What you don't know about food culture (2) - Lift up the case to the eyebrow is not present today

China has a Chinese idiom called "lifting the case to the same eyebrow", said the famous hermit Liang Hong and his wife living in seclusion in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The two *** with labor, mutual aid and mutual love, each other and extremely polite, so-called respect for each other as guests. It is said that Liang Hong every day after the completion of labor, back home, Meng Guang is always the rice and dishes are ready, set on the food case, hands in hand, held up, raised their eyebrows as high as Qi, respectfully sent to the front of Liang Hong. Here, we are not going to talk about how Liang Hong couple love, but to say a few words about the way they eat.

From Sima Qian's account, we can know more clearly that during the Qin and Han Dynasties, formal banquets for the upper class were practiced in a separate meal system. Guests and hosts, or kings and ministers, each had a case in accordance with etiquette, and ate in separate cases. But this kind of meal sharing is not for health, not to mention equality, but on the contrary, meal sharing is to show the different status and position of different people. Because in accordance with the requirements of etiquette, to participate in the banquet of different status, the case of the number of dishes on the table and the grade is not the same.

Or the ancient book of etiquette, "The Records of Rites", has clearly illustrated the different status of the pre-Qin aristocracy's different dietary treatments. Recorded in the Book of Rites of the Zhou Dynasty, there are no modern tables and chairs, people are on the ground mat, generally two, the bottom layer is coarse material woven fabric, slightly larger size, called "feast". In the feast with fine material woven into a smaller size called "mat", collectively known as the "feast". The princes and nobles were sitting on their knees on the seats, and various delicacies were served in food containers such as tripods and beans, which was called "eating in tripods". Rituals - Nei Zi" stipulates: the upper doctor in front of the twenty beans, the lower doctor in front of only sixteen beans.

Some people may ask, the princes and nobles so divided into meals and eat, the bottom of the civilian population is divided into meals or meals? According to relevant scholars, the ordinary people on the one hand, not so rich in food, on the other hand, etiquette is not so strict, in the meal, sometimes a few people sitting around a few cases **** meal, but not **** enjoy a plate of food, but each ate their own. It was not quite the same as what we now call the Chinese joint meal.

And as we are now, around the table *** enjoy a plate or several plates of dishes to eat, and ultimately not fully formed until the Song Dynasty. And both the princes and the common people intensified this way of life day after day, thus forming a unique eating habit with the most Chinese characteristics.

It took thousands of years to evolve from eating from a tripod, to sitting around and sharing a meal, and finally to sitting around and sharing a meal. A number of food culture researchers have tried to elucidate the reasons behind this important change. One of the more mainstream explanations is that the widespread use of high tables and chairs played an important role in the transition from shared meals to communal meals.

Traditional Chinese, without the habit of sitting on stools and chairs, never sat on the ground. The standard sitting posture is first kneeling on the ground, and then the buttocks sitting on the calf. Why take this sitting position? According to some scholars testify that it is to prevent the nakedness, because in ancient times, the Chinese people did not have the habit of wearing crotchless pants.

After the Western Jin Dynasty, the northern minorities into the Central Plains, the Hu Feng South gradually, beds and couches, chairs, stools and so on the Hu people used to sit introduced into China one after another, and gradually replaced the mats laid on the ground. To the Sui and Tang dynasties, has reached a climax. Traditional beds and couches, the height of the case continued to increase, to the Five Dynasties, people feasted on the surface of the mat has been flush with the chair. In the Song Dynasty, China began to widely use high tables and chairs, banquets and drinking space from the ground up to sit on a large table with high legs. People completely get rid of the old custom of eating on the ground.

The use of high-legged tables and chairs, in fact, only explains the change from sitting on the ground to sit around the table, and why the Chinese people want to use *** food a plate of dishes in the Chinese way of dining, still has not been resolved. Here, we might try to explain it in the following ways.

We know that by the time of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, chopsticks had become the Chinese people's main tool for eating. A person skilled in the use of chopsticks could accurately and quickly take food from a plate from a distance. This is something that a knife and fork cannot do. Crowds of people eating around a plate of food is also only possible with Chinese people who use chopsticks.

As we mentioned earlier, Chinese cuisine has developed a fine and complex technique of cutting raw materials in order to adapt to chopsticks. Most vegetables and meats are cut into small pieces, strips, segments, and dices and then processed into dishes. Such dishes are placed on the table in a vessel, and it is very convenient for people to use chopsticks to eat them at the same time without getting in each other's way. Imagine a plate of large steak on the table, if you use chopsticks *** with the enjoyment, I am afraid it is a very difficult thing.

Chinese people have a long history of eating a variety of foods. Vegetables and meat, the reason why the auxiliary position, because in the grain production of ancient Chinese agricultural society, vegetables, meat, oil, salt, for the general public, are scarce and expensive things, hard to get. Because of the history of frequent disasters, in ancient China can live a well-fed and well-fed life has been regarded as a peaceful and prosperous times. The people can have enough food to eat is very satisfied, as for the dishes, its role in the meal. Rich is rich, poor is simple, and even more years of famine, can only be the family porridge. And for hard-won dishes, the best way is of course to eat around the family, *** with the taste.

In ancient China, in contrast to the widespread poverty of the lower classes, the upper classes of aristocrats and officials amassed a great deal of social wealth. The luxury of eating and drinking allowed Chinese cooking techniques to flourish. By the time of the Tang and Song dynasties, the variety of Chinese dishes was already very large. Perhaps it was because of the scarcity of food that dishes that were scarce on people's daily tables became the main attraction at banquets. Thus China came to be what Qian Zhongshu called: Chinese people treating guests to dinner are actually treating guests to dishes. Such a banquet, of course, the more sumptuous dishes, the more face the host. And the joint meal **** food, you can make a dozen or even dozens of dishes piled on the table at the same time, more and more apparent abundance, guests and hosts sitting around the table, each other cloth food, cups, all happy. And if the dishes are loaded one by one, it is impossible to enjoy so many delicious dishes in one meal.

Chinese people like hot food taste habits in the Middle Ages has been relatively well established, Chinese cuisine because of the water cooking method developed and more soup, soup is more appropriate to use a large, deep-bottomed containers. And in the Tang and Song dynasties, with the development of cooking technology, the dishes are more and more concerned about the external presentation of the beauty of the form, such as the Tang Dynasty on the production of the "Rim Chuan small samples", with exquisite ingredients in the plate put together into the Rim Chuan twenty scenes, has a very high ornamental value. If you share the food, the dishes are not only inconvenient to share because of the soup, but also lose heat and become cold and lose flavor, and the beauty of many dishes can not be presented perfectly.

Eating around the table is the most distinctive feature of the Chinese way of eating, which has been increasingly criticized in the modern world, most often for being unhygienic. Modern Chinese people focus on health, giving birth to and driving the development of food culture. Now to the state banquet to ordinary business banquets, more is the use of the so-called "Chinese Western food" way: that is, Chinese food dishes in accordance with the Western method of serving, a dish is divided into multiple portions, according to the bit of food, each customer a copy. This will sacrifice part of the flavor and type of Chinese food dishes, but more hygienic, more frugal, more quiet. This way in the ordinary family dining has not been popularized, but please believe in the concept and the power of time, it will be sooner or later.