Tomatoes: The fruit of a dish with the surname Fan to this day
Wang Henian
Long ago, in the large forests of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia in South America, a bright red smooth, very beautiful looking wild berries could be seen, and the locals called it "wolf peach", believing that it was a poisonous fruit that only wolves dared to eat. In the eighteenth century, a French painter ventured to taste this lovely and terrible fruit, who expected the mouth to be sweet and sour, full of mouth, and unharmed. So, the tomatoes finally came to the table and quickly became popular. Then people moved it out of the park and into the vegetable garden.
In China, tomatoes are often referred to as tomatoes. Its ancient names are mostly named around its two characteristics: because its fruit is red in color, resembling persimmons native to China, and imported from Western countries, it is called "tomatoes", "tomatoes", "tomatoes" or "tomatoes". To this day, most of the northern parts of our country still call tomatoes "persimmons". In the Ming Dynasty, Zhao Shanhan's "Plant Products" called it tomatoes; the "Qunfang Spectrum" called it tomatoes and June persimmons; "Luchuan Bencao" also called it kumquat; the "Majiang County Chronicle" of Guizhou in the 27th year of the Republic of China also said that the locals also called it wax tomato, sauce eggplant, sea eggplant, and even called it "Mao Xiucai" or "Mao Vinegar Fruit", and said that it was "named after its sour cold". In addition, there are also other names such as plums, fire persimmons, small golden melons, and good news three yuan.
Tomatoes are annual or perennial herbaceous plants of the Solanaceae family. Its edible parts are juicy berries, generally oblate or nearly spherical, orange or bright red. Smooth, small umbilicus, thick flesh, sweet taste, juicy and refreshing. The flowering and fruiting periods are summer and autumn. The Barnyard Banknote is so infused with its living form: "Tomatoes, vegetable plants also." The stem is several feet tall, slightly spreading, the leaves are pinnate compound leaves, deeply lobed, very densely hairy, the flowers are pale yellow, flattened and round, two or three inches in diameter, and the ripe color is red and edible. In the ninth year of the Republic of China, the "Chronicle of Longyan County" also had such a description: "Red tomato, a June persimmon, an annual herb, up to five or six feet tall, the leaves are irregular pinnate compound leaves, the leaflets are also split and feathery, the flowers are yellow, the structure of the flowers is like eggplant, the fruit is a berry, red, edible." In the 27th year of the Republic of China, the "Chronicle of Majiang County" in the "Chronicle of Property" is different: "The seedling stem is light red, with white hairy leaves, pinnate, yellow flowers bloom in April and May, the fruit is as large as persimmon, the skin is thicker, the ripe is yellow, the small is like a small orange, and the pulp in the tender skin is more." ”
It has many varieties, including apple green, pink sweet meat, orange and yellow Jiachen and other varieties. The shape of the fruit is round, flat, oblong, pointed and so on; the color of the peel is big red, pink, orange red and yellow. Tomatoes are one of the most commonly cultivated fruits and vegetables in the world, and are cultivated in most parts of China.
Compared with other vegetables, tomatoes have a special disposition of fruit and vegetable. It can be used as a raw fruit, cooked as a vegetable, or processed into tomato sauce, tomato juice or whole fruit jars. Generally speaking, pink tomatoes, because of moderate sweetness and sourness, good quality, suitable for raw food; while yellow tomatoes, fleshy and sandy, raw food taste is light, should be cooked.
Tomatoes are rich in vitamins and minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, iodine, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, as well as protein, sugars, organic acids and fiber. According to the research of nutritionists, each person consumes 50 grams to 100 grams of fresh tomatoes per day to meet the needs of the human body for several vitamins and minerals.
Chinese medicine believes that tomatoes have the effect of stomach digestion and treatment of loss of appetite. The Qing "Luchuan Materia Medica" said that it had "quenching thirst and quenching thirst, and digesting the stomach." Cure thirst, loss of appetite" equivalent effect.
Therefore, tomatoes, which are rich in nutrients and have a variety of functions, are known as the magical "fruit of the dish".
Tomatoes were introduced to China around the time of the Ming Dynasty (1573-1617 AD). The earliest record of tomatoes in China is found in the Ming Dynasty historian Guo Zizhang's "Qiancao", which is called June persimmon, or tomato.
The Republic of China's "Guizhou Tongzhi" "Terroir And Soil History Fangwu" once contained clouds in the "June Persimmon" article: "Guo Qingluo's "Qiancao" has 'June Persimmon Poem', and XiaoXuyun: 'There are June persimmons in Qian, and the stem is four or five feet high. A branch of five fruits, or three or four fruits, a tree is not less than twenty or thirty real, fire umbrella, not enough metaphor. The first article is like artemisia, the leaf is like ai, not like the persimmon leaf of kindness, but it can be Zheng Guangwen also. The seeds come from tomatoes, so they are also known as tomatoes. In this poem, Guo Qingluo once described the style of this imported product: "The accumulation of Zhu Shi vine steps removed, burning the tree in early June." In fact, it is a green grass leaf, and Zheng Gongkan can't paint a book. Han will soldiers to the dragon pile, grapes and alfalfa together, Taiping Tianzi Rong Pavilion retreat, why are tomatoes planted everywhere? "In the twenty-sixth year of the Wanli Dynasty (1598 AD), Guo Qingluo was appointed by the Wanli Emperor as the right deputy capital of The Imperial History to patrol Guizhou and concurrently control the Shu chu military, and this poem was written in office when he was inspecting Qianzhong. The Republic of China's "Guizhou Tongzhi" "Yiwen Zhi IV" is zaiyun: "The 'Four Inventory Items' have twenty-one volumes of "Qiancao", which is said to be the text he composed during his tour of Guizhou. ”
Zhu Guozhen, the first assistant minister of the Ming Dynasty, compiled in the first year of the Apocalypse, recorded in detail the morphological characteristics of this tomato, and explicitly mentioned that its planting place was in Qianzhong: "[Qianzhong] there are also June persimmons, and the stem is four or five feet high. A branch of five fruits, or three or four realities, a tree no less than twenty or thirty real, fire umbrellas, fireballs, not enough metaphor. Strips resemble artemisia, leaves resemble mugwort, and flowers resemble durians. The species comes from tomatoes, so it is also known as tomatoes. It is roughly similar to the description in the "Fruit Spectrum" of the "Qunfang Spectrum" written in the same year as the "Yongdong Sketch", but the addition of the sentence "Tied as a frame, the most impressive", intentionally emphasizing its ornamental value. That is to say, by 1621 at the latest, tomatoes were already cultivated in the Guizhou region.
Not long after, there were also tomatoes planted in Shaanxi, and called them "tomatoes". The "Plant Products" written by Zhao Kun, a native of Shaanxi Province (present-day Zhou Zhi), is written in the 45th year of the Wanli Calendar: "Tomatoes, also from the West during the Wanli Calendar, grow, are four or five feet high, and the fruit is like a persimmon, but it is inedible." "Tomatoes" are what people later became accustomed to as tomatoes. However, because people did not understand its edible value at the time, and "its vines and leaves smell inaccessible", it ended in the local hastily with the end of "there is no seed today".
In addition to Guizhou and Shaanxi, Yunnan was also one of the first regions to grow tomatoes. In the fifth year of the Ming Dynasty (1625 AD), the Dian Zhi recorded the "June persimmon" when describing the Hui products in the "Yongchang Province" product. From this account, yunnan had tomatoes planted at that time, but they were still used as ornamental plants.
In the early Qing Dynasty, Shanxi also became a major producer of tomatoes. During the Kangxi Dynasty, the "Baode Zhou Zhi" "Terroir Zhi Native Products" listed a product of "tomatoes", but it was placed in the category of flowers. It can be seen that until this time, the tomatoes were still only for viewing.
When tomatoes became the food of the Chinese people is unknown. However, in the "Chronicle of Products" in Kangxi's 24th year of the "Chronicle of Taiwan Province", it has been included in the "fruit genus": "Tomatoes, shaped like persimmons, have hairy skins, slightly reddish color, and sour taste." None of them are good products, commonly known as persimmons. "However, at this time, tomatoes, because of their sour taste, do not seem to have become people's favorite fruits and vegetables." But after all, it reveals the information that it has begun to become the food of the people.
Since then, zhejiang and other places have also been planted with tomatoes. Qianlong's forty-year "Haining Zhou Zhi" has an account of "persimmons, small and red in the face".
But for a long time, people still regarded it as an ornamental plant. Jiaqing's 21st year of 1816 "Ningxiang County Chronicle" regarded it as a flower plant: "Good news three yuan, pepper genus, shaped like a golden melon, red and round, tired and lovely." ”
Qing Xu Shidong (1814-1873) called it "persimmon" in his "Notes on Yanyu Lou", and said that the Chinese were good at playing and did not think of food: "Xiyi traded with China, and most of them came to the mainland with their native products. One day in the garden, buy a copy of the tomatoes. The fruit is the size of a citrus. The color begins with white, greenish green, and yellow, and red, if the persimmon is natural. He eats, the Chinese but for play, not for food also. It is a herbaceous species, with slightly chrysanthemum-like leaves and broken leaves, small flowers, yellowish white. Its roots are covered with tufts of hair, like its people. ”
However, tomatoes have gradually become familiar plants, and their names have changed significantly. The title of "tomato" has appeared in Tongzhi's "Reconstruction of Shanghai County Chronicle": "There is also a persimmon, called a tomato." ”
The title of "tomato" first appears in the "Property Chronicle" of the "Yutian County Chronicle" of Hebei in the 10th year of Guangxu, which added "tomatoes, malan" and other flower plants to the new varieties of the "Hui genus".
Moreover, after a short time, tomatoes have been widely planted in Northeast China, North China, Shanghai, Guizhou and other regions, and have become one of the important vegetables in China. Tongzhi's "Reconstruction of Shanghai County Chronicle" is "a herb, really like persimmon, scoop such as eggplant, famous tomato"; Xu Ke's "Qing Barnyard Banknote" is "ripe and red, edible"; in the Republic of China's "Hulan County Chronicle", "there are persimmons, and the herbs are russian." The actual size is greater than the Jin production, the piece weighs five or six two, raw green and ripe red, the taste is slightly sweet"; in the "Guizhou Tongzhi" in the 37th year of the Republic of China, "tomato, commonly known as Mao Spicy Horn, its species comes from foreign countries, and the province is mostly produced in Guiyang", which reflects this fact.
Its edible value has also been well developed.
The first is to make it into tomato sauce, which is specially used for seasoning. The Nineteenth Year of the Republic of China "Lushan Property Chronicle": "Tomatoes, commonly known as mao spicy tomatoes, excellent seasoning, Westerners love it, add salt and leech, the name tomato sauce." In the twenty-seventh year of the Republic of China, the "Chronicle of Majiang County" called it a wax eggplant, and said: "The raw taste is sour and spicy, and the cooked is delicious, and the best food is cooked." Picked and salt, garlic, pepper, liquor pickling altar, hidden for a long time to eat, also good products also. ”
The second is to cook with meat. In the twenty-fourth year of the Republic of China, the "Guangdong Tongzhi Draft" has this paragraph: "Tomatoes, foreign species also." Introduced to Guangdong, it is a food addict. However, for decades, it has now become common cultivation also. ...... Foreigners often pickle and eat raw food, and Cantonese people cook with meat. ”
The third is to eat directly peeled and eaten, also fruits and vegetables. In the "Chronicle of Anning County" in the thirty-eighth year of the Republic of China, there is an account of "peeling and eating, sparing nutrition".
Nowadays, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, stewed tofu with tomatoes, chicken nuggets with tomato yellow stew, fried loofah with tomatoes, chicken tomato soup, tomato fish, scrambled minced meat with tomatoes, egg soup with tomatoes, beef brisket stew with tomatoes and cold tomatoes have become common delicacies on people's tables.
References (abbreviated)
The Secret in the Basket of Ancestors ( Serial)
Copyrighted works: 鄂作登字-2017-a-00016843