In ancient China, salt was used as a condiment. Shangshu &; There is a record in "Tell Your Life" in S226: "I worked hard to make soup, but only made salt and plum", which shows that people in Shang Dynasty already knew how to make delicious soup with salt as seasoning. Then contact Shangshu &; S226 There is a record of "Jue Gong Yan Xi" in Qingzhou, Gong Yu, that is, in the Xia Dynasty before the Shang Dynasty, there was a "tribute" of salt to the slave-owner country. This kind of salt is used for seasoning and is extremely precious. This was handed in as a tribute. Therefore, the earliest record of edible salt in China can be traced back to the Zhixia Dynasty. By the Zhou Dynasty, people had regarded salty taste as one of the "five flavors" (sour, bitter, pungent, salty and sweet) and used it to treat diseases. Zhou Li&; There is a record of "salt nourishing pulse" in "Tianguan Zai" in S226, which is a new understanding of the medical function of salt in Zhou Dynasty. At the end of the Warring States Period, Qin Xiangpin did not appreciate the book "Lv Chunqiu" compiled by a group of scholars, and proposed that "when things are mixed, they must be bitter, sweet and salty, and more or less, starting from themselves" and "salty but not reduced", and more specifically talked about the methods of regulating salty taste. Since then, people have paid more and more attention to the seasoning function of salt. Wang Mang in Han Dynasty called salt "the general of cooking", which highlighted the position of salt in cooking.

When did humans first start eating salt? So far, there is no historical record or archaeological data to explain it exactly. However, as you can imagine, like the use of fire, the discovery and consumption of salt has gone through an extremely long period. In the era of "eating animals and plants and drinking their blood like their hair", ancient ancestors didn't know what salty taste was and what salt was. Later generations did not add salt to the broth used for sacrifice, that is, the so-called "big soup does not arrive" to show compliance with ancient etiquette. Sima Qian wrote in Historical Records &; S226 This ancient ceremony is also recorded in Le Shu: "The gift of big food, Shogen wine and fishy fish, big soup is not harmonious, there are survivors." These records in ancient books can be regarded as evidence that ancient ancestors did not know salt or salt. Therefore, it can be inferred that the ancient ancestors did go through a long historical period when they knew nothing about edible salt.

Human food culture begins with tasting everything. Of all the things that nature has given to human beings, which can be eaten and which can't be eaten are all gained by people's own taste accumulation. In ancient China mythology, there is a legend that Shennong tasted a hundred herbs. I don't think this is an unfounded fabrication by the ancients. It is the countless bold tastes of ancient ancestors that have built a ladder for the progress of human food culture. After countless times of bold tasting, ancient ancestors built a ladder for the progress of human food culture. Ancient ancestors randomly tasted sea water, salty lake water, salt rock and saline soil for countless times, tasted delicious salty taste, and added naturally occurring salt to food, and found that some foods were more salty and fragrant than the original taste. After trying, they gradually used salt as seasoning.

With the passage of time, people are no longer satisfied with the natural salt obtained only through the gift of nature, and begin to explore from seawater, salt lake water, salt rock and salt soil. The largest salt reserve on the earth is seawater. The earliest record of salt production in China is about sea salt production. According to ancient records, Su Sha, a warlord at the time of Emperor Yan (Shennong), was the first to cook sea salt with sea water, which was called "Su Sha as edible salt". It is uncertain whether Su Sha really existed in history. In fact, it is impossible to make salt from seawater in Su Sha, but the ancient ancestors living by the sea created the sea salt making technology through long-term exploration and practice. At present, there are no updated archaeological discoveries and ancient books to prove. "Su Sha edible salt" can be regarded as the beginning of China sea salt industry, and Su Sha is the founder of China sea salt.

The working people in ancient China had long explored the causes of salt and had preconceived ideas. They believe that the formation of salt has a lot to do with water vapor: "Water is wet and wet is salty." . This is the conclusion of long-term observation of lake salt formation. Lake salt, also known as "pool salt", is an inland salt lake (pool). Due to the influence of dry climate, crystalline salt can be naturally generated. The most famous and oldest Hedong Salt Pond in the history of China (also known as Jiechi, now the south of Yuncheng County and the northern foot of Zhongtiao Mountain) naturally produces salt through wind, sun and evaporation, which is called "Xie Yan", "Luyan" or "Hedong Salt" in history. There is the earliest record of "purging the pool" in Shan Hai Jing & S226. North Mountain Scenery ",in which there is a sentence of" three hundred miles south, Yue Jingshan, looking south at salt vendor Shize ". According to A Jin scholar Guo Pu, salt vendors are "salt ponds". At present, Chaerhan Salt Lake and Chaka Salt Lake in Qinghai Province are rich in this kind of pool salt, of which Chaerhan Salt Lake covers an area of 65,438 0.600 square kilometers, making it the largest salt lake in China. Pool salt has the characteristics of natural crystallization. The Jin people's "Luodu Fu" said: "Hedong Salt Pool is clean and fresh, and it is natural for nothing. "In other words, pool salt can be made naturally without boiling." Xiechi "is located in the Yellow River Basin. It is conceivable that ancient ancestors living in the Yellow River Basin came into contact with this natural pool salt very early.

One thing is certain: sea salt is cooked only after natural salt is discovered and eaten. Because cooking salt is an advanced production process, it requires certain cooking utensils, such as the "prison basin" used for cooking salt in the Han Dynasty. What materials are used to make such vessels, how to cook them, and so on, are unknown. But one thing can be summed up: the discovery and consumption of natural sea salt, pool salt, rock salt, salt spring and earth salt are the beginning of human edible salt. This should be the same for all countries in the world.

Yunnan, Sichuan, where salt cooking has a long history.

Well salt appeared late and first appeared in Bashu area (now Sichuan Province) during the Warring States Period. During the Qin Dynasty, Li Bing was stationed in Shu County. While controlling water, he surveyed the distribution of underground brine and began to dig salt wells. History book: Li Bing "knows all the water veins of Guangdu Yanjing, and all the ponds of Tongguangdu Yanjing, so it is full of health." This is the earliest record of digging salt wells in ancient China.

The rock salt system is refined from mined salt ore, mostly concentrated in the northwest and southwest mountainous areas, such as Xinjiang, Ximao and Yunnan. In which generation did the production of rock salt begin? There is no historical record. The method of making rock salt, according to the water classics note &; S226 "Jiang Shui" contains: "In Yiren County (now Yunyang County, Sichuan Province), there is a stone in Tangkou 43, which is boiled as salt. When the stone is big, it will rise. When it is small, it will be like a fist. When it is big, it will consume water into salt. "It can be seen that rock salt is boiled.

Soil salt, that is, "alkali salt", is produced in saline-alkali land, with bitter taste and poor quality. It is at the bottom of the salt family and is only used as a substitute for edible salt. It is also impossible to test when the production of soil salt began. Its production method is based on the Book of the Later Han Dynasty &; S226 Biography of Southwest China says: "Wenshan has salty soil, which is cooked as salt, and elk, sheep, cattle and horses are all fat." It can be seen that soil salt is also obtained by boiling.