What was the main cooking oil used by the ancients before the Han Dynasty?

I'm Sasha, I'll answer.

Sasha Answer #9013.

For a long time in ancient times, everyone ate animal oil. The ancient books generally refer to the undecocted as fat and the decocted as paste

Why?

Because there was no concept of vegetable oil.

And there were many types of animal oils, such as lard, tallow, suet, and even dog oil.

Animal oils were extracted simply by boiling a bit of grease.

Sasha remembers that when he was a child, a neighbor often boiled an unknown animal oil, the smell was very big, extremely unpleasant, and became a psychological shadow of childhood.

The downside of animal oils is obvious: there is very little of it.

In ancient times, the average farmer ate meat from chickens, ducks and other poultry, and raised few pigs, making it difficult to boil oil.

The good thing is that before the Han Dynasty, the Chinese people ate vegetables, still to simply boiled, even if the meat is also boiled, and only the aristocrats and the rich can eat barbecued meat and things like that.

In those days, boiled food didn't have much oil, only barbecue had more oil and was more flavorful.

Since animal oil was more expensive, the common people of course could not afford to eat it, but the rich did not take it seriously.

In the Han Dynasty, there were merchants who specialized in animal oil business.

The Historical Records - Cargo Shik Liezhuan cloud: "Peddling fat, insulting place also, and Yong Bo thousand gold."

Yong Bo can earn a thousand gold by selling animal oil, it can be seen that at that time this industry, which was not common at that time, to have such a high profit.

After the Han Dynasty, vegetable oils began to appear.

In fact, the plants that can be extracted from the oil, have always existed, just the lack of oil extraction and refining technology.

During the Han Dynasty, there were technological breakthroughs, and the oil can be extracted from the position is also more abundant. For example, Zhang Qian brought back sesame seeds from the Western region, which is a good material for oil extraction.

But the original vegetable oil was not eaten, but used to make silk cloth and other uses.

According to "Tianzhongji", the early vegetarian oil was extracted from "Ushu": "There is a tree in Jingzhou, the name of Ushu, in fact, such as the seeds of the caraway, the juice, can be fat, and its flavor is also like pig fat." Wusu is a deciduous tree, and today it is also an industrial raw material for oil extraction, and the fruit can be used directly for oil extraction.

Interestingly, these vegetable oils were also used for military purposes, commonly for weapons such as fire attacks or rockets.

"Three Kingdoms - Wei Zhi": "Sun Quan to the new city of Hefei, full of pampered galloped to go to the collection of dozens of strong men, folded pine for the torch, filled with sesame oil, from the upper winds of the fire to burn thieves attack equipment."

Chinese people from the era of the North and South Dynasties, began to use vegetable oil, but not many people eat.

The real large-scale emergence of edible vegetable oil, or the Song Dynasty, such as hemp oil, soybean oil, vegetable oil, tea oil, etc.

For example, hemp oil, in the Song Dynasty was commonly used.

"Mengxi Bianan": now the northern people like to use hemp oil to fry things, do not ask what things, all fried in oil.

"Chicken Ribs" book, began to systematically document the refining methods of various vegetable oils, and that hemp oil is the best.

The frequent use of vegetable oil in the Song Dynasty is also related to the popularization of iron pots.

Because of the large number of iron pots, Chinese cooking began to see a lot of stir-frying, which required a lot of oil, and of course, the food tasted better.

Doughnuts, which we often eat for breakfast, appeared in the Song Dynasty.

After the Song Dynasty, the use of various kinds of vegetable oil is more, and by the Ming Dynasty has been very mature.

"Tiangongkaiwu" records: "Where the oil for food consumption, houma, vegetable clothing son (Lai clothing that is radish), soybean, woad seed for the top; Su Ma, rue Taizi second; tea seed, amaranth seed second; cannabis seed for the next."

In the Ming Dynasty, there were large oil-pressing workshops all over the world, and the price of vegetable oil was low enough for the poor commoners to be able to afford it.

The main character in the famous novel "Oil seller exclusive flower" is a street vendor who sells oil.

The bottle of more than 5 catties of oil that he sold to the flower girl's family was only enough for her family to use for 2 days, so it is evident that people at that time were already using a lot of oil.

Today, there are all kinds of edible oils, even grape seed oil, linseed oil and so on.

Usually eaten at home, whether it is soybean oil, rapeseed oil, peanut oil, or olive oil, sunflower oil and so on, almost all of them are mostly vegetable oils, and people before the Han Dynasty, eat mainly lard.

But thousands of years ago, the ancient people, the ability to use fats and oils is not so much today, and the most widely used are animal fats and oils, vegetable oils appeared in the history of the relatively slow.

The ancient period of Xia and Shang Dynasties, because of the lack of effective data written records, so that time people eat what oil, and even in the end to eat or not eat oil, now people have no way to know.

During the Zhou Dynasty, animal fats and oils appeared, but they were not called "oil", but "paste".

"Rituals - within the rules", there are a lot of sons of the royal family to eat the "eight treasures" practice, which gun dolphin specific practices, that is, "fried all the cream, cream must be extinguished," which means that the pork to put the cream in the oil and slowly fried.

This time the so-called "cream", in fact, is the animal fat, usually lard and cattle and sheep oil, but these animal fats are not the average person can afford to eat, the main aristocrats to enjoy.

By the Qin Dynasty, animal fats and oils were still the mainstay of edible oils, and people would decoct the fattier animal fats so that the oils and oils would precipitate out and solidify and then collect and preserve them.

However, in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, vegetable oils appeared, mainly soybean oil.

At that time, soybeans were called "peas" and were a widely grown food crop, but they were not well digested, so some people used them to extract oil, but it was not very popular.

At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, animal fats and oils were still the mainstay of people's daily consumption of oils, and in the Historical Records of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1867), a man called Yong Bo made his fortune by buying and selling animal fats and oils.

After Zhang Qian passed through the Western Regions, he brought back a crop called "hu ma", or sesame, which has a very high oil yield and a very strong aroma.

Because sesame seeds were easy to grow and the oil was easy to extract, they quickly became popular.

In the Four People's Monthly Order and other documents, the cultivation of sesame seeds, trading, and the use of sesame oil have been very popular in the Han Dynasty, it is at this time, the vegetable oil began to flourish, and gradually exceeded the animal fats and oils.

Sesame oil is considered to be the earliest in the domestic prevalence of vegetable oils, to the Wei, Jin and North and South Dynasties era, sesame oil and sesame oil, suzuki oil became the absolute mainstream of dietary cooking oil, but also widely used for fuel and other conveniences.

With the passage of time, the two Song dynasty people developed a variety of fats and oils are more abundant, but the mainstream cooking oil or sesame oil squeezed out of sesame, other fats and oils are more cold.

Also in the Song Dynasty, with the advancement of technology, oil extraction technology has also been improved by leaps and bounds.

China's local traditional oil extraction technology, basically in the Song Dynasty has been laid, to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, most of them still follow the Song Dynasty form of the method, because meat is rare, vegetable oil has become the absolute mainstream of the domestic table.

Before the Han Dynasty, people's diets were mainly boiled and barbecued, and there was very little use of fats and oils, and the mainstream animal fats and oils were also accidentally acquired by people when cooking, and were the most important edible fats and oils at that time.

Before the Han Dynasty, ordinary people could not afford to eat oil, and the princes and nobles ate only animal fats. It was only from about the Han Dynasty that vegetable oils were introduced, and it was not until the Tang and Song Dynasties that peddlers could afford to eat animal and vegetable oils.

The choices available to the ancients were far less than ours, as evidenced by their meals.

Before the Han Dynasty, princes and nobles could only eat animal fats and oils, and also specialized in separating the concept of fat and paste, the oil refined from horned animals is called fat, and the one refined from hornless animals is called paste.

For example, lard for the cream, beef and sheep oil for fat. Of course, there is another way of saying that what can be solidified is called fat and what cannot be solidified is called paste.

For the fat, the ancient people also according to different locations divided into different categories, such as the waist of the fat is called fat, the fat on the bone is called (moon book).

Moreover, the ancient people also selected the so-called "seasoning eight treasures", cream fragrance for butter, cream shame for the dog oil, cream fishy for lard (or chicken oil), cream stink for sheep oil, and so on.

Although just some animal fats, the princes and nobles of the cooks also played out the pattern, even when to eat what meat, with which animal oil cooking are stipulated.

"Zhou Li - Heavenly Officials - should be people" on the record: " Where the use of birds and animals, spring line lamb and dolphin, meal paste incense; summer line dried poultry, meal paste bashfulness; fall line calf GMP, meal paste fishy; winter line fish and feathers, meal paste stink ".

That is to say, to eat meat, the spring should eat pigs, sheep and lambs, cooked in butter; summer should eat dried birds and fish, cooked in dog oil; fall should eat calves and young deer, cooked in lard; winter should eat fresh fish and geese, cooked in sheep's oil.

In fact, it is not difficult to understand, our current eating habits are still similar to the Zhou Dynasty people, the winter to eat stinky mutton and goat oil, may be that time passed down.

Ancient people used oil to cook also appeared deep-fried, such as "Rituals - the internal rules" mentioned one of the eight treasures "gun dolphin", there is a process is "fried all the paste, paste must be extinguished", very much like our today's deep-fried pork chops.

At this time, the ancients also ate some fried food, the Warring States period, Chu patriotic poet Qu Yuan in the "Chu Rhetoric" wrote: " cakes of rice cakes and honey bait, there is a Ruoxi ".

According to Lin Hong, a Song Dynasty scholar, "餦餭餭" is "寒具", similar to the deep-fried noodle cakes we eat today.

Around the Eastern Han Dynasty, vegetable oil began to appear, but the raw material was not sesame, rapeseed and so on, but crabapple (said "jujube") or apricot in the genus Apple of the family Rosaceae.

East Han Dynasty scribe Liu Xi in the "Interpretation of Names - interpretation of diet" mentioned: " crabapple oil, pounded crabapple and coated with silk, dry and hair. The shape of the oil is also similar. Apricot oil is also like this. "

At this time, the vegetable oil is not extracted, is the fruit mashed, coated in silk fabrics, drying, you get something like oil.

At this time, vegetable oil is basically not for food, one is as above to do cloth, the second is to burn lamps to take light illumination, and later also for the needs of the war, such as the Three Kingdoms period of Wei's great general full of spoils to deal with the Sun Quan siege, " recruit dozens of strong men, folded pine for the torch, filled with hemp oil, from the wind to set fire to burn the thief attack equipment ".

The sesame oil here is sesame oil. Zhang Qian through the West, from the West Dawan country to bring back sesame (then known as houma), slowly spread in the folk, but not until after the Three Kingdoms, there is "houma oil" cooking records.

Zhang Hua, a writer in the Jin Dynasty, in "Museum - Volume IV - Physics": " Frying sesame oil. Water gas exhaust smoke, not again boil is still cold. Can be stirred in the hand. Getting water is the flame up, scattered pawns do not extinguish. "

The Northern Wei Dynasty in the Northern Wei Jia Si Fo in the "Qimin Essentials" also recorded a dish: " fried chicken method: break, the copper pan, stirring to make the yellow and white mixed. Fine army onion white, under the salt rice, muddy drum. Sesame oil fried. It's very flavorful. "

This is not what we eat scrambled eggs, hit a few eggs, put on the scallions, fried with sesame oil, aroma death personal ah. However, the real scrambled vegetables still have to be in the Song Dynasty after the invention of the iron pot.

During the Tang and Song dynasties, the technology of vegetable oil extraction became more and more developed, and there were more and more choices of vegetable oils, so the people could afford to eat vegetable oils.

During the Tang Dynasty, Han E mentioned the vegetable oil pressing technology in the Four Seasons Compendium, " April, press oil: this month collects cranberry seeds, presses the oil of the annual branch".

By the economically developed Song Dynasty, large-scale oil workshops began to appear, such as the Northern Song Bianjing oil and vinegar depot, the Southern Song Lin'an government-run oil workshop, oil extraction scale, the amount of oil is also large, but the Bianjing oil and vinegar depot a year to collect "fat hemp" more than 10,000 stone.

In addition to the government-run oil mill, a variety of private oil mill endless, specifically a name "oil work", there is no lack of ordinary people selling oil rich, " Huangzhou Citizen Drainage Sheng, goods oil for the industry, people call said Drainage oil, a desire to profit ".

At this time in the lives of ordinary people, oil has become an indispensable part. The daily necessities of a family are firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy, vinegar, and tea. Or a little rich, under the rice soup, especially can not be. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. "

And, at this time, there are many types of vegetable oil, sesame oil, rapeseed oil, soybean oil, and almond oil, red and blue flower seed oil, cranberry seed oil, fish oil and so on, as well as a variety of medicinal, lamp oil and other vegetable oils.

By the Ming Dynasty, when industry and commerce had developed, the ancient Chinese oil extraction technology and edible oil types set of masters, especially Song Yingxing in the Ming Dynasty in the "Tiangongkaiwu" recorded.

He not only mentioned the oil extraction technology, but also summarized the amount of vegetable oil contained in a variety of plant raw materials, listing the edible oil, lamp burning oil, the oil of making candles of the upper and lower products, but also calculated the oil content of plant raw materials.

But peanut oil, which we eat the most of, was documented around the Qing Dynasty. Tang Zui in the Qianlong period of the Qing dynasty in the "Dianhai Yuheng Zhi" mentioned peanut oil: " Falling peanuts for the first of the southern fruit, to its funding for the most extensive civilian. Between the Song and Yuan, and cotton, melon, sweet potatoes and so on, Guangdong estimate from the sea countries to get their seeds back to plant. Called cotton said 'Gibe', called sweet potato said 'groundnut', groundnut said 'groundnut' ...... groundnut to oil extraction For the upper. Therefore, since the Fujian and Guangdong, no not eat peanut oil. "

Since then, we eat the most sesame oil, canola oil, soybean oil, peanut oil gathered in China.

By the way, today's so-called "blended oils" also existed in ancient times, only as a shoddy product.

The story of Xu Xian of the Song Dynasty, "The Record of the Gods - The Oil Seller of Mount Lushan", tells this story:

This filial son mixed animal oil into vegetable oil to seek a large profit, and was killed by the so-called gods and goddesses by a thunderbolt. This shows two truths, one is that animal oil is no longer accepted by the ancients, and the other is that there is no good reward for the treacherous businessman.

When it comes to eating, foodies get excited.

However, according to relevant historical records, at least before the Han Dynasty, foodies are not very happy, because limited by the conditions at that time, there are not a lot of ways to cook food, people mostly just to get the food cooked, eat it to satiate the belly is good.

Specifically to the ancients, I can only say that the ancient people of my country, the ancient people of other parts of the world is not clear, the use of cooking oil to the Song Dynasty are limited in number, because the cooking technology at that time is not a lot of oil use.

Let's say it in three stages, before the Han Dynasty, from the Han Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, and after the Song Dynasty.

1, before the Han Dynasty

Before the Han Dynasty, people just used pottery to cook all kinds of food to eat, and the rich and noble people used bronze to cook the food, or the food was directly burned or roasted by fire to eat.

So constrained by the limitations of cooking utensils, people could only eat like this.

Various kinds of animal oils were the main edible oils, but they were not called oils at that time, the solidified animal oils were called fat, and the flowing animal oils were called paste. There is an idiom called "people's fat, people's cream", which comes from the meaning of this.

Being able to refine animal fats and oils, there is one more way for people to cook, called deep-frying.

So, basically, before the Han Dynasty, people in addition to raw food, cooking methods on these kinds of burning, baking, boiling, frying.

Some foodies said, "That's great, eat barbecue, Northeast stew, fried chicken thighs every day.

What's so great about it is that not only were there very few cooking methods, but there weren't a lot of spices, so it was really the original flavor.

2. Han Dynasty to Song Dynasty

According to the relevant historical records, by the Han Dynasty, the Chinese people discovered the method of frying oil from the seeds of various plants, and by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the method of extracting vegetable oils gradually matured.

For a long time, however, people did not form the habit of consuming vegetable oils, which was mainly due to cooking methods.

Around the time of the Three Kingdoms and the Jin Dynasty, a vegetable oil, sesame oil, was commonly used.

Until the Tang Dynasty, both animal oil and vegetable oil, in addition to a part of the people to eat, most of them are used in lighting, and part of them are used in handicraft waterproofing, such as waterproofing of cars and boats, and so on.

3, the Song Dynasty to the Manchurian Qing Dynasty

After the Song Dynasty, there is an important cooking utensils mature, that is, we miss the big iron pot.

So, our ancestors began to stir-fry on a large scale, and the use of cooking oil increased dramatically.

In addition to animal oils, there was a huge increase in the use of canola oil, sesame oil, and also soybean oil.

This state of affairs has basically continued until now.

Except that we now have a much freer choice of oils, and for the most part, don't consume much animal oil anymore, with a variety of synthetic vegetable oils dominating.

I'm Canghai Jiuzhu, I'll answer. Before the Han Dynasty, because iron was not yet widely used, the ancients cooked by means of boiling, steaming and baking. Steaming did not involve frying or stir-frying, and roasting was also done over an open fire or on a stone slab, usually using animal fat, which is what we usually call fatty meat. In other words, animal fat was the mainstream cooking oil for ancient people before the Han Dynasty. Of course, animal fat, like meat food, was not popular; after all, productivity was not developed, and it was more difficult to obtain meat, so only aristocrats and rich people with good living conditions could enjoy it. There is still not much meat in the diet of the general public.

Before the Han Dynasty, there was no better way to obtain fats and oils, and the food was mainly processed using simple cooking methods, such as boiling, baking, steaming, and burning, which are common ways to process food. So at that time will rarely involve fat, and at that time there is no suitable tools can use fat for food processing. In the Song Dynasty before the emergence of iron pots, the most people see the fat is also animal fat, such as lard, etc., these are only in the roast pork and other animals will only appear, so in that time that a technologically underdeveloped situation, the ordinary people's families will not use any fat cooking food. Grease such things only rich people in the festivals or New Year's time will appear, but also only in the cooking of animal meat will appear, usually will not often eat meat, after all, in ancient times can afford to raise animals less people, the price is more expensive, will not eat meat every day. The real large-scale use of fats and oils for cooking was popularized only after the discovery that plants could be used to refine oil and after the emergence of cooking tools. I'll talk about a few aspects of this:

Fats and oils in ancient times

Before the Han Dynasty, the first knowledge of fats and oils was from animals. Because in ancient times, things and its not rich situation, hunting became a means of hunting in the heating of meat, there will be liquid from the roasted meat seepage, this is the ancient people on the grease of the initial knowledge. Later, after the beginning of writing, the ancients generally called oil "fat" or "cream". In the ancient literature "interpretation of the name" has been recorded as:

In addition to the "cream" and "fat", there is another way to say, in the ancient book "Rituals - Nei Zi" recorded that cooking:

Now we use by to describe the oil and grease In addition, the use of animal fats and oils in cooking, there are various records, such as "Zhouli - Tianguan Tsukazai" this ancient book recorded:

Song Dynasty and later cooking

In fact, in ancient times, before the Song Dynasty, very few see about the fat cooking cooking records, because at that time, it is difficult to get such a thing, generally used in special places, such as oil lamps and so on.

By the Song Dynasty, the situation had changed a lot, the agricultural economy was very developed, trade was also prosperous, the standard of living of ordinary people began to improve, the people also began to eat three meals a day. In addition, the royal family and other nobles to eat more and more sophisticated, because the iron pot has appeared, coupled with the extraction of vegetable oil is more and more simple, the price is not very expensive, so more restaurants and other places began to use the iron pot for deep-frying, stir-frying, frying, and other ways of cooking food.

At that time, the more popular cooking methods are: cooking, popping, slipping, pickling, brining, steaming, stewing and other methods, they make the Song Dynasty food style has become a variety of changes in cooking techniques, making the people at that time on the feel of the food has a new cognitive, since cooking is no longer monotonous also formed their own a technology. In addition to the indispensable food seasoning has also made great progress, salt, honey, pepper and other seasoning also began to make the food flavor has changed a lot.

In summary, the use of fats and oils in the ancient times was with the progress of the times and gradually appeared and entered the homes of ordinary people, in the Song Dynasty before the use of fats and oils is still very rare and monotonous, until the emergence of cooking utensils, as well as vegetable oils are more convenient to obtain, began to really enter the ordinary people's homes.