Abalone is a traditional Chinese precious ingredient, delicious taste, rich in nutrition, ranked first in the "four sea flavors" (abalone, shark fin, fish maw, sea cucumber), known as "table gold, crown of sea treasures".
So, when did the abalone come to the Chinese table?
The history of edible abalone in China is very long, and there are many abalone shells in the "shell hill ruins" that have been excavated. These abalone shells are not currency, but waste after consumption. This shows that Chinese have eaten abalone for at least 4,000 years.
Eating abalone, the earliest written record in China is the "Book of Han": "Mangjun division is broken outside, the minister is inside, the left and right are believed, Mang is worried and cannot eat, he drinks alcohol, and he eats anchovies." What is said is that after Wang Mang of the Western Han Dynasty usurped the throne, he was in internal and external difficulties, and he was so worried that he could not eat, so he had to drink alcohol and eat abalone.
Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms period also particularly liked to eat abalone. Cao Zhi wrote in an article dedicated to his father Cao Cao: "The lord liked to eat gill first, and before xuzhou Zang Ba sent two hundred anchovies. Because Cao Cao was good at this when he was alive, Cao Zhi wrote a letter to ask the magistrate to send two hundred tributes.
In the Song Dynasty, the great foodie Su Dongpo, he ended five years of huangzhou degraded official life, came to Dengzhou to taste the rare abalone delicacy, rejoiced, so he wrote a long poem "Anchovy Line".
The poem not only celebrates abalone delicacies but also produces, processes, collects, and works. Among them, the two sentences that ridicule Wang Mang and Cao Cao are very interesting: "The two males and one male steal the Han family, and their hobbies are also as different as shoulders." The two xiongs refer to Wang Mang and Cao Cao, saying that these two guys not only bully the Han royal family, but also have a hobby of eating abalone.
Su Dongpo finally advertised for abalone: "Distribute the soup material for the eyesight, but take the detailed book to prevent old reading." "It means that abalone farming is eye-catching, and you can see clearly in small and small characters when you are old."
Su Dongpo is not a fake advertisement, The Ming Dynasty Li Shizhen did a "scientific appraisal" for him, he said in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", abalone taste sweet, salty, flat, has the effect of clearing heat and dispelling fire, nourishing the yin and stomach, nourishing blood and replenishing deficiency, so abalone is also known as "Mingmu fish".
Speaking of which, reader friends may make me stop! People's ancient books clearly say "fish", how do you paste gold on "abalone"?
In fact, before the Qing Dynasty, "anchovy" referred to today's "abalone", and "abalone" referred to pickled "stinky salted fish".
In the Han Dynasty Liu Xiang's "Saying Garden", there is a famous saying: "Living with a good person, such as entering the room of Zhilan, if you do not smell its fragrance for a long time, you will dissolve with it; and with the evil person, like entering the abalone's wanton, for a long time without smelling its smell, it will also dissolve with it." Here abalone refers to stinky salted fish.
So why is it said that "anchovy" is now "abalone"?
When Yan Shigu of the Tang Dynasty commented on the Book of Han, he said: "Loach, sea fish also, sound hail." That is to say, at least before the Tang Dynasty, the word "鳆" was pronounced "bao".
In the Qing Dynasty Duan Yujie's Commentary on the Interpretation of The Text, it is said: "Fish, thin tone. (Yan) Shi Gu Yue: Loach, Sound Hail, Hail and Bo Tong. In this way, in the Qing Dynasty, "abalone" and "fish" were often mixed.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the value of this abalone became higher and higher.
Kangxi personally marched and quelled the Gardan rebellion. At the celebration banquet, Kangxi ordered the imperial chef to cook an abalone for each general, and he said: "The Imperial Family has to help each of the Qing families, so each person is rewarded with an abalone 'Imperial Meal Steamed (Zheng)'." The generals were overjoyed. Since then, abalone has been listed as a must-have for the Qing court palace banquet, and later even launched the imperial palace "full abalone banquet".
At that time, there were also many ways to cook abalone in the folk. Yuan Ming, the number one foodie in the Qing Dynasty, has this passage in the "Suiyuan Food List" (I translated it into the vernacular):
The best way to eat abalone is to fry thin slices, Yang Zhongcheng family sliced the abalone, put it in chicken soup tofu and cooked together, known as "abalone tofu", on top of the seasoning with aged bad oil. Zhuang Taishou simmered a large piece of abalone with a whole duck, which also has a unique flavor. But abalone is hard and hard to chew. It takes three days to simmer slowly over low heat before the meat can be cooked.
In modern and modern times, abalone is indispensable in state banquets and high-end banquets. It is said that when US President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, Zhou Enlai specially instructed the relevant departments to prepare 1,000 kilograms of fresh abalone to show the hospitality of Chinese and the profundity of Chinese cuisine.
Now, with the maturity of abalone farming technology and the large-scale promotion, abalone can be found everywhere in the wet market, and the prestige status that was previously attached to it seems to be depreciating, but it has brought blessings to the common people. We should applaud the people of "abalone"!