Wang Xuetai, 1942, born in February, Beijinger, former researcher at the Institute of Literature of China Academy of Social Sciences, and professor at the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 1964 graduated from Chinese Department of Beijing Normal University, focusing on the cross-study of literary history and cultural history. He has written China Food Culture, China People's Food World, China People's Humor, Tramp Culture and China.
■ Excerpts from speeches
There was no cooking in ancient China.
Since the 1980s, talking about eating and drinking seems liberated.
● At that time, seasoning mainly depended on sauce, so now Japanese and Korean sauce is so important.
Food culture will be encountered by people in every era. But for a long time, talking about eating and drinking became a taboo. The more people who don't eat or drink, the more they want to talk. I remember in the 1960s, when I was in college, everyone was lying in bed without eating or drinking. At that time, there was a slogan called "don't eat or drink to keep calories", but in the struggle of the proletariat, talking about eating or drinking became taboo and became the expression of bourgeois thought. Since the 1980s, talking about eating and drinking seems liberated.
In fact, we can see many characteristics of food culture. For example, China has staple food and non-staple food. It is mentioned in Huangdi Neijing that grain is the staple food, while other meats and vegetables are non-staple food. Another example is the form of cooking, which is a very common way for us now, but it is still rare in Europe. There was no cooking in ancient China. The basic cooking methods before the Six Dynasties were similar to those in Europe now, and it didn't begin until the Song Dynasty. At that time, seasoning was actually very simple, especially when the meat was tasteless.
At that time, the main seasoning was soup, which was a little close to our current soup, but it was very sticky and a little like our current thickening. At that time, seasoning mainly depended on sauce, so Japanese and Korean sauce is so important now. There are 1200 ways to make pre-Qin sauce. Confucius has a very famous saying: "You can never get tired of eating delicious food." . We are all familiar with the previous sentence, but the next sentence says that meat should be cut thin to taste good. Why? Because meat has to be dipped in sauce to taste. In ancient times, there were many sauces made of animals, such as ants, insects, fish, frogs and honeycombs. Now we cannot accept them.
The inheritance of food culture has become an industry.
People in China always use food to open joints and dredge relationships.
The inheritance of China culture lies in individuality and uncertainty.
China's traditional culture views society and life from the perspective of diet. The first thing in people's daily life is to eat and drink, so there is a saying of "seven things to open the door, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea". Look at the dining scene in A Dream of Red Mansions. They think it's fun. Zheng Banqiao, a Qing Dynasty man, described an extremely simple diet in his family letter. Before liberation, baked sweet potato and bean juice were poor people's diets, but they all brought people endless fun.
People in China always use food to open joints and dredge relationships. Westerners can offer a bunch of mourning flowers. China people die as if they were alive. What the living eat should at least be treated equally with the sacrifices of the dead. In addition, the ancients believed that different foods should be eaten in different seasons. The Book of Rites says "summer vacation" and "autumn vacation". Spring cannot be eaten like autumn and winter, otherwise there will be disaster. For example, we eat watermelon in winter and cabbage in summer, which is opposed by the ancients.
There are now more than ten thousand restaurants in Beijing, but they all taste like cooking school's. Western food culture lies in scientific skills, while the inheritance of China culture lies in individuality and uncertainty. Nowadays, the way of diet inheritance has been industrialized. On the other hand, we experienced the period of big pot rice, and the taste became dull. Nowadays, it is hard to find a diet that pursues a sense of exquisiteness. You are like cooking before liberation, it is a life-and-death competition, and there are many kinds of leisure, but now restaurants are more commercialized.
Traditional Philosophy in Diet Culture
● Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the first person to include cooking in the fine arts category.
The ancients in China divided tastes into five flavors.
Food culture has the dual characteristics of material culture and spiritual culture. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the first person to put cooking into the category of fine arts. He said: "All pleasing paintings are fine arts, but the pleasing taste is not the only one. Being a chef is also one of the arts. " This is what he thinks cooking is the expression of cultural development. In ancient China, there was also a saying that "the country regards the people as the sky and the people regard food as the sky". This "heaven" is the highest honorific title, which means that "everything is long, but this is the biggest". We Confucianism believe that the people's food problem is related to the stability of the country, and Mencius' ideal of "benevolent government" is to let the people eat enough and wear warm clothes. Even if people dream of a "great harmony" society, it is only to make people all over the world "all"