. (Editor-in-Charge: Shen Feng)