"kebab oven with dipping sauce, soul barbecue three-piece set"
Did the ancestors eat barbecue like this? The cultural relics in the museum tell you
Zibo barbecue fire out of the circle. Put a handful of kebabs on the red-hot stove, and then a handful of soul cumin Chili noodles and a roll of cookies, which is very enjoyable. Nowadays, barbecues are spread all over the country, and many places have developed kebabs with local characteristics: Xinjiang Hongliu Barbecue with rough style in the northwest, Jinzhou Barbecue with both land and sea in the northeast, Yunnan Barbecue with everything in the southwest, Guangdong Barbecue with exquisite seafood in the southeast … Of course, Xuzhou Barbecue, one of the cradles of barbecue, is also available. In the Han Dynasty more than two thousand years ago, how did people living in this land get confused? The cultural relics in the museum tell you.
Yangzi Evening News/Zi Niu News reporter Shen Zhao
Stone reliefs in Han Dynasty recorded that the ancestors of Xuzhou were like this.
To see how the ancestors of Xuzhou ate barbecue, they had to go to Xuzhou Museum. This city had a "three-piece set" of barbecue since the Han Dynasty, and the heroic barbecue style of the ancestors "ten kidneys and ten balls, shouting pepper and oil" has continued to this day. But what was the scene of the ancients eating barbecue? The image record is hidden in the Han Dynasty stone relief in Xuzhou.
Chen Zhao, deputy director of the office of the Chinese Painting Museum of Xuzhou Museum, told the reporter that there is a "roasting basin" in the main exhibition building of Xuzhou Museum, which is supposed to be used for barbecue besides heating by fire. There is also a Chinese stone relief containing barbecue content in the main exhibition building, and there are also four stone relief in the Chinese Painting Museum, which also depicts the scene of the ancients eating barbecue.
The most typical record of barbecue diet is a Han stone in the Eastern Han Dynasty. This stone was unearthed in Dongyan Village, Hanwang, Tongshan, with a height of 78cm, a width of 70cm and a thickness of 25cm. It was carved by the technique of plane relief. The picture is divided into three layers, the top layer is engraved with two people, the person in the middle is holding a long knife and cutting meat on the case, the person on the right is holding a hand to fan the fire, the other hand is holding a kebab for barbecue, some meat food is hung in the upper left corner, and there is a sheep tied with four hooves waiting to be slaughtered on the far left; There are also two people on the middle floor, one on the left is sitting in front of the stove, the other on the right is standing in front of the well to draw water, and there are some utensils such as ear cups on the picture; The bottom floor is the scene of horses and chariots traveling. We can even see clearly in this Han stone that mutton is one of the best choices in the oven, which is similar to the barbecue we eat now. The people in the painting cut the meat into pieces, string it on a sign, and then roast it on the fire, which is quite different from the way we eat it now.
Although the way of cooking is similar, if we really travel back to the Han Dynasty, I’m afraid we still can’t get used to the Han Dynasty version of kebabs. Chen Zhao introduced that compared with modern times, the cooking style of the Han Dynasty has been basically the same as that of modern times, but the taste is not quite the same as today. According to archaeology and literature, there are mainly not so many spices now, "because the spices introduced from the western regions at that time have not spread all over the country. Cook the meat, for example, is to cook white meat and then dip it in the sauce. I guess barbecue is similar, and it is more likely to be eaten with roasted meat dipping sauce, because meat sauce and horseshoe sauce have also been unearthed in Xuzhou. " Nowadays, there are ways to eat barbecue with dipping sauce, but spices are essential in the processing of ingredients, especially cumin from the western regions. What is the taste of barbecue in Han Dynasty? Maybe the next time you have a barbecue, you can eat it without spices.
How did you get a delicious barbecue?
Strictly speaking, Xuzhou can not be called the origin of barbecue, but should be called the place where the barbecue diet was first recorded. Barbecue with fire is the earliest and most primitive way of cooked food cooking. Barbecue is also one of the earliest foods invented by human beings. The way of processing food with fire barbecue is also one of the signs that ancient people bid farewell to the life of eating animals and drinking blood. Archaeological findings show that as early as 600,000 years ago, many burnt animal bones were found in Paleolithic sites. About 7,000 years ago, a long ceramic barbecue grill was unearthed in Majiabang cultural site in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, and its function was presumed to be similar to the barbecue grill used today.
By the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, with the progress of productive forces and the enrichment of means of production, the method of barbecue began to upgrade, and barbecue had a special name "roast". The Book of Rites recorded: "roast, through the fire." That is, skewer the meat and burn it on the fire. However, at that time, the barbecue was exclusively for nobles, and it was also a sacrificial object. For example, in the tomb of Zeng Houyi in the early Warring States period, a barbecue was unearthed, which was composed of a top plate and a bottom furnace. The furnace was shallow, with an open flat bottom and three legs. When unearthed, there were still more than a dozen unburned charcoal in the furnace, and most of Ceng Houyi’s daily recipes also included barbecue.
Barbecue really became popular as a kind of food in the Han Dynasty. According to Liu Xin’s Miscellanies of Xijing, after Liu Bang ascended the throne, Emperor Gaozu "often barbecued deer liver to drink wine". For example, in Mawangdui Han Tomb, the moire lacquer case unearthed from Xin Zhui’s tomb was filled with drinking lacquer cups, five small lacquer plates containing food and bamboo chopsticks, and the unearthed recipes of Xin Zhui family were also recorded with roasted cattle and chopsticks. The mutton kebabs of the Han Dynasty were also unearthed in Changle Han Tomb in Zhongwei, Ningxia. Three cereal products similar to "cakes" were also found in the lacquer box in front of the coffin. An ink book was also unearthed in the tomb, which read "Ten pieces were brought into the kitchen by a man named Lu Qiu", indicating that these things were sacrifices given to the tomb owner. So, the way to eat kebabs with small cakes may have existed in the Han Dynasty.
But for ordinary people, barbecue is not today’s street food, and only nobles have realized "barbecue freedom". In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the Han stone relief in Wulibao, the Kitchen Picture, depicts how the kitchen of the aristocrat cooked the barbecue at that time: two servants were in front of the oven, one was holding the meat strung with a sign, and the other was holding a fan to control the heat. Isn’t this a proper food stall scene?
It can be found that since the Han Dynasty, the development of barbecue has advanced by leaps and bounds, especially the qualitative leap in barbecue ingredients, not only simple beef and mutton, but also grilled fish and roasted rabbits. According to Chen Zhao, in the Han Dynasty, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, by-products and fisheries developed in an all-round way, which was the material basis for the rich diet in the Han Dynasty. According to the records of Han tombs and Han stone reliefs unearthed in Xuzhou, there were staple crops such as rice, wheat, millet and sorghum in the Han Dynasty, and pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese and fish were all in demand, and the seasoning making skills, such as bean paste, also made great progress.
From a religious sacrificial food to the exclusive food of the aristocratic class to the fireworks in the streets and lanes, a string of barbecues strung together a thousand-year-old food civilization, with one hand strung together wine, eating the burnt fragrance of the barbecue and tasting the thick history. (Shen Zhao Yangzi Evening News)
