Today, for reasons that are well known, as far as China and as far away as the world, almost no one knows about Dunhuang and Dunhuang Studies. However, for the food customs of the Dunhuang people, few people know. Friends and tourists constantly ask: What do Dunhuang people eat? How to eat? Fortunately, in the Dunhuang Tibetan Scripture Cave literature and Dunhuang murals, a large number of food materials from the Tang and Song dynasties have been preserved. The collation and study of these materials gives us the opportunity to go back more than a thousand years and see what the Dunhuang people ate and how they ate it.
Meat and dairy are an important part of the food structure of the Dunhuang people and occupy an important position in the Recipes of the Dunhuang people. This is because there are suitable pastures around Dunhuang, and animal husbandry production has always been an indispensable part of dunhuang people's economic structure. In the early days, Dunhuang and its surroundings were excellent pastures, in addition to the documentary records, there are also reflections in the murals, such as a large number of farming maps, commercial travel maps, cavalry maps, etc., which have reflections on animal husbandry. What is more precious is that there are also some slaughtering diagrams and dairy processing diagrams in the murals, which are the true portrayal of meat and milk food in the diet structure of Dunhuang. In addition to relying on animal husbandry to provide meat, the Dunhuang people also obtained a certain amount of meat supplement through hunting. Hunting is not only a pastime of the Dunhuang nobility, but also an important way for Dunhuang people to obtain meat.
Hunting map of Cave 249 of Mogao Caves
The meat and dairy products of the Dunhuang people are mainly derived from cattle and sheep. Judging from the situation reflected in the accounts of the rebel army, there is more mutton, followed by beef, and a small amount of horse meat, camel meat, etc., but there is no record of eating pork, chicken, etc. This is not to say that the Dunhuang people do not raise chickens and pigs, because most of the socio-economic documents unearthed from the Tibetan Scripture Cave are from monasteries and rebel armies, and cannot reflect the situation of folk breeding of chickens, pigs and other livestock and poultry.
How did the Dunhuang people process meat at that time? The only document that is missing in the Dunhuang literature is the allocation of a number of firewood for "cooked meat" (s.3738). Apparently, more often, meat is processed mainly by boiling it. There are also scenes of cooking meat in the murals. For example, in the slaughtering map of the south slope of the main room of Cave 296 in the Northern Zhou of Mogao Caves (Figure 5), a cow has been slaughtered and skinned, with a cow's head on the skin, and a large wok next to it is preparing to cook meat. Other images also show that when people eat meat, they always boil it with water.
The dunhuang people's consumption of cheese is more recorded in the documents. Dunhuang literature p.2567v, s.4470iv, p.3353, s.6829v, s.800v, s.6233, s.6064, s.1366 volumes, etc., all record "crisp". The documents record that the shepherds of the monastery had to pay a certain amount of dairy products to the monastery at regular intervals. p.2049vb also records that in the first year of the Later Tang Dynasty (930 AD), the Pure Land Temple twice spent millet noodles and sent "milk cakes" with shepherds. In addition, there are also dairy merchants in Dunhuang. According to the literature, monasteries sometimes exchanged corn for ghee. To make more advanced foods, dairy products should be added. According to the data, in addition to drinking milk, Dunhuang people at that time, dairy products were mainly ghee.
Milking diagram in the east wall of Cave 146 of Mogao Caves
▲ A woman is milking cows, and the calves next to her are looking for the cow's nipples.
Milking chart in Cave 9 of Mogao Caves
In the picture, one woman stands next to a cow and another woman squats to milk her cows.
Map of dairy products processed in Cave 321 of Mogao Caves
▲The two women in the picture stir vigorously above a thin neck and bulging container similar to an urn.
A crisp-making map in Cave 23 of the Mogao Caves
Two of them were filtering their tits, while the other next to them stirred in a container to separate the water from the cheese, which later generations called "ghee". On the side is the finished ghee.
Dairy products occupy an important place in the diet of Dunhuang people. Dunhuang people's preference for "eating meat and drinking cheese" is related to its production methods and economic structure, and also related to the influence of the surrounding nomadic peoples, especially Dunhuang was ruled by Tubo for more than half a century, and the influence of Tubo people's eating habits on Dunhuang people cannot be ignored.
A large number of data reflect that dunhuang people grow no less than ten varieties of vegetables. In addition to cowpeas, there are also shallots, garlic, leeks, lettuce, cranberries, radishes, gourds, cabbage and so on. Moreover, the data reflects that Dunhuang has a special "onion household", and when the rebel army uses onions, it is also necessary to spend wine onion households. The murals also reflect the Dunhuang people planting "gourds", such as the 3rd cave of Yulin Cave, which has a picture of a large basin containing gourds.
There is a very special document in the Dunhuang literature, called "Folk Affairs and Famous Forests", which is a textbook similar to a literacy textbook, which records the names of many vegetables and condiments, including mustard, wattle, ginger, sunflower, luoluo, orchid, fragrant, fragrant lotus, alfalfa, lettuce, bamboo, amaranth, eggplant, garlic, leek, onion, gourd, yun, fern, quinoa and so on. Although "bamboo" and "ginger" are not produced in Dunhuang, some vegetables may be planted in Dunhuang. If so, Dunhuang's vegetable varieties are comparable to those in the hinterland.
According to historical records, the melons in Dunhuang were very famous in the Han Dynasty, and they paid tribute to the imperial court because of their large size and good quality. The Book of Han and Geography records that Dunhuang was "born with beautiful melons". It was later named Guazhou. Regarding the melons in Dunhuang, the historical records also record a legendary story, which is linked to the famous Chinese Western Immortal Ancestors, the Eastern Prince and the Western Queen Mother, which can confirm that this melon came from the West. Story Cloud: "Emperor Ming of Han ming is a noble man, dreaming of eating melons is very beautiful." The emperor asked for the kingdoms. From time to time, Dunhuang offers different melon seeds... The dome is three feet long and curved, and its smell is sticky (or 'its taste is as beautiful as a gluttony'). Father Lao Yun: Xi Daoist got this melon from Penglai Mountain, and the cloud is an empty (some sources write 'Kun Gong') lingua. The four disasters and one reality, the eastern prince and the western queen mother were left on the ground, and the generations were extinct, in fact, quite existed. (The Year of the Prince, see Taiping Guangji, vol. 411)
According to the literature, there are many varieties of melons and fruits in the Dunhuang area during the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, and almost all the melons and fruits that can be planted in the northern region can find its shadow in Dunhuang, these melons and fruits include melons, grapes, apricots, oaks, peaches, dates, dates, dates, pears, fruits and so on. Long-term cultivation practice, a number of excellent varieties have also been formed in Dunhuang, and some varieties are well-known. For example, according to the p.2005 "Shazhou Governor's Mansion Map Classic", as far back as the Later Liang period, Dunhuang's "concentric pear" was very famous, and was once offered as a tribute to the Houliang royal family.
Compared with the mainland, the history of grape cultivation in Dunhuang should be very early, and even the custom of knotting grapes and racing gods has been formed. Grapes can not only make raisins, but also make wine. The famous "Words of the Next Lady" said in an exaggerated tone: "Wine is wine, a thousand dollars to sell a bucket." "The preciousness of wine.
In addition to the above cultivated crops and farmed animals, the Dunhuang people also obtain certain food through hunting and gathering. Dunhuang people like to hunt, hunting objects are hares, wild horses, wild camels, pan sheep, yellow sheep, etc., many documents have "hunters", "yellow sheep", "wild food" and other words, recorded "net eagle", "catch eagle" activities, indicating that hunting activities are not only Dunhuang nobles' pastime activities, but also one of their means of obtaining meat protein.
Slaughter map of the south slope of the main room of Cave 296 of Mogao Caves
The Dunhuang people also collect some wild plants and fungi, such as grass seeds, grass sauce, cabbage, fungus, horse parsley, etc., to supplement the shortage of vegetables and improve taste. Around Dunhuang and even in the Hexi Corridor, the seeds of wild plants that people usually eat include shami, triangle seeds, shuipeng seeds, gray strip seeds, and a seed called "alkali chai". The color and shape of the sami are the same as described in the p.2005 volume.
Today, in some famous local restaurants and hotels in Lanzhou and Hexi Corridor, Gansu, people like a cold dish called "shami noodles". It not only caters to the fashion of today's people pursuing green food with wild raw materials, but also welcomes Chinese and foreign guests with its creamy, palatable and nutritious local snacks. The raw material of shami flour is shami. It can be seen that "shami noodles" have long existed, and it is only in recent years that they have been invited into the city by shrewd merchants to ascend to the hall of elegance.
According to the data, the amount of "grass" paid to Shazhou Cangcao is quite considerable, reaching more than 1,000 stones, indicating that there are rich sand rice resources around Dunhuang, and also that Dunhuang people have long recognized the edible value of sand rice, making it one of the foods on the table. Judging from the literature, the method of Eating Sand Rice by Dunhuang people at that time was mainly to make "mothball", "麨", that is, "fried noodles", which is one of the favorite foods of Dunhuang people.
Source: Dunhuang Study, excerpt from Gao Qi'an's "Lamb for Wine - Dunhuang's Food Culture"