There is a popular saying on the Internet: "Nothing can't be solved by a hot pot; If there is, then eat two meals. " Enough to show how much we love hot pot, which has basically become our staple food. Friends and family gatherings, couples, classmates and other gatherings, hot pot will not be absent.
Many people think that hot pot began in the Qing Dynasty, but it is not. The history of hot pot began in the Warring States period. So how did hot pot become a favorite food of people all over the world after many twists and turns in this long history?
First, the "past life" of hot pot
There are two theories about the origin of hot pot: one is that during the Three Kingdoms period, the so-called "bronze tripod" was the predecessor of hot pot; Secondly, hot pot began in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the "dou" in unearthed cultural relics refers to hot pot.
However, no one has obtained the most conclusive evidence of these two statements. We can't confirm its authenticity through several unearthed cultural relics. Although we can't confirm which is the source of hot pot, we still know that the history of hot pot is longer than we thought. As for the origin of the hot pot name, it is said that it is called "antique soup" because of the "glug" sound when adding vegetables and other ingredients to the hot pot.
According to Shu Wei, during the Three Kingdoms period, there was a hot pot made of copper. People rinse chicken, duck, fish and other meat with hot pot. However, due to the turmoil, only the royal family could eat hot pot at that time. At that time, the royal family used copper utensils to make hot pot. In contrast, most of the people at the bottom are displaced, precarious, without enjoyment, and the cooking technology is not perfect enough, so hot pot is only popular among the nobles, and its development among the people is greatly limited.
Later, the domestic situation was much better, the cooking technology was further improved, various hot pots gradually came out, and the common people began to contact hot pots gradually, so hot pots gradually began to spread. This is how the Yuanyang pot was born. It is said that Cao Pi, Emperor Wen of Wei, likes to cook with an instrument called "Five Boilers". As the name implies, the "five-cooked kettle" consists of five compartments, which can cook different foods in different compartments, and can be regarded as the originator of the Yuanyang pot.
Bai Juyi, a great poet, once wrote in his poems: "The green ants are newly drunk, and the red in the quiet kitchen is a burst." . There is a touch of red in the quiet stove, which means ceramic hot pot.
In the Tang Dynasty, most utensils were made of pottery, which was called "warm pot". Prior to this, hot pot was mostly cooked with bronze vessels such as bronze tripod. In the Tang dynasty, most people used ceramic porcelain, and hot pot was no longer the exclusive food of the royal family, which also created certain conditions for the popularization of hot pot.
Tao Yuanming, a great poet in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, has always been listed as a leader of literati. He hid in the mountains and rivers, accompanied by insects and birds. His favorite things are poetry, wine, willow and chrysanthemum, and he also likes hot pot. Tao Yuanming pursued rural life all his life, so he retired from office several times. His pursuit of quietness and elegance can be seen everywhere.
His love for chrysanthemums is not just a sentence: "Pick chrysanthemums under the east fence and see Nanshan leisurely". He even put chrysanthemums on the dining table and created a hot pot called "Chrysanthemum Hot Pot"-that is, putting chrysanthemums on the hot pot can not only make the color look better, but also prolong life.
In the Tang Dynasty, literati scrambled to imitate the noble virtues of their predecessors, and the reputation of chrysanthemum hot pot gradually grew. It is said that pubs and restaurants at that time began to provide chrysanthemum hot pot in season, and Empress Dowager Cixi had a soft spot for chrysanthemum hot pot. After the Tang Dynasty, hot pot has spread all over the streets and become a well-known food.
In the Song Dynasty, the world was stable and the economic development was booming. It is said that the GDP of the Song Dynasty accounted for 22.7% of the world, people's lives were getting better and better, and spare money increased a lot. Naturally, they will want to eat better and live a better life. So in the Song Dynasty, people paid more and more attention to eating. Now all kinds of familiar practices such as "boiling, burning, frying and frying" were invented at that time, and the way of eating hot pot was also developed from this time.
According to legend, Lin Hong, a gourmet in the Southern Song Dynasty, mentioned two experiences of hotpot-washing in "Mountain House for Qing Dynasty": Lin Hong came to Wuyishan, and it snowed heavily in the mountain. Someone caught a rabbit in the snowstorm, but there was no cook. How to eat? Cut the rabbit into thin slices, use an air oven as a utensil, put water on it, and rinse it with clear water after the water boils.
After five or six years, Lin Hong had another hot pot in Hangzhou. Recalling the rabbit hot pot in the mountains, he couldn't help feeling and blurted out: "It's sunny in Jiang Xue, but the wind turns sunny." So he named the hot pot "Poxia Palace". Speaking of names, is it a sense of picture?
By the Ming Dynasty, hot pot had a more modern flavor. According to legend, the hot pot at that time not only considered the taste, but also began to study the problem of health preservation. It is similar to "eating hot pot and drinking herbal tea" pursued by contemporary young people.
In the Qing Dynasty, hot pot was highly respected, and the Manchu once again turned this way of eating into a palace delicacy. It is said that the development of hot pot had reached an unprecedented stage. Folk restaurants sell a variety of hot pots, ranging from chicken, duck and fish to vegetables and fruits. Emperor Qianlong likes to eat hot pot very much. It is said that when he travels incognito, he will try local hot pot everywhere, even outside and in the palace.
As a hot pot among die-hard fans, Emperor Qianlong even made different hot pots for himself in different seasons: stewed sauerkraut hot pot in spring, wild game hot pot in summer, bird's nest hot pot with green pepper and duck in autumn, and even in cold winter, he almost never left the hot pot. According to records, during the fourteen years of Qianlong, he ate 23 kinds of hot pot for 66 times a month, which was really amazing. It seems that Gan Long is not only a monarch, but also a gourmet.
He not only likes to eat hot pot himself, but also personally "speaks for" hot pot. According to records, on the tenth day of the first month in the forty-eighth year of Qianlong, a banquet was held in the palace, with 530 tables of hot pot banquet, which was really magnificent. When he abdicated, that is, in the first year of Jiaqing, he held a bigger hot pot banquet, which was called "Thousand Banquets" in history, and * * * set a table of 1550, and invited all the ministers in the palace to taste it together. The number of people attending the banquet reached 5000, which was unprecedented and never came again.
Up to now, hot pot is even worse. It has not only developed in China, but also gone abroad. Many foreign countries also like China's hot pot very much, and some people emigrate to eat China's delicious food. The future of hot pot is booming.
Second, the hot pot "technical terms"
Rinse: Meat and vegetables get old easily. If overcooked, they not only taste bad, but also have complicated shapes. Old sliced meat is hard to swallow, and it is also a test for our teeth. Vegetables such as potatoes and sweet potatoes are boiled too much and then melted into the soup, and there are no traces everywhere. Boiling: viscera, eel with insects, seafood, fish and other ingredients all contain a lot of bacteria, which can only be eaten after several times of heating and boiling. Moreover, some vegetables are not cooked well and are harmful to your health. Hot pot is delicious, but don't worry. Mark: Duck intestines with hairy belly are the most exquisite, so we should always pay attention to the trend. When placed in a boiling hot pot, the chopsticks can be taken out in 15 seconds, which makes it refreshing and can prevent the samurai's nutrients from losing due to high-temperature cooking. Therefore, there is a folk saying that duck intestines roll three times and three times.
abstract
Today, hot pot has been successfully spread all over China. Although everything you can eat can be rinsed, the preferences and tastes of eating hot pot naturally vary from place to place.
Sichuan Sichuanese love spicy food. The mixture of bright red oil and pepper greatly increases the appetite. It tastes oily but not greasy, which makes people want to stop. Spicy-hot fish hotpot is also famous all over the country. Chongqing hot pot also loves spicy food, and the most famous one is small hot pot. The soup base is delicious. Eat as many skewers as you want, and there is no situation that the rest can't be eaten.
The soup base of Chongqing hot pot is the most authentic spicy taste, which makes people too spicy to stop. Chongqing people like to eat duck intestines with hairy bellies, and there should not be too many plates. Yunnan hot pot is also very spicy, and it likes to add fungi best. Many unique foods can only be eaten here. Beijing likes fat cows best; Henan likes mutton best; Hunan people are the most talkative and like to rinse pig brains.
Whether you like delicious or spicy mushroom soup pot, seafood pot or tomato pot, I believe you can always find the best hot pot here. Even though there are all kinds of eating methods, preferences and soup bases, there is only one purpose of eating hot pot, and that is to find a suitable excuse to get together with friends, relatives, classmates and colleagues, talk about the present, review the past and look forward to the future.
A hot pot is the maintenance of feelings. We are so busy in our own world that we have no time to care about our family and friends, but just a hot pot is enough. At the dinner table, astronomy, geography, gossip, wine and food, the feelings that faded in unknown days began to heat up gradually.
Indeed, we eat hot pot, not just hot pot. What we eat is history, culture and inheritance. These unique hot pots will become our memories and become a part of us.