It's not that chrysanthemums are favored among flowers, but that this flower is even more flowerless.

Chrysanthemum, the ancients also called it treating Qiang and saving flowers. According to Yaya, it is recorded that "the flower ends here". "Shen Nong's Notes on Materia Medica" said: "There are two kinds of chrysanthemums, the purple stems are fragrant and sweet, and their leaves can be used in soup; Green stem chrysanthemum is bitter like Artemisia, like coix seed, and can't be eaten. " Lin Hong recommended a method for everyone in "Mountain House Clear Supply": picking chrysanthemum leaves in spring, frying them slightly, and then adding ginger and salt to cook them together. Cooking soup can clear the heart and improve eyesight, and adding medlar leaves is better.

In the bleak autumn season, flowers wither, but chrysanthemums can bloom in the wind and stand proudly, which may be the reason why chrysanthemums have won the attention of ancient literati. However, China literati have always had a characteristic-loving flowers is not only appreciating it, praising it and giving it specific cultural significance, but also inventing various ingenious ways to eat flowers. It seems that only in this way can we distinguish ourselves from secular people, integrate with the nobility of flowers and get spiritual sublimation.

The earliest record of the ancients eating chrysanthemums can be found in the famous sentence in Qu Yuan's Lisao: "Drink Mulan dew in the morning and eat Qiuju Ye Ying at dusk." Look at Qu Yuan, drinking dew in the morning and eating chrysanthemums at night. Compared with him, he is simply vulgar in the mud.

During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Zhong Hui promoted chrysanthemum to the level of fairy food. The easiest way to eat chrysanthemums is to eat them raw. However, the raw chewing of the ancients was not as vulgar as we thought. Fu Xuan described the process of eating raw chrysanthemums like this: "Take a slim hand, take a light towel, rub it with jade, and collect it with your lips." The delicate jade hand picked the flower, put it on a light and elegant silk scarf, gently rubbed it, and then put it between her lips. Look, how beautiful the scene is and how elegant and fashionable the whole process is! If we are modern laymen, it will be difficult for us to ruin the flowers and chew the peony.

In addition to eating chrysanthemums alone, the ancients also liked to find other ingredients to eat with chrysanthemums. What did the ancients like best? Nothing else, just Chinese wolfberry. From this perspective, chrysanthemum and medlar were born together since ancient times. Besides making tea, you can also eat vegetables. Look at Lin Hong's "Ziyingju" slimming soup. Isn't it especially recommended to add some wolfberry leaves at the end? Su Dongpo eats chrysanthemums thoroughly. He wrote in "Poetry of Chrysanthemum after Qi Dynasty": "We take Qi as food and chrysanthemum as embarrassment. Eating seedlings in spring, leaves in summer, flowers in autumn and roots in winter is almost the life of Xihe Nanyang. " Lycium barbarum and chrysanthemum will become the staple food all year round, especially chrysanthemum, which eats seedlings in spring, leaves in summer and flowers in autumn. Even the roots of chrysanthemums are not spared in winter!

I think, compared with other dynasties, people in Song Dynasty really loved deeply, not only seeing and eating, playing, singing and dancing. "Tokyo Dream" records that there is a special chrysanthemum banquet in the palace. Not only that, Kaifeng was also very popular at that time, "inserting chrysanthemum branches, drinking chrysanthemum tea, eating chrysanthemum banquets and enjoying chrysanthemums". He also wrote a book called "Fang Quan's Northern Ancestors", which recorded the literati's love for chrysanthemums at that time. "Miao can be a vegetable, flowers can be medicine, bags can be pillows, and brewing can be drinking. Therefore, between the hermit's hedge and the flower bed, you can't live without this flower for a day. "

With the change of dynasties, foodies continue to discover various new ways to eat. For example, Gao Lian, a famous health care scientist in Ming Dynasty, has two ways to eat chrysanthemums in his Eight Notes on Respect for Life. One is the frying method: "The fragrant chrysanthemum blooms in spring and summer, and the tender head picks the soup. If it is eaten by the method, it is fried with licorice water and yam powder, which is very fragrant. " There is also a kind of "chrysanthemum seedling porridge": "Take off chamomile with new tender leaves, wash it, cut it into pieces, add salt, and cook porridge with rice to make it clear and peaceful." There were "chrysanthemum cakes" in the Qing Dynasty: "Chamomile is pedicled, juice and sugar are mashed, and the cakes are printed evenly. Add plum brine to make a paste, which can last for a long time. " At the end of Qing Dynasty, Cixi also loved chrysanthemums. It is said that she invented a famous chrysanthemum hotpot popular in Beijing today.

Chrysanthemum is fragrant, soft and refreshing, and the dishes are elegant and lovely, which is pleasing to the eye. Eating it can also invigorate qi, remove dryness, quench thirst and improve eyesight. However, the wind energy of enjoying and eating chrysanthemums in the world has lasted for thousands of years, and the most important thing is to thank the literati in the past dynasties-they have given chrysanthemums indifferent to Tsinghua, added cultural value, and let us enjoy the beauty of "sitting on the east fence and enjoying the flowers together, with a piece of cream in the mouth".