In the past two years, due to the popularity of several TV series with the background of the Song Dynasty such as "Know No" and "Menghualu", Song Dynasty culture and Song Dynasty cuisine have repeatedly become top streams. From Beijing to Zhengzhou, from Shijiazhuang to Baoding, many catering companies are in full swing to develop "Song Yan", and the topic of "why stir-fry is popular in the Song Dynasty" has also become a hot spot on short video platforms. However, many of them even blindly exaggerate their views, which not only mislead the general audience, but also mislead some friends in the catering industry. In order to clean up the roots, today we will specifically talk about why stir-frying was popular in the Song Dynasty.
The theory of iron pots is not reliable, and the theory of splitting wood is also unreliable
Some time ago, I went to a certain place to record a program, the studio was not large, the station was used in turns, one program group recorded, and the other program group was waiting in the director's room. While I was waiting, I heard a guest talking to the host from the director's room, and the host asked: "Why did stir-fry become popular in the Song Dynasty?" The guest put it bluntly: "Because the Song Dynasty invented the iron pot." ”
Did stir-fry only become popular during the Song Dynasty? Indeed it is. Before the Song Dynasty, Chinese cooking was mainly steamed and boiled, then roasted, and rarely stir-fried. In the Song Dynasty, stir-frying was popular, and Chinese cuisine featuring frying and stir-frying was basically formed. So, is the reason for the popularity of stir-frying that the iron pot was invented in the Song Dynasty? Definitely not, because as early as the Warring States period, iron pots that could cook and stir-fry both appeared and did not need to be invented again in the Song Dynasty.
Another time, half a month ago, I attended the launch and opening ceremony of a catering brand, and a chef came on stage to speak, from cooking technology to catering culture, from catering culture to Song Dynasty culture, and finally called on everyone to "learn the innovative spirit of the Song Dynasty", because "three of China's four great inventions came from the Song Dynasty".
As you surely know, papermaking, the compass, gunpowder, printing, none of these four inventions were invented in the Song Dynasty. If, to put it another way, the Song Dynasty people used the compass for navigation, gunpowder for war, woodblock printing, and also invented movable type printing, and finally came to the conclusion that "three of the four great inventions shined in the Song Dynasty", then there is no problem.
After complaining, let's go back to the beginning of this article and return to the question mentioned by the host: Why did stir-fry become popular until the Song Dynasty?
Stir-frying was popular in the Song Dynasty, and it was certainly not because the Song Dynasty invented the iron pot, which has just been discussed. So apart from the untenable theory of the "iron pot theory", are there any other theories?
Yes, I call it the "wood-splitting theory." This theory comes from a scholar, to the effect that during the Tang and Song Dynasties, the population skyrocketed, forests were cut down indiscriminately, and there was a serious shortage of firewood that could be used as fuel, and the people were forced to change from long-term steaming dishes to short-term stir-frying dishes, and then unexpectedly found that stir-frying was much more delicious than boiling vegetables, so stir-fry became popular.
Can this "firewood splitting theory" stand? Actually, it can't.
First, firewood famine occurred in many dynasties, and because of years of war, trees were burned or cut down into arrow shafts, gun handles, ladders for siege and rams for defending cities, and fuel was scarce to the point that even the firewood for the imperial dining room was not enough (see Book of Wei, volume 98), but stir-frying was not popular during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Second, common sense tells us that cooking is not the most fuel-intensive way to cook, baking is. But you flipped through "Tokyo Menghualu", in Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, seared chicken, seared meat, seared waist, wine burnt belly, swirling pork skin meat... These grilled delicacies can blossom everywhere. If the Song Dynasty really lacked fuel, if the lack of fuel really forced people to change steaming to stir-fry, then why could barbecue, which wasting more fuel, still be popular in the Song Dynasty?
Therefore, when explaining why stir-frying was popular in the Song Dynasty, the iron pot theory is not reliable, and the wood splitting theory is not reliable. What theory is reliable? I call it the "vegetable oil theory". Simply put, it was because of the leap in oil extraction technology in the Song Dynasty that vegetable oil became cheaper, and stir-fry became popular.
There were records of vegetable oil in the northern and southern dynasties, and animal oil appeared earlier
Friends who often stir-fry know that vegetable oil and animal oil are very different, the former can be heated for a long time, the latter will emit green smoke or even black smoke after a slightly longer heating time, leaving a carbonization layer that is difficult to remove at the bottom of the pot, creating a pungent and unpleasant air environment in the kitchen. We also use animal oil to stir-fry, but either low-temperature smooth stir-frying, or quick stir-frying, or frying and constantly turning in a pan, or mixing animal oil with vegetable oil, heating the ingredients with vegetable oil, and using animal oil to enhance the taste and improve the taste. In other words, when stir-frying, vegetable oil is the protagonist, and animal oil is at most a supporting role.
When did vegetable oil become the protagonist? I'm afraid it's hard to go back to the real source. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the famous comprehensive agricultural literature "Qi Min Zhishu" mentioned sesame oil, sesame seed oil and yingzi oil, and also briefly introduced the method of oil extraction: "Harvest, press the oil." "Collect the seeds of plants such as flax, hemp, and weep and press them out of oil. Among them, "flax" is sesame, "hemp" is ramie, and "ying" refers to white su. The seeds of sesame, ramie, and white soda have a high oil yield. Was there any vegetable oil before the Southern and Northern Dynasties? There must be too. In the "Three Kingdoms Zhi Wei Shu", there is a case of using sesame oil to light torches - the Wu army attacked the Wei state at night, using pine branches dipped in sesame oil to make torches to illuminate.
During the Wei and Jin dynasties, edible oil was divided into three categories, represented by three words: fat, ointment, and oil. "Fat" is butter and sheep fat, "paste" is lard fish oil (one says "fat" is solid animal oil, "paste" is liquid animal oil), and "oil" refers to vegetable oil. The word "oil" has appeared at least in the literature of the Eastern Han Dynasty, indicating that vegetable oil has been used in the Eastern Han Dynasty at the latest.
Vegetable oil appeared earlier, animal oil appeared earlier, we can find the word "paste" representing animal oil in oracle bones, indicating that the history of animal oil in China is at least as long as oracle bones. Was there animal oil before the advent of Oracle? There should be, but archaeological evidence is needed to back it up. In the future, genetic testing technology will be more developed, and it may be possible to detect the residues of animal oil and the genes of related animals in a clay pot in the Stone Age. From common sense alone, primitive people who learn to use fire should be able to refine animal oil, because refining animal oil does not require any technical content, directly heating a piece of fat, animal oil itself will seep out, want not to let it seep out.
However, refining vegetable oil requires technology, and heating alone cannot be heated. Grab a handful of sesame seeds and throw them in the pot, stir-fry vigorously, stir-fry until the sesame seeds are charred, and you may not see sesame oil. Even with the simplest soil method, it needs to be pressed and purified, such as putting the fried sesame seeds into a stone mortar, pounding hard, pounding into a paste, and then pouring a bowl of water, stirring well, shaking, standing, after half a day, a layer of sesame oil will surface on the top of the water.
It is precisely because it is much more difficult to refine vegetable oil than animal oil, so vegetable oil is also much more expensive than animal oil in the first place. In the Tang Dynasty's notebook "Records of the Gods of God", an oil profiteer in Lushan, Jiangxi Province, mixed animal oil into vegetable oil in order to make huge profits, and was finally struck by lightning. Why did he mix animal oil with vegetable oil? Because animal oil is cheap and vegetable oil is expensive, he wants to sell cheap animal oil as expensive vegetable oil.
In the Song Dynasty, the types of vegetable oil increased, and the refining process was also advanced
So when did vegetable oil become cheaper than animal oil? The specific time may be difficult to verify, but the price of vegetable oil in Song Dynasty literature is obviously lower than that of animal oil. In the early Northern Song Dynasty, Jia Yan, the son of the minister Jia Huangzhong, recorded in the "Order of Moving Families and Fu Merged" that the price of Luoyang at that time was 120 wen per catty, "rapeseed oil" (rapeseed oil) was 47 wen per catty, and "lard" was between 150 and 190 wen per catty. "The Prosperity of the Old Man of West Lake" recorded the price of goods in Hangzhou in the middle of the Southern Song Dynasty: "Oil money is not more than one hundred per catty." At that time, the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang mainly consumed rapeseed oil, "but one hundred per catty" should be the price of rapeseed oil, and you can buy a pound with a face value of 100 yuan banknotes, which can be converted into copper money at most tens of dollars. Ye Shi, a thinker of the Southern Song Dynasty, mentioned in "Mr. Shuixin's Collection" that the genfu used rapeseed oil to light the lamp, and he could light it all night for 10 yuan. Taking the analogy now, it is equivalent to the electricity bill is very cheap, and the electricity bill is only a few cents for a night when the lights are on.
Vegetable oil is a commodity, commodity prices are determined by supply and demand, vegetable oil prices are low, must be because of large production, sufficient supply, most of the time and most regions can meet the needs of the people. Compared with previous dynasties, the Song Dynasty first increased the types of vegetable oil, followed by the advanced process of refining vegetable oil, and then the number of official and private oil pressing workshops also increased.
Let's first look at the types of vegetable oils in the Song Dynasty, often used in cooking sesame oil, rapeseed oil, ramie oil and soybean oil. Lu You has a poem Yun: "Flax pressed oil oil is more fragrant, and the new oil cake is beautiful to taste first." "Flax oil pressing, that is, using sesame seeds to squeeze oil. Xiang Anshi of the Southern Song Dynasty, another poet of the Southern Song Dynasty who was a generation later than Lu You, had a poem Yun: "Han and Han and North are all flat fields, and the yellow flowers in March are also pitiful." This poem describes rape flowers, preceded by a short preface: "Since crossing the Han water, cauliflower flowers are endless, and the natives use their seeds as oil." "Going south from the Han River, there are rape flowers everywhere, and you can't see the edge at a glance, and the locals use rapeseed to squeeze oil. Song Ren's notes "Chicken Rib Compilation" lists various vegetable oils, in addition to sesame oil and rapeseed oil, there are ramie oil, almond oil, white soda seed oil, vine seed oil, cangxi seed oil, ebony seed oil and tung oil, of which ebony seed oil and tung oil are not suitable for consumption, the former is used to make candles, the latter is used to make oil-paper umbrellas and rain boots.
Nowadays, soybean oil is a big commodity in vegetable oil, and in the literature before the Song Dynasty, there is no record of soybean oil, and soybean oil did not appear until the Song Dynasty. In the late Northern Song Dynasty, the life guide "Feelings of Things" written by Su Shi (in fact, not a dime related to Su Shi) wrote: "Soybean oil fried tofu is flavorful. "Tofu fried in soybean oil, it tastes beautiful. Zhao Xiyi, an official of the Southern Song Dynasty and a disciple of the sect, wrote the "Poem of Persuasion to Peasants": "Gaotian soybeans are pressed with oil pastry, and half-lit lamps and half-fried vegetables." "It shows that the people of the Song Dynasty not only stir-fried vegetables with soybean oil, but also lit lamps with soybean oil.
The fact that the people of the Song Dynasty could squeeze oil from soybeans is proof of the rapid progress in vegetable oil refining technology. Why do you say that? Because the technical difficulty of extracting oil from soybeans is far more difficult than extracting oil from sesame seeds and rapeseed. The Southern Song Dynasty thinker Lu Zuqian said: "If oil is a thing, add an anvil pestle, then the oil will come out." (Book 3 of the Collected Treatises of Lize) Pour sesame seeds into a stone mortar and pound them casually, and you can pound the oil. If you replace sesame seeds with soybeans and pound them into bean cakes and can't pound the oil, you must first stir-fry the soybeans thoroughly and steam, grind and crush, wrap them into cakes, and press out the oil.
The oil extraction technology of the Song Dynasty was very mature, leaving no room for improvement for the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty
In the Song Dynasty, the basic process of oil extraction was these four processes, namely ripening, milling, billeting, and pressing. Let's take sesame seeds with the highest oil yield as an example to take a look at the oil pressing process of the Song Dynasty:
In the first step, rinse the sesame seeds, dry them, and blow off the stalks and husks with a hand blower.
In the second step, fry the sesame seeds in a large iron pot, and use a large spatula to turn over while stir-frying, and fry the white yellowish sesame seeds until black, but not charred.
In the third step, using stone mills or stone mills, the black cooked sesame seeds are milled into yellow-brown sesame powder, and then wrapped in a "grass coat" made of straw, bundled and sturdy, and made into cakes.
In the fourth step, steam the sesame cake blank.
The fifth step is to put the steamed cake into the oil pressed wooden trough neatly, put down the pressure rod, seal the wooden groove, and then press out the oil and water contained in the cake through the pressure of the lever and the impact of the oil hammer.
The sixth step is layered purification. Because the pressed sesame oil contains water and is not durable to hide, it is poured into a large pot and constantly shaken to allow the moisture and grease to automatically stratify, and what floats on the upper layer is relatively pure sesame oil.
In order to maximize the oil yield, the Song Dynasty people would also take out the pressed cake blanks, pound them, grind them, re-make them, steam them again, squeeze them again, and squeeze out the remaining grease. Including soybeans, rapeseeds, ebony seeds, ramie seeds... It is almost the same as the steps introduced earlier, that is, purification, stir-frying, milling, billet-making, cageing, pressing, and purification.
Was there a relatively simple vegetable oil refining process in the Song Dynasty? Yes, but it can only be used on crops such as sesame, rape, and eucalyptus with a high oil yield, and only on a small scale when oil is urgently needed. Still take sesame seeds as an example, stir-fry directly, roll them out with a rolling pin, put them back in the pot, add water, boil until boiling, cease fire and stir, let stand for a while, there will be a layer of sesame oil on top, skim it out with a spoon, you can stir-fry and mix vegetables. This process is very simple, without the help of professional oil extraction craftsmen, you can do it at home, but it is also very wasteful, and the oil yield will be particularly low.
Wang Zhen, an agronomist of the Yuan Dynasty, wrote a "Book of Agriculture", in which the oil pressing process recorded came from the Song Dynasty, and was accompanied by a five-word poem entitled "Oil Pressing", the first four sentences of which read: "Huge wood becomes a pressed bed, and the mouth is carefully carved." Numb into the heavy circle, machinery should be handy. "Translated into the vernacular, it is to use coarse wood to process oil pressing, leave a thin oil outlet, fry and grind sesame seeds, use double-layer molds to make cakes (the Song Dynasty called the mold "circle", the double-layer mold called "heavy circle"), put it in the oil press, and squeeze out the oil.
Following Wang Zhen's "Book of Agriculture" in the Yuan Dynasty, Xu Guangqi of the Ming Dynasty wrote the "Complete Book of Agricultural Government", and Song Yingxing wrote "Tiangong Kaiwu", and the latter two documents also specifically describe oil pressing, and the oil pressing process is almost exactly the same as in the Song Dynasty. In other words, the Song Dynasty had developed the oil extraction technology to a very mature point, leaving no room for improvement for the Yuan and Ming dynasties.
Vegetable oil in the Song Dynasty was cheap, so it was possible to pop stir-frying
If you have seen the oil mills that are still in operation in rural areas today and looked closely, you will be surprised to learn that they used the basic processes that had been finalized during the Song Dynasty, but in order to save effort and improve efficiency, electric shovels were added to large iron pots, hand-cranked blowers were replaced with electric blowers, and oil hammers and wooden rods were replaced with hydraulic presses.
A few years ago, I went to a rapeseed oil workshop in my hometown to squeeze oil. There are only two people operating there, the hydraulic press is a simple manual type, just like the popular pressing well in the countryside in the past, grasp the long operating handle and press down, the spiral hydraulic wheel tightens more and more, and presses the cake blank placed in the middle cylindrical steel cylinder into thin flakes that are dry and broken, and the reddish-brown rapeseed oil gurgles out, and a bucket can be filled in a while. If the hydraulic press in this workshop is replaced with a traditional wood press, then it is equivalent to returning to the Song Dynasty, to the era of a group of strong craftsmen shouting trumpets and smashing oil hammers.
Having said that, I would like to emphasize that tradition does not equal the best, and manual does not equal safety. We carry a sack of sesame, rapeseed or peanuts, go to the oil pressing workshop to experience an "ancient small press", will definitely have a harvest, the squeezed sesame oil, rapeseed oil and peanut oil will not be adulterated, but from the perspective of food safety, it may not be comparable to the vegetable oil produced by modern technology in modern factories, because small workshops do not have screening and refining technology, the so-called "original ecological oil" of "inheriting thousands of years of ancient wood pressing technology" often inevitably contains some aflatoxin and other harmful ingredients. In fact, as long as it is not a fake sesame oil blended with flavor, the products produced by large factories and small workshops are equally delicious, and large factories will be relatively safer.
The Song Dynasty life manual "Feelings of Things" records a small trick to distinguish between real and fake sesame oil: "Wipe the palm of your hand with a little, and smell the incense on the back of your hand is true." "It can be seen that the Song Dynasty also had fake sesame oil. "Tokyo Menghualu" mentions the "oil works" of Kaifeng in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the "Oil Shop" in Kaifeng of the Northern Song Dynasty is mentioned in the "Chronicle of Dongsai", the former is an oil pressing workshop, the latter is a shop that sells oil, and most of these two institutions belong to private enterprises. Is there a government camp? In the early years of the Song Dynasty, it was called "oil depot", which was a large workshop specializing in the production of vegetable oil for the court. During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song, the palace oil depot and vinegar depot were merged into the "oil vinegar depot". During Song Renzong's reign, he also set up the "Fat and Hemp Warehouse", which was subordinate to the central financial institution "Three Divisions", which purchased an average of 120.<> million jin of sesame seeds per year, and all of these sesame seeds were sent to the "Oil and Vinegar Warehouse" to process sesame oil.
The government-run oil pressing workshops are large, there are many private oil pressing workshops, and the oil pressing process is unprecedentedly mature, so the vegetable oil of the Song Dynasty is very cheap, so it is possible that stir-frying is popular in the Song Dynasty.
Text/Li Kaizhou