What did poor people in ancient times usually eat? Have you been misled by TV series?

What did people eat in ancient times? Maybe everyone will think of the various food feast scenes in costume dramas, such as the "Man-Han Banquet" eaten by Cixi, Qianlong, and Kangxi. It was so delicious that it made a foodie watch it. Everyone in the audience started to drool. Literary works also have records of the food at banquets of ancient people. For example, "A Dream of Red Mansions" has many large-scale banquet scenes, the most famous of which is of course "Grandma Liu Enters the Grand View Garden":

"Then Grandma Liu is... Complimenting the egg's small size, Sister Feng smiled and said, "It's only one tael of silver each. Try it quickly. It won't taste good when it's cold." "Grandma Liu stretched out her chopsticks to pick it up. Where can I pick it up? There was a fuss in the full bowl, and finally she picked up one. Then she stretched her neck to eat, but it slipped down again and rolled to the ground. She quickly put down her chopsticks and wanted to go there in person. Someone had already picked it up. Grandma Liu sighed: "One tael of silver was gone without even hearing a sound!"

But these were things eaten by the rich in ancient times. , the poor cannot afford it. How could a poor person like Grandma Liu be willing to eat eggs worth "one tael of silver each" every day? After finally catching a small egg, the chopsticks slipped and fell to the ground. Grandma Liu, who had not tasted the taste of one tael of silver, sighed in embarrassment: "One tael of silver, but I didn't hear the sound." It’s gone!”

In ancient times, one tael of silver was a huge sum of money to the poor. One tael of silver could be exchanged for 1,000 copper plates. However, the most the poor people in ancient times spent on each meal was a few copper plates. Money, so the food in Jia's house cost one or two silvers per egg, which the poor in ancient times must not have been able to afford. So, what did poor people eat in ancient times? Don't be misled by costume dramas. If you travel back to ancient times, you may not be able to endure this kind of life for a day.

In fact, if you want to know what the poor ate in ancient times, instead of looking for it in various books, it is better to ask some older elders for advice, because the history they experienced in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China was almost the same as in ancient times. The periods of poverty are similar. Records in ancient books were basically recorded by scholars. No matter what time they were, and whether the scholars were good or bad, they were basically people of a certain status in that era.

Even the hilarious Fan Jin in "The Scholars" was actually a person of social status at that time - at least compared to ordinary poor people, Fan Jin's life was better A lot. It can be seen in the book that he basically does not farm by himself, and he has no livelihood or career, but he can still live a good life, and even a wealthy "Hu Butcher" married his daughter to him: < /p>

"Fan Jin came home from school, and his mother and wife were both happy. Just as he was preparing to cook, his father-in-law, Hu Butcher, walked in with a pair of large intestines and a bottle of wine. Fan Jin He bowed to him and sat down. Butcher Hu said: "I have been unlucky enough to marry my daughter to you, a real treasure, and I don't know how tired I have been over the years. Now, I don’t know what kind of virtue I have accumulated, but I brought you a husband, so I brought you a drink to congratulate you. ""

Look at how good Fan Jin's life is. At least in the eyes of most poor people in ancient times, Fan Jin's life is indeed pretty good. A wealthy father-in-law can still mention it when he has nothing to do. I came to visit him with a bunch of pig intestines. Pig intestines are full of fat. They are the good things that the poor in ancient times longed for most. Therefore, the food eaten by the poor in ancient times recorded by ancient scholars has certain limitations: they may not have experienced this difficult life themselves, but more often they heard what others said.

Of course, their records are generally correct. For example, when it was very difficult to siege a city in ancient times, the terrible situation of "exchanging children and eating them" would even occur. Then in years of famine, if the poor in ancient times could not find food, they would eat something called "Guanyin soil". This food can be eaten to fill the stomach, but eating too much will kill people; People eat grass roots when they are in trouble. We saw this during the Long March.

But what did poor people in ancient times generally eat? What specific dishes are there? These cannot be found in ordinary books. We must ask some old people to know the specific situation. First of all, we must tell everyone that in ancient times, it was impossible for poor people to eat fragrant rice every day, or many poor people could not eat delicious rice every day. I won’t eat such exquisite staple food either.

Even in rice-growing areas in the south, when they eat rice, they will mix it with other things, such as the "bran" that we usually use to feed pigs. There is an idiom in ancient times called "a wife who has lived a hard life together cannot be abandoned", which means that a wife who has lived a hard life together cannot be abandoned. Why is it called "a wife who has lived a hard life"? It is because everyone has eaten unpalatable rice bran together. In addition to such food, the ancient staple foods include: broomcorn millet, millet, wheat, bean sprouts, adzuki beans, etc.

This is about staple food, but sometimes the supply of staple food is not guaranteed. If it is staple food, you have to find some other foods to serve as staple food to replenish the body's energy. Such things mainly include sweet potatoes, especially in the Qing Dynasty. Due to the introduction of sweet potatoes in the late Ming Dynasty, this plant is easy to grow and has high yields. It is loved by a large number of poor people. Poor people in the Qing Dynasty generally cannot afford to eat a large amount of staple food, so sweet potato rice is a good choice. Not a bad choice.

In addition to sweet potato rice, pumpkin rice is also a good choice. If you grow a lot of pumpkins at home, this kind of thing can serve as a staple food for a period of time. Pumpkins have high sugar content, and are relatively easy to grow. If they grow well, dozens of pumpkins can be grown on a vine, which is more reliable than ordinary rice planting. The disadvantages are that how much pumpkin grows depends on luck, and it cannot be stored for a long time like staple food.

As for dishes, poor people in ancient times mostly ate vegetarian food. Among them, some are various vegetables grown at home, such as leeks, also known as "poor people's vegetables". Leeks can be cut continuously, and then added with plant ash, they can continue to grow. It is something that poor people must grow. Dishes are also the treasure of the poor. In addition, poor people may need to pick a lot of wild vegetables in difficult years.

For example, in spring, there are ferns sprouting all over the mountains and fields. They are abundant and easy to pick. You can eat them directly after picking them, or they can be dried and used as dried vegetables for the whole year. It is a kind of wild vegetable that is very suitable for poor people to pick. If times are very difficult and there are no easy-to-eat wild vegetables like bracken on the mountain, farmers will start with the bark and make them into relatively "palatable" food.

Peel off the sap-rich bark, such as the bark of the loquat tree, and then dry it in the sun. The dried bark can be ground into powder with a stone mill, which will facilitate digestion. When the poor wanted to eat it, they would wash the bark powder with boiling water to form a paste. This was probably what the poor in ancient times thought of as "oatmeal". Although I don't know how it tastes, it is also a kind of paste. Ways to survive hunger.