This paper mainly discusses the reasons, characteristics and changing rules of the formation of China's food culture area, and puts forward some views on the research methods.

The existence and development of food culture mainly depend on two systematic factors: natural ecological environment and cultural ecological environment. imperial throne

On the qualitative level, food culture mainly depends on natural factors; At the national level, it is mainly restricted by cultural factors. essay

It is considered that as early as 10000-4000 years ago, millet, glutinous rice and wheat were formed in China.

Food culture area in the Yellow River valley, food culture area in the Yangtze River valley, with rice as the main food raw material, food culture area in the Yangtze River valley.

There are three different types of food culture areas in the northern grassland food culture area of China, with meat and cheese as the main foods. After another date,

After four thousand years' evolution, by the end of 19, Northeast China, North China, Beijing-Tianjin and the Yellow River appeared on today's Chinese territory.

1 1 Downstream, Middle Yellow River, Northwest, Lower Yangtze River, Middle Yangtze River, Southwest, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Southeast Asia.

Location. Because China is a closed small-scale peasant society in history, based on self-sufficient natural economy, food culture

It exists in the form of "stagnation" and "inertia" is its changing feature. The article holds that four points should be grasped in research methods.

Principle: 1. Reproduce the historical truth through literature research, field folk custom investigation and simulation repetition; Second, put the diet

Culture is regarded as an activity with thoughts and feelings in history; Third, the productivity and the level of science and technology determine the food culture.

The main factors of national style; Four, calm and fair, seeking truth from facts are the principles that must be adhered to in the study of food culture. essay

At the same time, it is pointed out that the types of dishes are only one of the material components of food culture, far from being the main body of food culture in a country or region.

At present, the research on Chinese mainland's food culture mainly focuses on the operating varieties of hotels and restaurants in large and medium-sized cities. And this.

Some dishes do not belong to farmers and other ordinary people, nor are they the main body of the citizens, and do not belong to the daily diet of the people of the whole country.

Keywords:: China food culture regional ethnic change law research methods

Regionality is the basic attribute of culture, which should be the basic theory of culturology and the common sense of cultural scholars. Similarly,

Food culture has obvious regionality, which is also the unanimous understanding of international food culture scholars. It is a principled method that the author has always adhered to to to investigate China's food culture and its historical evolution from a regional perspective. In recent ten years, more and more researchers have begun to pay attention to this research method, and the research results of China food culture scholars in this field have gradually increased. The project "Regional History of Food Culture in China", which the author cooperated with more than 20 scholars from more than ten provinces in China, is the embodiment of this theoretical principle and method. This project takes eleven food culture sites in the history of China, such as Northeast China, Beijing-Tianjin, Lower Yellow River, Middle Yellow River, North China, Northwest China, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Southwest China, Middle Yangtze River, Middle Yangtze River and Southeast China, as the research object, which is a general history of the development of various food culture sites, with a total of 12 volumes. The whole series of books is about 6 million words and is currently under consideration for publication. Due to the vast territory of China, great differences in physical geography, different food preparation methods and contents in different regions, the existence of multi-ethnic elements and cultural differences between them, there are many different styles of food culture sites in China. With the continuous development of people's food production activities, these food cultural places with different styles are in a slow and gradual historical dynamic process. Understanding this historical existence and studying the historical development of China's food culture is not only necessary for understanding the past, but also of positive significance for understanding today and creating tomorrow.

First, the positioning of China's food culture has been gradually formed in the long history, and has evolved with the development of the times.

The position of China's diet history can be said to be revealed with the beginning of the diet history. The raw materials of food that primitive human beings depend on depend entirely on the gift of "God", that is, they are obtained directly from nature. Therefore, the characteristics of food culture at this time are basically determined by natural factors such as the species, quantity, existence and distribution of animals and plants and water sources within the range of people's living activities. Food raw materials are natural, and the food form is basically the division and stripping of the natural form of raw materials, with little or no reprocessing of raw materials. About 10,000 years ago, primitive agriculture and primitive animal husbandry appeared on the territory of China today. From the appearance of primitive agriculture and primitive animal husbandry to the late Neolithic Age, that is, more than 4,000 years ago, after 5,000 to 6,000 years of long food production and food life, the regional characteristics of prehistoric food culture in China were obviously formed. This is the clear mode of production based on planting and the gradual strengthening of the tendency of taking food as the staple food. This period is embodied in three types of prehistoric cultural areas: the catering cultural areas in the Yellow River valley with millet, rice and other miscellaneous grains as the structure, the catering cultural areas in the Yangtze River valley with rice as the basic food, and the catering cultural areas for animal husbandry and hunting in the vast grasslands of North China. In view of the universality of food raw materials, this paper only discusses the most decisive food varieties, and temporarily puts aside fruits and vegetables, livestock and poultry.

Northern areas such as the Yellow River Basin are agricultural cultural belts with millet as the main grain variety. It is generally believed that millet and millet belong to the same genus, millet is glutinous, millet is not glutinous, and millet usually mainly refers to millet. Archaeological data show that millet was first domesticated and cultivated in China. The domestication and planting of millet began in the early Neolithic period. The ancestor of millet is Setaria viridis, which is a wild plant with high starch content widely distributed in the prehistoric Yellow River Basin, and should also be the main plant food in the field collection stage of prehistoric ancestors in the Yellow River Basin. From the perspective of plant ecology, it is natural that millet was first domesticated by prehistoric ancestors in the Yellow River basin. Millet can adapt to all kinds of growing environments and has strong self-growth ability: the evaporation on the leaf surface is very small and it is a drought-resistant crop; During drought, the leaves of millet roll up vertically or even fake death to reduce the evaporation of water. Once the water is obtained, it will recover quickly, and the requirements for soil are not high, which is very suitable for the ecological environment with less rainfall and easy drought in the Loess Plateau. Therefore, millet was domesticated successfully at first, and became the most important grain variety 1 in northern China for four or five thousand years. Millet is shelled millet with high nutritional value. More importantly, Xiaomi's sturdy shell has strong moisture-proof and moth-proof ability and is easy to store. China is the only agricultural country in the world that first developed from millet.

Up to now, archaeological discoveries in China have found more than 20 remains of early millet, millet shells and carbonized millet in Neolithic sites and tombs in the Yellow River basin. Among them, the millet found in the Cishan site in Wu 'an, Hebei Province has been more than 7300 years ago. Of the 346 pits in the site, 88 have grain storage, generally 0.3-2 meters thick, and some pits are as thick as 2.9 meters. Although the sediment has rotted, some particles can still be clearly identified when unearthed. Some people estimate that the storage capacity is about 6.5438+10,000 Jin, which is enough for 250 people to eat for one year. This is by far the oldest early millet food. Millet found in Cishan site is the oldest cultivated millet found in China and even in the world. Researchers generally believe that the vast majority of millet varieties cultivated around the world are probably related to millet cultivated in China. In addition, the remains of millet have been found in Anbanpo site, Beishouling in Baoji, Hu Quan village in hua county and many Neolithic caves, houses and tombs widely distributed in North China and Northwest China. Since millet was domesticated, it has been the main food for residents in vast areas of the Yellow River Basin for nearly ten thousand years until the 20th century. It can be said that Xiaomi has supported the splendid Yellow River civilization for thousands of years.

The cultivation of millet has a deep origin with Zhou tribe, and perhaps the domestication and cultivation of millet also has a vital origin with Zhou tribe. Zhou people prospered because they were good at farming, and their ancestors "abandoned" because of their rich farming experience. They were appointed as agricultural officials by Yu Shun, whose duty was to "teach the people to farm", which was probably equivalent to the position of "big farmer" in charge of agriculture in the central government of feudal countries in Qin and Han Dynasties. Therefore, the abandoned child is called "Hou Ji". "Hou" is the highest and biggest meaning. Only in the pre-Qin period can the emperor of heaven be called "Hou" and "millet" is millet. In other words, the Zhou tribe began with millet-based agriculture, and the ancestors of Zhou people gave up becoming experts in planting millet. In the history of China, there is a word that best represents the culture of China-"country", which is a combination of "society"-land god and "millet"-valley god. Sacrificing to the country is a cultural tradition in China since prehistoric times. This culture is both agricultural and Xiaomi's, which shows that Xiaomi has a long history and profound foundation. This point should be thought-provoking if it is related to the fact that the seat of the central government in the history of China has not left the middle line of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River for more than 3,000 years since Xia Guo. The word "country" has always been synonymous with the feudal state power in the history of China, and the basic national policy of the feudal state power in China for thousands of years is "agriculture-oriented" without exception. It can be said that this typical ideological tradition of "agriculture is the foundation of the country" and "agriculture is the foundation of the country" in the history of China originated from the catering cultural area in the Yellow River Basin and has always been supported by agriculture in the Yellow River Basin.

Besides millet, Zizania latifolia is another major grain variety. China is the hometown of soybean, which is a specialty of China. It was cultivated as early as the Neolithic Age, and its ancestor wild soybeans were widely distributed in the north and south of China. Soybean is the earliest domesticated variety in China, but according to historical documents and folk surveys, the earliest domesticated place and main edible distribution of soybean are still in the northern region for a long historical period. The frequent and abundant occurrences of "Zizania latifolia", "Zizania latifolia" and "Pogostemon rugosa" in pre-Qin classics all refer to soybeans, and "Pogostemon rugosa" often refers to bean leaves. "Glutinous rice is a general term for many beans" (Yuan Er Ya Yi), "Glutinous rice was called in the old saying, and beans were called after the Han Dynasty." 3,000 years ago, beans have become one of the most important food ingredients for China people. According to the literature records of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, "millet" is often juxtaposed: "Sages rule the city, fleas can't get out, tree cultivation, millet picking, because there are many millet, the people have enough to eat." 4 "Sages rule the world, making millet like fire and water, millet like fire and water, how can people be unkind?" 5 "Your stable horse rides a hundred times, all of which are embroidered and eat millet." 6 and so on are examples. Both glutinous rice and millet are the foundation of people's survival. On the day of feeding, "people eat mostly beans and rice and Tang Huo" 7; The national grain reserve is also based on these two things, and the princes may bear a grudge against the people because of "saving grain for a rainy day." 8 people who eat millet are not just farmers, but "workers don't plow the fields, and the ground is full of millet." 9. Only members of the upper class don't depend on their meals like ordinary people and give them back from generation to generation. "The Book of Klang" records that during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, farmers in the north "counted the number of households, planted soybeans and led people to five acres, which is also the foundation of today." 65,438+00 According to the conventional statement at that time, the family field was 100 mu, the soybean field of a family of five was 25 mu, and the soybean field of a family of eight was 40 mu, that is, the soybean field accounted for 25% or 40% of all farmland, and the soybean was eaten by people in the pre-Qin period, which was 65,438+065,438+. Of course, this is mainly the situation in the northern agricultural areas. The reason why beans are planted in such a high proportion is because "soybeans are easy to keep their age, so is the reason to prepare for bad years." 12 People have fully realized and made efficient use of many characteristics of soybean, such as stable yield, easy storage, strong hunger tolerance and wide use (not only as raw materials for meals and non-staple foods, but also as feed for carnivorous livestock such as cattle, horses and pigs). There is no other valley in famine years, and it is more common in the literature before Feng Jianzhong that only beans are used to satisfy hunger. Until the end of the Warring States Period, politicians in China were used to understanding all social problems from a unified and holistic perspective. After millet and rice in the first valley in the north and the first valley in the south, rice was also highly valued: "On time, the stems are long and short, the pods are ethnic, the branches are numerous, the leaves are lush, the big ones are gardens, and the small ones are gardens." The first one must have long vines, sparse floating leaves and small pods; The latter is short and sparse, which is false. "13 Amorphophallus konjac planting agronomy research is of universal significance in the north and south, because it is the second largest grain variety in the north and south. In the pre-Qin period, Zizania latifolia was one of the most important "five grains" in the structure of people's food raw materials in the Yellow River food culture area. At that time, the "five grains" mainly referred to millet, glutinous rice, wheat, millet and hemp (Zheng Xuan's note in Zhou Li Tianguan Jiyi) or millet, glutinous rice, wheat, millet and rice (Zhao Qi's note in Mencius Teng Wengong). About "five grains" and glutinous rice.

After entering the Han Dynasty, due to the development of farming technology, the increase of yield per mu of millet and wheat, their inherent characteristics of being more suitable as the staple food for three meals, and the effective development and utilization of other grains, the proportion of soybean planting in the total cultivated land gradually declined. However, in the Han Dynasty, even more than ten centuries before Zhao and Song Dynasties, the status of soybean in the diet structure of ordinary people did not fundamentally change. Soybean has always been one of the important "five grains", especially in the northern agricultural areas. As a variety of wheat and millet rotation planting, its planting area is still impossible to be too small. Therefore, people in the Western Han Dynasty still attached great importance to the concept of rice, and politicians still advocated the policy of "enriching Qiang Bing with real rice" 14. Before entering the Han Dynasty, the main eating methods of soybeans were "bean rice" and "bean porridge". "Bean soup" and "Huo soup"15 of non-staple food; "Sauce" and "black bean" of seasoning and "soybean yellow roll" that can also be used as medicine-bean sprouts, etc. "Sweet noodle soup cooked with Tao Tao rice bran and adzuki bean" and other "ears of savage farmers" were the basic feelings of the Han Dynasty. Soybean flour was eaten after the middle feudal period, and the proportion increased in modern times. In the Han Dynasty and more than ten centuries before Zhao and Song Dynasties, in addition to traditional usage, the most noteworthy is the widespread consumption of soybean paste, fermented soybean and tofu. In the pre-Qin period, the use of sauce was not very common, and it depended on the homes of ordinary people. As a salty seasoning, ordinary people used salt directly at that time, but it was very different in the Han Dynasty: sauce has become a salty seasoning alongside traditional "sugar" (using various meat materials): "sauce is made of beans and flour." "Sauce is what you said. There is sauce in the dish. If the army needs it, it will be introduced." 17 has become common sense in life. There are many kinds of sauces, among which bean sauces are divided into "spinning sauces" and "long-stored sauces". There is a difference between salty and slightly acidic, because of the amount of salt and so on. Since the Han Dynasty, sauce has always occupied the first place in people's daily diet: "It can regulate food, so it is sauce"19; "Sauce, Master of Babel" 20; "Sauce is the master of taste" 2 1 and other statements all reflect this historical fact. For ordinary people, three meals a day is essential; For them, sauce is not only a kind of seasoning (ordinary people don't have "hundred flavors" to adjust, usually just a pot of bean rice and a pot of bean soup "one meal and one soup"), but also an essential seasoning for every meal and a long-lasting non-staple food. "A hundred sauces and a hundred flavors" is a long-standing proverb in the history of China, which shows that sauce is the most important food stored by ordinary families for many years. Because of this, once maggots are born unexpectedly, people are reluctant to throw them away, so they create the theory of masturbating and continuing to eat. Another uncivilized proverb illustrates this kind of history and culture: "Toad in the well, maggot in the sauce", which means harmless and can still be eaten after being removed. In fact, this is the idea that China people seek survival because of poor economic life, which shows the importance of people's dependence on sauce. The history of douchi is later than that of soy sauce, which is originally one of many "sugars", and douchi is developed from soy sauce. The appearance of black bean sauce should not be later than the Spring and Autumn Period. Wang Yi in the Eastern Han Dynasty noticed that "great bitterness is salty and sour" and "great bitterness is also black beans" in "Chu Ci Evocation" Therefore, scholars have always believed that "the ancients did not have black bean sauce ... and it was only since the Qin and Han Dynasties"; "There is no black bean sauce in ancient times, so there is no need for sauce ears." However, there is no doubt that people in the Han Dynasty generally ate black bean sauce. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, black bean sauce was one of the main daily consumption foods operated by city businessmen: One Thousand Answers to Baked Salt Black Bean Sauce 23; It is also one of the common seasonings: "radish salt soy sauce" 24. There are also many kinds of douchi, which can be divided into mild douchi and salty douchi according to the difference of salt content and flavor. Besides soy sauce and lobster sauce, it is "clear soy sauce", that is, "clear soy sauce" or "clear soy sauce" 26, which is also a very delicious seasoning for Han people. In addition, it is also a common practice to make sour vinegar with soybeans as raw materials during the Han, Wei, Southern and Northern Dynasties. The most common ones are "soybean bitter wine and red bean bitter wine". As for Epimedium, as an important plant material, it was used at least before the Song Dynasty. Long before this, Huoxiang was the main and important vegetable variety in Shiqian.

Tofu should be a bean product recognized by China people in Han Dynasty. At the latest in the Han Dynasty, the production and consumption of tofu should be popularized in civilian society. However, due to unclear reasons, the historical records are vague and sparse, and the word "tofu" was clearly recorded in the Five Dynasties, which lasted for ten centuries. However, judging from the fact that the word "tofu" was first recorded in Louis in the Qing Dynasty and was called "slaughtering sheep" as a vulgar thing of tofu, there is no doubt that tofu became a common food for ordinary people as early as the Five Dynasties (907-960). In a word, tofu, as a cheap market food, has been widely liked, used and bought by the lower classes since the Tang Dynasty, which is an important reason why soybean gradually withdrew from staple foods such as "bean rice" and "bean porridge" and played more roles in the non-staple food world. There are two kinds of tofu: water tofu and dried tofu, each of which has different styles in the north and south (water tofu is called tender tofu in the south and old tofu in the north; The dried tofu in the south has become a thousand curtains. After entering the Song Dynasty, the varieties of processed tofu began to increase. With the development of urban catering industry and the gradual enrichment of people's diet, tofu products also gradually increased. Li's thirty doggerels in Tofu vividly reflect people's processing and utilization of tofu;

Household can be suitable for guests but not for use, and a tall family will depend on each other. (Soymilk, before making tofu, must be soaked in beans and ground into pulp, so soymilk is a drink that people live alone, and it is extremely cheap and easy to get. )

The plaster is as thick as cheese, and the foam is picked into wrinkled clothes. (bean curd skin)

Chop into silver bars and divide them into jade sections to carry fat. (tofu)

Recently, the price of carrion is higher than that of meat, for fear that the poor will not save the hungry. (generally refers to water and dry)

You don't need jade beans and gold water. It doesn't taste as good as food. (Dried bean curd, etc. )

Expelling odor sometimes goes into the boss's office, and there is no place to distinguish dragons from saliva when smelling the fragrance. (stinky tofu)

The white water in the city is often drunk, and the oil in the temple is not a Zen monument. (oil tofu)

The most cold, even the basket is called warm. (Frozen tofu)

I just smelled the aroma and ate it first. The white oil seal is four small. (tofu)

Smooth as ointment, poor as Huainan. (bean curd brain)

There are many kinds of refined tofu, such as smoked tofu, dried soy sauce, chicken soup and shredded tofu, spiced dried tofu rolls, spiced shredded tofu, oily tofu and dried tea. It has been found in a large number of written records such as recipes in the Qing Dynasty and before.

To make tofu, beans must be soaked and ground first, so the utilization of soybean milk should be before tofu. According to the author's understanding, tofu was invented in the Western Han Dynasty, and the use of soybean milk was in the Western Han Dynasty at the latest. This is not only because the main purpose of the rotary mill widely used in the Western Han Dynasty is to grind soaked beans and other grain raw materials, but in fact, Chu Jiu, a grain adding tool, had this function long before the invention of the mill. As the soaked soybeans are crushed, the slurry will be separated. The finer the slurry is ground or mashed, the more slurry will be separated. Long before the invention of tofu, that is, when soybeans were mainly used to cook bean rice, porridge and soup, it was generally necessary to soak soybeans for a long time in order to make them cook harmoniously with other easily cooked grains (which was both palatable and labor-saving). Rich people can entertain guests with bean porridge. The reason is that "the southern boiled beans are ready to be cooked, but the guests are coming, but the rice porridge is what it wants." If we consider that three generations used Chu Jiu to make "fermented grains", "bait" and other staple foods, the history of mashing soaked beans into pulp and using them should be much earlier. In the Western Han Dynasty, there were even rich people selling soybean milk in the city: "Most of them are easy to brew at the age of one year, acyl sauce is baked at a thousand times, and pulp is baked at a thousand times ..." "Selling pulp is a small business, but it's only 10 million yuan." The "pulp" here is neither wine pulp nor water pulp, but a general term for all kinds of juice and fermented juice drinks, including soybean milk (mainly soybean milk). The "Zhang's" in this article is a Zhangji drink shop with a little modern meaning.

Tofu brain made of soybean milk and tofu with various flavors are also non-staple foods or flavor snacks that the masses of the lower classes like to eat and often eat throughout the ages. "Tofu, ... the most tender one that can't be lumped is called tofu flower" 34, that is, when it rots, the pulp converges without coagulation; After ordering tofu, it becomes a stress-free tofu brain: "If you order stress-free tofu, it is especially tender, which is rotten flower, also known as rotten brain." 35

Soybean sprouts, an active transformation form of soybean as a vegetable raw material for a long time in China, are undoubtedly a great progress compared with the simple and direct utilization of the original form of soybean as a purposeful cultivation. Soybean sprouts were recorded as "soybean yellow rolls" in the classic Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, and this title has been used ever since. There is also a record of "yellow roll and one barnyard" in the dispatching map unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha. Soybean sprouts (including bean sprouts of other beans, of course) have been used as the main raw material of bean soup that ordinary people eat almost every day for a long time in history. Until today, it is still a vegetable variety that people in urban and rural areas in the north often eat in four seasons, especially in the long winter in the north. Of course, the way people eat bean sprouts today, in addition to the traditional soup-making methods in 2000 and 3000, there are frying, frying, mixing, salting, stuffing (boiling, steaming, frying, etc. ) or more cooking methods combined with other raw materials are incomparable in ancient and modern times.

In addition to soybeans, there are also extremely rich varieties of glutinous rice, which can be divided into two categories: staple food and non-staple food, such as black beans (black chicken beans), white beans, mung beans, brown beans, green beans, spotted beans 38, red beans (also known as red beans or small red beans), black beans (also known as black beans), kidney beans, lentils, beans, long beans, green beans, Dutch beans and mung beans. Raw materials used as staple food are used in vegetable food. Some varieties of soybean paste can be made into powder, sauce, fermented soybean, bran and vermicelli at the same time, which can be used as raw materials for dishes, enrich people's dining tables and improve people's nutritional status.

It is a common sense that China people have fully realized that meat is fragrant and fish is fresh, and animal food is delicious, hunger-resistant, strong, nourishing and intelligent. But most people in China have no fish to eat. Taking grain as the staple food, that is, basic nutrition comes from it; The main function of all kinds of vegetables is only to "supplement"-enrich and supplement: "Five grains are nourishing, five fruits are helping, five animals are benefiting, and five vegetables are supplementing" 39. This view was 2400 or 500 years ago, reflecting the early comprehensive concept of China people's diet. The words "support", "help", "benefit" and "supplement" are not simple rhetorical needs, but actually contain different understanding elements of a certain meaning in nature and degree. As for what nutrients are contained in various food raw materials and how to nourish people's health, it is unclear. At least 2,000 years ago, at that time and even a long time later, people in China were in a vague feeling and puzzled. They can only use simple metaphysical experimental methods-observation and comparison of life practice, and thinking mixed with many idealism and Zock elements, trying to thoroughly understand and explain all this. Therefore, in the long history, China people regard "five grains" as the basic problem of "raising"-the weight of nutrition. In China's history, the basic national policy of "emphasizing the root and restraining the end" or "emphasizing the root and neglecting the end" has been maintained for two thousand years, which is basically based on this; People in China seem to care too much about carbohydrate foods mainly based on soybeans, which is also the reason for their complex. Li Shizhen commented on glutinous rice: "Northerners are widely used, and they can make bean porridge, bean rice, bean wine, stir-fry and cook." ? ? Edible, ground into flour, filtered to get powder, which can be used as cake bait, peeling and rope rubbing. It is an important thing in food. Soaking white buds in water is also a good dish. Cattle and horses also eat it. This is really a good valley for the world. 40 Li Shizhen's comments are full affirmation of the role of many bean varieties in satisfying hunger and keeping healthy for ordinary people. For thousands of years, people in China have greatly benefited from and attached importance to glutinous rice food. They eat three meals a season and only pay attention to them in famine years; It takes a day to recuperate diet, preserve health and cure diseases. China people benefit from the unique and rich nutrients of carbohydrates, which they still can't understand despite their hard thinking. It can be said that the common people, the main body of the Chinese nation, rely on soybean-based food to maintain their health, which is one of the most important characteristics of the food culture area in the Yellow River Basin for a long time.

Song (1587— 1666? ) once said in his "Heavenly Creations": "Every valley has no definite name, ... The five grains are hemp, glutinous rice, wheat, millet and millet, and those who leave rice alone set out from the northwest with the sages. Today, rice is at 17, while wheat, millet and millet are at 13. The functions of hemp and glutinous rice have all been integrated into vegetables, bait and paste ... "This sentence of Song (4 1) is worth pondering. First of all, he correctly pointed out that the staple food structure of people in the food culture area of the Yellow River valley before the Han Dynasty was "whole grains" with millet as the main variety. At that time, rice only accounted for a very small proportion in the grain structure in the north. Secondly, the catering culture area of the Yellow River valley in Han Dynasty occupied the most important position in China at that time. Of course, Song's words are only documents about the Han Dynasty, that is to say, in essence, Song did not deny the significance of the basic diet structure in the northern food culture area of the Yellow River Basin from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty. Third, after the Tang Dynasty, with the rising population and the cumulative development of the production economy in the south, the contrast between the population and the economy in the north and the south has changed greatly. In the Tang Dynasty, when social politics was relatively stable and economic development was relatively normal, the contrast between the north and the south of the country was six to four, and the central fiscal revenue was the most important in the south. The main body of southern wealth tax is rice, which is the exact historical connotation of the sentence "Today, people are educated, rice ranks seventeenth" said by Song Dynasty more than seven centuries after the Tang Dynasty. What's different is that the population distribution ratio in the Ming Empire in the sixth year of Ming Taizu Xi (1626) mentioned by the Song family at the end of the Ming Dynasty was less than one to two, and about 67 million people were distributed in the Yangtze River valley, where rice was the staple food, and the food culture area to the south. Fourth, around the Tang Dynasty, with the continuous expansion of grain planting area, the increase of grain yield per mu and the increase of grain types, as Song said, hemp and glutinous rice began to withdraw from the staple food ranks, but fully exerted their potential in the world of non-staple food "vegetables".

Archaeological excavations and literature research also show that China is one of the centers of origin of wheat in the world, and also one of the centers of greatest diversity in wheat cultivation. There are nearly 80 similar characters of "wheat" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and inscriptions on bronze, which not only shows that there are many varieties of wheat, but also shows that wheat was a very widely planted and eaten grain variety three or four thousand years ago. According to the field investigation, a kind of primitive wheat with typical wild characteristics is still growing on the southwest and northwest plateaus of China. Experts believe that "they are probably closely related to the origin of ordinary wheat in China." At first, wheat was mainly steamed and boiled, but after entering the Han Dynasty, powdery food gradually became the main and basic way to eat. Since then, "northern wheat and southern rice" has been one of the main differences between the northern and southern food cultural areas in China. Notable are noodles, steamed bread, cakes, jiaozi, steamed bread, etc. It is also the "national grain" of the Chinese nation for more than 2,000 years. It is mainly made of wheat flour and is also the traditional and representative food of the food culture in the Yellow River Basin and the vast northern region. The reason why wheat flour food is widely popular in northern China is that it is easier to make, store, carry and eat than rice, besides the growth habit of cold sowing and summer harvest of wheat.