Tsui Hark made a cooking movie that looks like a kung fu movie, and it's called Happy Ever After. At the end, the villain Ghost Feet lost his temper and bit Zhong Zhentao and others to eat rare and protected animals. It turned out that their monkey brains were made of tofu. The film is full of the most expensive ingredients-bear's paw, elephant trunk, monkey brain and shark's fin. When I was a child, I was confused. These things don't look so delicious. How can they be so precious? Especially shark's fin, I really don't see where it is good. Later, I looked through the books and became more and more confused about this matter. Sharks were first noticed and recorded, which can be traced back to the Warring States Period. "Xun Zi Yi Bing" said, "Chu people thought it was armor, and its shape was like stone", which meant that Chu soldiers at that time were all equipped with armor made of shark skin and rhinoceros skin, which was as tough as stone. The history of decorating swords and costumes with shark skin has never been interrupted, and it has been recorded in past dynasties. The skin of sharks is covered with continuous rows of shield scales, which are made of ivory covering the pith cavity and covered with a layer of enamel, which is very rough. So the ancients also noticed another use of shark skin-polishing, which can wipe wood and sharpen knives. Shuo Wen Jie Zi describes this texture as "sand on the skin", hence the name of shark. Shark meat is not so popular, because shark meat is rough, and the bigger it is, the rougher it is, and it also contains a lot of urea. After cooking, it gives off a strong smell of urine. So there is no record of eating shark meat in ancient books. It is very dangerous to catch a shark. Sometimes it will run aground and get entangled in fishing nets. Even if someone tries to eat it, they may not be interested in persistently exploring cooking methods to make it delicious. Icelanders eat fermented shark meat. It is said that fish is elastic, tastes as rich as rotten cheese, and even has the aroma of cream and nuts. Polynesian islanders will catch sharks with pork and then eat shark meat, because they believe that people will become sharks after death, and eating shark meat can gain the strength of their ancestors. We have no such tradition. Some people think that the "sand fish" in Er Ya Yi in the Song Dynasty is a shark, and that "Southerners all marinate with salt, scrape the skin to remove sand, and cut silver carp to send thousands of miles" means eating dried sharks, but from the description, this "sand fish" is like a turtle without feet, with a long tail and a kind of Hu Sha. Hao Yixing's "Remembering Mistakes in the Sea" states: "The sand fish is as yellow as sand, without scales or armor, long or several feet, and the meat is barren and beautiful." The conclusion is that shark meat is not delicious. China people, who live on food, don't want to eat anything when faced with sharks ranging from one meter to several meters? Yes, eat skin. You Mei's poem "Fish Skin in Answer to National Heritage", "Jade skin of sea fish, golden skin of cape ... will eventually be a meal, and this taste is not owed", which means eating shark skin, which is processed and finely chopped. Then eat the tail, which is the part of the fish's lips. Friends who like to watch Cai Lan Food Festival may still remember that once he specially explained a famous dish "Lips with Wings", which was later lost. He refused to make it because it cost too much material and man-hours. He just made it with this part. Except for shark skin and shark lips, until the Song Dynasty, other parts of sharks seemed to have no edible value, and Yuan people didn't spend so much time thinking about such dangerous and unpalatable marine animals, so eating shark fins could only begin in the Ming Dynasty. There are many records about shark's fin in Ming Dynasty's works. For example, in Meditation Notes, Ming Shenzong likes to eat a dish stewed with sea cucumber, mullet, shark's tendon, fat chicken and pig's hoof tendon, which is called "Sanxian" and has always liked to use it, while in Records of Ming Taizu, Ming Xizong likes to eat "one pot", and this "in addition, it was given by Xi in Ming Taizu" So the history of eating shark fin can be said to have started from the Ming Dynasty. China ancient food culture has a characteristic. As long as it is eaten at the court table, officials must eat more, so that other social classes who interact with it can also become addicted to it. The shark fin is like this. Why did the fashion of eating shark fin suddenly rise in Ming Dynasty? My guess is that seafood with high price and delicious taste has replaced seafood and seafood, becoming the main source of high-quality protein. Therefore, shark's fin, which can eliminate the accumulation of fish, has become a high-quality medicinal diet eaten by southerners in protein, and it tastes good when cooked with fat chicken, ham and other things. Therefore, Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica says that the shark has a turtle on its back and a turtle on its stomach. There is also a record in the Song Health Department, which is called "dried fish". It can be seen that people in the Ming Dynasty really knew the function of shark fin. However, in the Ming Dynasty, people ate shark fin, which was not popular after all. In the fifty-fifth episode of Mei Jie Xue's "Jin Ping Mei", Ximen Qing saved enough birthday gifts to congratulate Cai Jing on his birthday. Cai Fu's housekeeper received him. Dozens of big dishes and dozens of small dishes were delicious, including bird's nest and shark's fin, and the dinner was excellent, except for dragon liver and chicken bone marrow. The rest of Kit Kat is rich, even if it is the benefit of Master Cai himself. "Some versions of this sentence don't. In the notes of Zhang Zhupo and Long Wen, it is "". At that time, when I saw rhinoceros being served, I had to have no dragon liver and chicken bone marrow. The rest is the same, that is, the benefits of Cai Taishi himself, but that's all. " So I always suspected that the "shark's fin and bird's nest" sent by Mayday was added later. Otherwise, would the Ming Dynasty recognize shark fin for cooking? There is no such reference in other novels about the world. A version of Jin Ping Mei eats shark's fin, which is so strange. The people who love shark's fin most are all from the Qing Dynasty, but not from the Ming Dynasty. Shark's fin in Qing Dynasty, Lin Yi's Zhuan Yao called it shark's fin, Compendium of Materia Medica called it shark's fin, and Qiuben grassland called it golden silk dish. However, the naming of shark's fin in Lingnan Miscellanies shows that it is used for eating and has been thoroughly studied and recorded. Moreover, it has been endowed with many benefits, such as "sweet and flat taste, nourishing five internal organs, eliminating fish and accumulating poison"; Benefiting qi and opening diaphragm, supporting poison and strengthening waist; Clearing phlegm, appetizing and eating. "More than the Ming dynasty doctors into several steps. To what extent did the Qing people eat shark fin? According to Tsui Hark's Qing Qian, shark's fin is also a necessity for ordinary banquets in southeast provinces in the late Qing Dynasty, and it is not delicious. Everyone knows it's tasteless, but it still has to be served, otherwise it's "cold to the host." Xu Ke doesn't know much about it. He thinks that shark fin is not delicious, and people who are addicted to food are really mean to meat. " This is certainly a step further than Yuan Mei's time. During the Qianlong period, according to the "Suiyuan Food List", it was only the food of a southern family headed by Jinling, and the cooking was not very good. Crab powder is often used with shark fin. In Yuan Mei's view, the taste of crab powder is not enough to make shark fin delicious, but shark fin has more disadvantages than crab powder. "Shark fin is not necessarily delicious, which may be the reason why shark fin is so popular-rare, expensive and time-consuming. Sharks are not easy to catch, especially in terms of the technical level of fishermen in the Qing Dynasty. Ganlong's Zhucheng County Records records: "The most fierce person is sand, ... their wings are fierce and they bite people. Anyone who swims in the water will die if he meets it, and he is afraid of it at sea, nicknamed the sea wolf. "Because shark fin is difficult to catch, it is very expensive. In a commodity price list circulated in Guangzhou 1764, there is a record about the price of shark fin: the first-class shark fin bears silver 10-20 Liang, and the first-class fine shark fin bears 24 Liang, which is much higher than amber and bird's nest. The finished product is more expensive. He Gangde wrote "Dream of Spring" and said: "People who eat a bowl of shark's fin for 80 gold." "Clear Money" says that "the most important dish in the banquet in eastern Guangdong is boiled shark's fin, which is expensive, ranging from ten gold per bowl". Wang, a reformist political commentator in the late Qing Dynasty, said in his notes that there were four officials in Gyeonggi, Fujian, who had a shark fin banquet at 1904. They bought the first-class shark fin with 162 silver, picked it clean, put it flat in a steamer and steamed it until it was cooked. According to "Suiyuan Food List" and other books, it is at least two days. Then use it with four selected hams, four chickens and four ducks. After it is completely melted, take the juice, and then stew the shark's fin with this juice. Of course, this is not delicious and the cost is not small. Each of the four Beijing officials paid more than 300 taels of silver, which is equivalent to the salary of a magistrate for four years. The top officials of the Silver Empire, who have maintained a trade surplus for a long time, can be so extravagant. For those who want to hold a banquet, this time-consuming work is the price they are willing to pay, because it can make the dishes show their uniqueness. The owners of Awakening Garden, Suiyuan Menu, Miscellaneous Notes of Lingnan and Miscellaneous Notes of Old China all know this kind of food, but ordinary people in southeast provinces may not know it. The running water chefs they hired may not have the patience and skills of chefs, but they still have them. At the end of Happy Ever After, Chiu Man-Cheuk, Leslie Cheung and others made a very delicious taste with tofu, made a good ending with ordinary ingredients, and used the most expensive and rare ingredients, all of which reflected the subtlety of China's food culture. When it comes to eating, we are professionals.