Deliciousness and virtue coexist, the ancients' "chicken on the tip of the tongue" actually has so many meanings!

my country is one of the earliest countries to domesticate chickens. An ancient poem says, "Dogs bark in the alleys, chickens crow on the tops of mulberry trees." As an important domesticated poultry, chickens often appear in the writings of ancient people. What did chickens look like in history?

Long-tailed chicken, long-crowing chicken, the ancients named it very straightforwardly

In ancient times, people mostly distinguished chickens based on their body shape, appearance, and voice. The characteristics of these chicken breeds were very obvious. A chicken with a long tail was called a long-tailed chicken; a chicken with a long crowing sound was called a long-crowing chicken; and the chicken in the phrase "dumb as a wooden chicken" was a fighting cock that had appeared since the Western Zhou Dynasty.

China is the origin of domestication and breeding of chickens and has historically had very rich chicken germplasm resources. However, historical records often selectively ignore common breeds and tend to record some special breeds, so it is difficult for us to see general chicken breeds in ancient books.

In modern times, chickens are generally divided into two major breeds: meat and eggs. However, in ancient China, residents mainly engaged in farming, and the breeding industry generally served the planting industry. Domestic chickens were not clearly divided and were more of a dual-purpose type.

It was not until the Qing Dynasty that it was recorded in the agricultural book "Bin Feng Guangyi" that there was a kind of tall chicken in Shaanxi, called fighting chicken, and another kind of small chicken with high egg-laying capacity, called firewood chicken. This reflected the division between meat-oriented chicken and egg-oriented chicken.

"Chicken on the Tip of the Tongue": Tracing the Origin of the Chicken and Egg Recipe

There is no significant difference between the cooking methods of chicken in ancient times and today. In ancient times, chicken was cooked by boiling, frying, roasting, and boiling. Among them, "roasting" refers to the beggar's chicken method of coating the chicken with mud and then roasting it.

The earliest method of cooking eggs is found in the Qi Min Yao Shu (Essential Techniques for the People of Qi). This agricultural book written more than 500 years ago mentioned two ways of cooking eggs. The first is poached eggs: after boiling water, break the eggs and put them into the boiling water. Cook until the poached eggs float up, then you can add seasoning and eat them; the other way is scrambled eggs, and the cooking process is almost the same as today.

The Chinese nation is a nation that is good at cooking. The cooking methods related to chickens and eggs are all based on the same principles. In fact, the ancients had already tried all kinds of delicious dishes.

The unique "Five Virtues Bird"

Chickens are closely related to the life of farmers in ancient times. Ancient Chinese poems such as "In a good year, there are enough chickens and pigs to entertain guests" and "The sounds of chickens and dogs can be heard from each other" all show a picture of rural life full of the flavor of life.

The ancients praised the chicken highly. "Han Shi Wai Chuan" recorded that "the chicken has five virtues: the crown on its head is literary virtue; the spurs on its feet enable it to fight, which is martial virtue; it dares to fight when the enemy is in front of it, which is courage; it invites its kind to food when there is food, which is benevolence; it keeps watch on time and announces the dawn, which is trustworthiness." Therefore, the chicken was called "the bird with five virtues" in ancient times and was also regarded as a kind of mascot.

Scientific review: Xu Wangsheng, researcher at China Agricultural Museum, agricultural culture research expert

Editor: Li Xinzhe

Copywriter: Yan Shuo (internship)