What condiments did the ancient people who only ate dry food use in their cooking?

Chinese people say that food has five flavors, namely "sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty", but there is actually another flavor, "fresh"! In the extensive and profound Chinese food culture, adjusting the taste of food is an extremely important part. As an advanced agricultural region, China has a unique advantage in people's pursuit of rich food flavors.

The "five flavors" that Chinese people often talk about were once a concept in traditional Chinese medicine. The Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic, which was written in the pre-Qin period and is the earliest Chinese medical classic, first mentioned this concept. There is an article "Five Flavors" in the Lingshu, which discusses the five natures and flavors of the five grains, five vegetables, five fruits, and five animals, as well as their different effects on the human body. It says that the five flavors each go to the five internal organs they like, explains the pros and cons of the five flavors for the diseases of the five internal organs, and also mentions the law of the five elements. These contents can generally be classified as "metaphysics", but they also have the meaning of dietary adjustment , thus laying the foundation for the rich and colorful "diet therapy" culture of the Chinese nation!

As an advanced agricultural region, China has a very rich food material, which is mainly plant-based and supplemented by meat. Since meat has a natural "fragrance" during roasting and boiling, and plant-based ingredients are either light and tasteless or have a special taste, the Chinese have been different from nomadic peoples since ancient times. They attach great importance to seasoning and have accumulated seasoning experience for a long time. They have continuously improved cooking methods, formed a profound Chinese food culture, and also accumulated a large number of seasonings . The oldest book in China, "Shangshu", says: " If you want to make a soup, you only need salt and plums. " To make a delicious soup, you need salt and plums! So what are the seasonings related to the five flavors and umami in ancient China?

1. Salty taste.

Saltiness mainly comes from "salt", which not only adds flavor to food, but is also an indispensable substance for the human body and needs to be ingested for a long time! The main source of edible salt for humans is sea salt, which can be obtained by boiling seawater in an iron pan or drying seawater in the shallows of the sea. China's coastal areas are rich in sea salt. In the early days, it was the coastal areas of Liaoning, Hebei, and Shandong. In the pre-Qin classics, "Zhou Li" records: " The northeast is called Youzhou, which is good for fish salt. " "Guan Zi" says: " Qi has Quzhan's salt, and Yan has Liaodong's salt. " Since then, with the development of southern China, the production of sea salt has expanded to the coastal areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong during the Han Dynasty.

Due to the inconvenient transportation in ancient times and the difficulty in transporting sea salt to inland areas far from the coast, there were other ways to obtain salt:

" Pond salt " is made from brine in salt ponds. The "Shanxi Jiechi" at the northern foot of Zhongtiao Mountain is one of the three largest salt lakes in the world and an important production area of ​​pond salt in ancient China.

" Well salt " is made by digging wells to extract underground brine. It is mostly produced in Sichuan, Yunnan and other places, and Sichuan well salt is the most famous.

" Rock salt " is salt made by smelting salt pits in the earth's strata. It is mostly produced in the western region. The earliest record of high-quality rock salt was in the "Book of Northern History" during the Southern and Northern Dynasties in the Western Region Gaochang Kingdom (Turpan, Xinjiang).

In addition, ancient Chinese rulers realized very early that salt was indispensable in people's lives, and salt was an important source of national finance and taxation. They implemented "salt policies", such as collecting salt taxes and state monopoly. In the Zhou Dynasty, salt was used as a tribute (tax in kind), but private salt production and trafficking were still free; Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty took over the production and sales rights of salt and iron and made them state-owned for a hundred years, and then it was intermittent; in the early Sui and Tang dynasties, no salt tax was levied, and in the late Tang Dynasty, due to fiscal emptiness, a monopoly system of "private salt production, government collection, transportation, and sales" was implemented; after the Tang Dynasty to modern times, although the salt monopoly system has changed, it basically inherited the late Tang system.

2. Sour taste.

Sour taste can remove the fishy smell of meat, remove greasiness and aid digestion in food and cooking. The earliest sour condiment in ancient China was " plum ", which is green plum.

In the pre-Qin period, people took the sour taste of plum pulp and called it one of the three major cooking seasonings along with salt and wine.

Since the Han Dynasty, the function of plums has been gradually replaced by artificially brewed " vinegar ". The process of making vinegar in ancient times is similar to that of making wine, but its history is shorter than that of making wine.

**Vinegar is also called "醯" or "酢". The "Book of Zhou" records: " The 醯人 is in charge of the five kinds of food and the seven kinds of pickles. " **The 醯人 is the official in charge of making vinegar, which shows that vinegar existed in the pre-Qin period. However, it was still a precious and rare condiment at that time. Vinegar did not become popular until the Han Dynasty, and became the most important sour condiment in China for more than 2,000 years!

Vinegar is made by fermenting millet rice with "wheat koji" to produce alcohol, and then using acetic acid bacteria to oxidize the alcohol into acetic acid . It is also called "bitter wine" in ancient literature. About 1,500 years ago, in the "Qimin Yaoshu", the earliest comprehensive agricultural book in China, written by Jia Sixie during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, 20 methods of making vinegar were recorded, indicating that the raw materials for making vinegar were very rich at that time and there were many vinegar-producing areas, indicating that vinegar was an indispensable condiment in the lives of Chinese people during the Southern and Northern Dynasties!

Vinegar is not only a condiment, but also a medicine in ancient China. Bian Que in the Warring States Period believed that vinegar could "disinfect various medicines"; the Ming Dynasty's Compendium of Materia Medica already had more than 30 prescriptions using vinegar, and also mentioned that "fumigating indoors with vinegar can disinfect."

3. Sweetness.

The main source of sweetness is various kinds of "sugar". The most easily available and common one in modern times is sucrose, that is, sugar cane sugar. In ancient China, there was no sucrose. Sweetness mainly came from honey and maltose. I will not talk about honey anymore, but focus on maltose.

Ancient Chinese discovered very early that plant seeds would produce amylase during germination, hydrolyzing starch to become maltose. They initially used wheat, glutinous rice, etc. to make maltose, called " maltose ", which has a very long history! The Book of Songs says: "Zhouyuan is fertile, and violets and tea are as sweet as maltose." It means that the violets (wild vegetables) and tea (tea leaves) grown on the fertile "Zhouyuan" are as sweet as maltose. In the Han Dynasty, the production of maltose was quite common among the people, and later in the Qi Min Yao Shu, 5 methods of making maltose were recorded.

The history of ancient Chinese consuming cane sugar began in the late Warring States period. At that time, people extracted cane sugar like making maltose, which was not popular and was a precious tribute. Later, it was recorded in "Qimin Yaoshu" that crystallized cane sugar could be made ! In the Tang Dynasty, "New Book of Tang" recorded that Emperor Taizong of Tang sent people to India to learn advanced sugar-making methods. Only then did sugarcane planting and cane sugar manufacturing become popular; in the Ming Dynasty, Song Yingxing recorded in detail the method of making cane sugar by hand in "Tiangong Kaiwu", which has been used until modern times.

Another raw material for sugar production is sugar beet . Sugar production from sugar beet began in Europe in the 18th century. In ancient China, sugar beet was already cultivated and called "违菜", but it was only used as a medicinal material. It was not until the end of the Qing Dynasty that sugar beet was planted in large quantities in Northeast China to produce sugar.

4. Spicy taste.

Spicy taste mostly comes from various seasoning vegetables in the natural environment. Humans eat spicy food mainly because the spicy substances in them can bring a "burning sensation" and leave us with strong stimulation and memory. The specific functions are: first, it can increase the body temperature and accelerate metabolism, thereby achieving a certain effect of keeping out the cold; second, it can promote blood circulation in the capillaries of the human epidermis and sweat away waste and toxins. Of course, the most important role of spicy food is to season food in cooking. Many people in the world like spicy food!

The main spicy ingredients in Chinese cuisine are onions, ginger, garlic, and chili peppers, among which onions and ginger originated in China. Ginger has a long history of being planted and eaten in China. The Analects of Confucius says, "Don't eat without ginger, and don't eat too much." This means that Confucius would eat ginger every time he had a meal, but not too much. The Shennong Herbal Classic, written in the Han Dynasty, also says, "Dried ginger tastes spicy and warm." The ancient Chinese not only valued the seasoning effect of ginger, but also used it as an important "dietary therapy" material and planted it extensively.

"Cong" and its similar "xie" (xiè), as well as "jiu" (today's leek), are all spicy vegetables with a long history of cultivation and consumption in China. Chinese people not only value their nutrition, but also use their special taste to season their cooking. They have also carefully cultivated the slightly spicy high-end vegetable "jiuhuang", which is particularly delicious.

In addition, there is a spicy ingredient in ancient China called "Cornus officinalis", which is not only used for seasoning, but also has certain disinfection, analgesic, cold-expelling and wind-removing effects.

Since the Ming Dynasty, edible dogwood has been completely replaced by " chili peppers " introduced from overseas. Chili peppers are native to the Americas. After being introduced to China, they were promoted and planted very quickly, becoming the most important spicy seasoning ingredient for the Chinese. I will not introduce them in detail. Another important spicy seasoning ingredient introduced from overseas is " garlic ", also known as "Hu garlic", which is native to West Asia and was introduced to China during the Han Dynasty. Before the Han Dynasty, China only had "egg garlic" (small garlic) with low yield and poor taste, which was soon completely replaced by garlic.

5. Umami.

Ancient Chinese people attached great importance to "umami" in food and cooking , but it is difficult to obtain a strong umami taste, and it requires tireless pursuit! Scientifically speaking: umami is a signal that humans desire protein . In the early 20th century, Japanese scholars first discovered the chemical secret of umami and invented monosodium glutamate, so it is easier for us modern people to obtain umami!

Ancient Chinese people believed that mutton was the most delicious and fish had a strong umami flavor (they both have high protein content), so the Chinese character "鲜" is "鱼" plus "羊"! The ancients also "unearthed" many ingredients that can obtain umami, including chicken and duck meat from livestock, edible mushrooms and bamboo shoots from the mountains, meat from wild birds and beasts, fish, shrimp and crab meat from rivers, lakes and seas, etc.

Finally, let’s talk about bitterness. Many plants are naturally bitter and not easy for people to accept, but there are also “refreshing” bitter foods, such as bitter melon.

It was the ancient Chinese people's unremitting pursuit of sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty and umami that created the great Chinese food culture !