Part of the Wenhui Tu created by Emperor Huizong of Song and court painters
This year's Shanghai Book Fair innovatively launched the "Writer's Table Plan", which opens a cross-border journey of sight and taste with a series of fresh experiences of the writer holding hands with the restaurant.
Writers may not all be gourmets or good cooks, but the daily life related to eating is certainly something that writers can't avoid. Throughout the ages, writers have overlapped too many fascinating stories with food, words and taste buds.
- Editor
In the Middle Ages, Confucius was the first to know how to eat, not only to eat exquisitely,
And understand health, that is Confucius's "food classic"
There are many "foodie" writers in ancient and modern China and abroad. Zhang Dai, a famous idler in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, made a statistic in his "Preface to the Collection of Old Food", "In the middle of the Middle Ages, only Confucius was known. He believes that confucius in the Middle Ages first promoted confucius to know how to eat, not only to eat exquisitely, but also to understand health. People eat grains and grains, it is inevitable that the disease comes in from the mouth, but Confucius's eating method "follows the etiquette", the familiar "cut is not correct, do not eat", "eat without speaking, sleep without speaking", still beneficial today, eating wow la talk, causing flatulence; relatively little known is "no sauce, no food", that is, there is no corresponding dipping sauce, this food do not eat it. The "Li Ji Nei Ze" has a record: "Chicken sauce, fish egg sauce." "Different foods need to be paired with different seasonings, and soy sauce is a kind of meat sauce.
In addition, Confucius summarized cooked food as "not eating from time to time" and vegetable food as "not eating from time to time". For example, Hainan is rich in red heart dragon fruit, Lai today's logistics is fast, northerners can eat in winter, but easy to diarrhea, is the consequence of eating more fruits that should not be in season. Zhang Dai highly admired this theory, believing that it was Confucius's "Food Classic", that is, "health care theory". Looking at the post-90s and post-00s people with a thermos cup to soak goji berries, it looks like a trendy health care, but it is actually a Chinese tradition, and the old things are just what.
After Confucius, who were the gourmands? Zhang Dai counted, "Wei Juyuan has the Food Classic, Duan Wenchang has fifty volumes of the Food Charter, Yu Zong has ten volumes of the Food Fang, Xie Yi has ten volumes of the History of Food, and Meng Shu has a hundred volumes of the Food Code. Among them, Wei Juyuan's "Burning Tail Food List" is written, "The Minister of Public Secretary's First Worshipper, for example, allows food to be sacrificed, and the number is Burnt Tail." According to historical records, the banquet was served with 58 dishes, cold cuts, hot stir-fry, barbecue, soup, desserts, noodles, and the raw materials were beef, sheep, deer, bears, cranes, etc.
After Emperor Zhongzong's death, Empress Dowager Wei took power as empress dowager, and Wei Juyuan died on the streets of the coup, and the "tail-burning feast" that had been popular for more than twenty years was also "thrown on the street". Fortunately, his recipe was recorded by the Northern Song Dynasty Tao Gu's literary notes "Qing Yilu", together with the "Xie Irony Food Classic", which is also a relatively complete collection of palace officials feasts of the Sui and Tang dynasties. Zhang Dai has a negative attitude towards their cuisine, believing that excessive "torment and burning, blazing and filthy", resulting in the loss of the original taste of food, which is called "miscellaneous".
Su Dongpo wrote that he saw food as if Cao Zijian met Luo Mifei, so his heart was racing, and the food writer should be like this
After that, the foodie stopped at Su Dongpo. Su University's "Old Food Endowment", only see "taste one of the necks, chew the two claws before the frost", which means to eat meat, choose the small piece of tender meat behind the pig's neck, and the crab only chooses the two large pincers that are the fattest before the autumn wind and frost. Reading it makes people clap their knees and sigh, wow, really eat! No wonder Zhang Dai also "salivated". He also poured a jar of snow milky tea and set up a wine boat filled with jelly, "all eyes are drunk in autumn water, and salty bones are drunk in spring mash." The wind is in the crab's eye, and the snowflakes are in the rabbit's eye. And the gentleman laughed, the sea is wide and the sky is high. Really will eat limited, but also happy, but also write their own food as if Cao Zijian met Luo Mifei, such a heart fluttering, food writers should be so.
Compared with the lingering feelings of diners and food in "Old Food", "Ode to Pork" is more fierce. "When he is self-ripe, he is not urged, and when he is full of fire, he is beautiful", which has become a line that many kitchen writers today remember, as if delicious food will naturally make "himself" delicious, so that bo people are happy, and the Bible also says, don't wake up my dear, wait for his own wishes. Although Lord Su's knowledge is thick, in the eyes of the hungry belly, it is not as good as the Dongpo elbow when the pot is simmered in front of the door.
After Huangzhou, he was degraded again and again, and the bumpy road of his career was far beyond once, but it made him know how to cherish it more and more every day. Hainan does not produce rice, "the north ship is not as good as rice, drunk and depressed for half a month", often a full and hungry Su Lao, turning out a new trick, "the sea is a wild oyster." Cut it, the meat and pulp into the water, and the wine together, the food is very beautiful, and there is no beginning. "This oyster tastes similar to the oyster in the juvenile text "My Uncle Hule". And Danzhou has many thunderstorms, thinking that he is in that miserable and rainy night, "clams are half cooked with wine", accompanied by children, drunk and drunk, can be counted as half a day of homesickness.
Su Shi's "making food according to the place" is simply because of ugliness. Mr. Wang Zengqi, a "Wen Fox" who was described by Jia Pingwa as "cultivating into a fine", wrote "Eating and Drinking of the Song Dynasty", saying that Dongpo liked to eat pork, but it was boiled thinly, and finally poured a spoonful of sour grunting apricot cheese to dissolve the grease. It is also said that the Song people must have singing and dancing acrobatics at every royal banquet, eating and drinking itself is not very important, and the price is cheap and close to the people, "Almost all the books that record the customs of the two Song Dynasties do not record the city food, and Wu Zimu's "Dream Liang Record" in Qiantang is the most detailed. ”
Part of The Southern Tang Dynasty Gu Hongzhong's "Han Xizai's Night Feast"
The ancients were popular for eating soup soup, Song-style dishes more "fast food", a variety of stir-fried dishes, again semi-dried or fully dried meat; and the implementation of advanced hygiene "meal sharing system", which can be seen in Gu Hong's "Han Xizai Night Feast". Mr. Wang has reviewed books such as "Tokyo Dream Hualu", "Capital City Jisheng", "Wulin Past Events" and other books, and has not found any records of the Song people eating seafood, shark fin soup, bird's nest, but we now call the staple food "pasta", there are many categories, then called "congjie". There is a book "Song Feast" on the market today, although the evidence is shallow, it is better than the Song People's "Mountain Family Qing Offering", Qing Zhi's "ZhongfengLu" and other recipes to go back to the past, trying to restore the spirit of ancient method production.
The Tang and Song dynasties stood proudly with a grand posture, which really made people forget how poor the food category was in the past. The three foods that underpinned the world's early civilizations were none other than wheat, rice, and corn, and the vast majority of the rest of the heat came from domesticated plants and animals. It is difficult for "Water Margin" or other era background set in early martial arts novels, the protagonist can only be "sold an urn of wine, borrowed a large urn, bought twenty pounds of raw and cooked beef, a pair of big chickens", all hard dishes, few others.
The first signs of food exchange,
Zhang Dai listed them one by one in "Tao An Dream Memories",
Yuan Ming's "Suiyuan Food List" is more detailed
In the early days, food was scarce and not easy to store, and for the rulers of the ruling side at that time, food was power, and the rationing of food opened up a huge gap between the rich and the poor.
Chu and Han fought each other, and Liu Bang and Xiang Yu fought a protracted battle for more than two years on the Xingyang-Chenggao front, with a major war of seventy and a small battle of forty. Zhan Xingyang, Chenggao, Zhan Aocang, Zhi Guangwu, and Dushui, the chasm as the boundary, and the division of the world sound like geographical terms that are far apart. Last year,around the years, they traveled between Songluo and Fang knew that the area they repeatedly disputed was in the northwest corner of today's Zhengzhou City, where the Song Mountains in the south and the Yellow River in the north were rich and fertile, and they had enough to eat. The people take food as the sky, and they fight bravely and fiercely, but the war tests the ability of logistics and supplies.
Since the 2nd century BC, transcontinental routes have connected the Han Dynasty with the eastern Mediterranean, and these routes were named the "Silk Road" in the 19th century, and later the Maritime Silk Road emerged. Nowadays, the foods we are accustomed to, with the words "Hu" and "Xi" in their names, are mostly imported from outside, such as carrots, peppers, walnuts (walnuts), flax (sesame), watermelon, tomatoes, zucchini, etc. As for the name of spinach, it is from Persia. According to the "Chronicle of dawan", "Dawan used putao as wine around the left and right." "Pu Tao" is the grape, and the wine has also come from the Western Regions.
After more than two thousand years of slow food exchange, the beginning of the Ming Dynasty was revealed. Zhang Dai, who "has no excesses in the Qing Dynasty", listed one by one in the "Dream Memories of Tao'an", "Beijing is Apple Po Guo, Huang Wei, Ma Ya Pine; Shandong is morel, Autumn White Pear, Wenguan Fruit, and Sweet Zi; Fujian Zefu Orange, Fu Orange Cake, Kraft Sugar, and Red Curd Milk; Jiangxi Ze Qinggen, Fengcheng Breast; Shanxi Is Ceiling; Suzhou is Bone Baoluo, Shan Cha Ding, Shan Cha Cake, Pine Nut Sugar, White Circle, Olive Breast; Jiaxing Zema Jiaoyu Breast, Taozhuang Yellow Finch; Nanjing Is Set of Cherries, Peach Gate Dates, Ground Chestnut Balls, Nest Bamboo Shoots, Hawthorn Candy; Hangzhou Is Watermelon, Chicken Bean, Flower lotus, leek buds, Xuan shoots, Tangqi honey oranges; Xiaoshan then bayberry, lettuce, dovebird, green crucian carp, square persimmon; Zhuji zexiang beaver, cherry, tiger chestnut; Shengze fern powder, fine maple, dragon candy; Linhai then pillow melon; Taizhou ze corrugated cockles, Jiang Yaozhu; Pujiang fire meat; Dongyang ze nan jujube; Shanyin broke tang shoots, Xie oranges, Dushan Ling, river crabs, Sanjiang Tunjian, white clams, river fish, anchovies, Lihe ingerine. ”
Just looking at these vibrant terms, I suddenly feel prosperous. Words are food that can be swallowed with the eyes, thanks to Zhang Dai himself, he also knows that "he likes to eat square things, the day is a matter of mouth and stomach, and the sins are solid." In the Qing Dynasty, Yuan Ming's "Suiyuan Food List" was more detailed, seafood, river fresh, special animals, miscellaneous animals, feathers, aquatic tribes, aquatic tribes are also divided into scales and scaleless, simply material prosperity.
The Forbidden City Publishing House has a set of books, specializing in "How the Emperor Drinks" and "How the Emperor Eats", many times it is just a menu of what an emperor ate for something in a certain month of a certain year, and it is not interesting to read. For example, the seasonal melons and fruits eaten by the emperor after the imperial meal: mulberries, white apricots, and loquats in early summer; watermelon, cherries, lychees, and peaches in midsummer; grapes in early autumn, oranges and apples in winter, and the food categories of today's people are almost indistinguishable.
In the early days of the Manchus, they also held the tradition of fishing and hunting peoples, and the Palace Museum collected Lang Shining's painting "Hongli Shooting Hunting Dinner Map", in which some people peeled deer skins and some people were roasting venison, which was very realistic. It's déjà vu isn't it? "Dream of the Red Chamber" doesn't it describe the beautiful thing of Xiangyun and a few fat powder xiangwa drinking wine and eating venison?
The big feast and small dishes in "Dream of the Red Chamber" are numerous, intriguing and evocative, and siqi Qingwen's foreshadowing of "steaming and stir-frying"
"Dream of the Red Chamber" is a collection of aristocratic food methods in literature, the most peculiar is to take more than a dozen chickens with its "eggplant fish", if you are "small lotus leaf lotus leaf lotus soup", autumn appreciation of chrysanthemums crabs are not tired of fine, winter around the stove venison is not tired of fine, hundreds of kinds of food, too many to list. Supplementing the steamed lamb with cow's milk eaten by Jia's mother, you can use all kinds of bird's nest food therapy, especially Bao Chao advised Daiyu to maintain her body at a young age, and cook bird's nest porridge every day, "the most is to nourish the yin and replenish the qi." Historical records record that the Qianlong Emperor had to drink a bowl of rock sugar bird's nest every morning, which shows that Cao Gong's diet is not the novelist's word.
The Red Chamber cuisine makes me reminisce again and again is not a strange dish, the sixty-first time, Siqi let the little girl go to "bowl of eggs, stewed tender and tender", "tender" three words like a bowl of fragrant steamed eggs jumped between the paper; and then look at Qingwen alone to want a pot of artemisia stalks, no need for chicken meat stir-fry, to use vegetarian gluten fried. Gluten is more oil-absorbing and watery, so I instructed a "less oil shelf", and the high-end taste must not be counted as a lady. The fierce Siqi should be "steamed", the arrogant Qingwen should be "fried", and the "steaming quarrel" should lay the groundwork. Even the servants dared to change their tastes, and the wealth of Jia Fu was already extreme, and the fiery cooking oil was exhausted.
This section is not more than a hundred words up and down, the flowing water card is transferred to write out "small dishes", do not give the reader time to swallow, and immediately bring a jasmine powder to remove rose nitrate, rose dew to attract the "main dish" of poria cream. The food trap has a hongmen feast, and the food injustice must be counted as this. Cao Gong's stitches are tight and there is no loophole, and even the words of the Liu family in the kitchen are "food" - "people hit the bottom of the tree, and their eyes are like that of the mucuna" "This is 'the barn rat and the old dovedo go to borrow grain - there is no one who guards, there is one who flies'. "Only when I pick plums... It's like who hurt the plums such as gluttony and sweating. The Shanghainese language says that people are hungry, and there is also the word "gluttonous embryo".
The wedding feast in the Gaomen Deep Courtyard was mourned, the family sat at a small table, and the big meat was bored, and Tanchun and Baochao accidentally discussed eating a "fried goji bud in oil and salt", Li Yu said in "Idle Love", "The wolfberry seedlings in Jinling City can be picked everywhere after the rain." It can be seen that the things are not noble, so they give five hundred dollars to work hard to add privately, and the cook laughs and says, "Even if the two ladies are big-bellied Maitreya Buddhas, they can't eat five hundred dollars." In fact, more money is less in the second, it is rare to have that light mouth, goji berry seedlings to reduce heat and clear fire, this taste is not like Tanchun and Baochao's usual behavior.
Sun Wen's painting of "Dream of the Red Chamber" "Lotus Spring Pavilion Drinking and Eating Crabs"
Shen Congwen traced the Xiangchuan River, so there is the fresh and spicy "shredded squid meat" in "Border City"; the steamed Jiangnan, Yu Pingbo and Zhu Ziqing unforgettable paddle sound under the shadow of the crab shell yellow and boiled dried silk
Food comes with its own identity memory. People may not remember what good writers themselves love to eat, but they are familiar with Suzhou cuisine, which is known as Duan Yu's sticky suzhou cuisine, Hong Qigong's happy flower chicken's ass, and Wei Xiaobao's love for Shuang'er and the world's unparalleled Huzhou dumplings. "People's hearts are different, each is like its own face", the characters are definitely connected with food, mutual achievements, if another person returns this dish to him, he only feels that it is insufficient and not like it.
The most important thing in Zhang Ailing's life, in addition to clothes, is probably eating. Clothes are symbolic, outwardly revealing, and boastful; the taste is their own, introspective, and no one is willing to dry up with the stomach. At that time, she was still young and sweet,like Fan Liuyuan of "Allure of Love", her whole pink face slipped on her tongue, and honey dripped from her mouth. At her age, it was good to write well, the appearance was pale and floating, and when she read it again, it was a little boring.
Every time you pass by the Kaisling Cake House, you always have to buy a chestnut cake, imagine eating cloud cake in your mouth, and write "Osmanthus Steaming A Little Sorrowful Autumn" in your hand. "Osmanthus Steaming" mentions fried rice, plum vegetable roast meat, egg cake, bread, a stir-fried potato with a half-basin, and a rhombus peanut shell, persimmon core and skin, all of which are ordinary household dishes that can be eaten in Shanghai lanes. Not a word of osmanthus flowers, but the steam is straight to the writing, the whole article has her friend Yan Sakura's inscription, "Autumn is a song, but the night of 'osmanthus steaming', like the tune blown in the kitchen, during the day like a child singing a song, hot and cooked, clear and wet", gently, counting footnotes.
For example, the "fried pork liver" in Fang Yuhua's "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood", somehow, always think that the pork liver should be seven points cooked, slightly bloody; the people who write about old Beijing are at most, Lao She, Tang Lusun, Liang Shiqiu, if the bean juice and burnt cake fritters on their hutong stalls play ranking competitions, they can probably quarrel. Shen Congwen traveled to Xiangchuan, so there is the fresh and spicy "shredded squid meat" in "Border City"; steamed Jiangnan, Yu Pingbo and Zhu Ziqing went to the snow garden to taste Qinhuai cuisine, unforgettable crab shell yellow and boiled dried silk under the shadow of the paddle, which was their late-night canteen.
Lin Yutang's "My Country and My People" said, "If there is anything in the world that deserves our solemnity, it is not religion or learning, but eating." ”
People are strangers in other places, and it is difficult to eat many habitual dishes. When Mr. Wang Zengqi was in the United States, he invited a group of writers to dinner, where meat was cheap, vegetables were fat and tasteless, because he made ordinary brine eggs, mixed celery, cabbage ball soup, and boiled beef. Cao Youfang hugged him after eating, and Nie Hualing sighed, "Three generations of old, middle-aged and young women like you." "Lo and behold, the fragile Chinese stomach is abroad, and it's really easy to send it off."
Babbling to this, the belly goods are empty, lost consciousness brush a circle of friends, see Shen Hongfei grandpa out of the "slip of yellow cabbage", see the old bo head brother "a bowl of crab noodles, wake up the dreamer", the throat is tight, quickly abandon the pen to cook it. As for the dishes made by the writers, like their words, most of them are stored in the taste to add decoration, do not hook thick, use less bright oil, and should be light and light. Throughout the ages, the text of governance is like cooking small fresh, and the tastes of the world and the world are all in the tip of the writer's tongue and the tip of the pen.