How long has the history of China people eating crabs?

According to historical records, China has a history of eating crabs for more than 60,000 years. The earliest ancients ate crabs, which is the most important thing. Bi Zhuo, a great alcoholic in the Jin Dynasty, once said, "Holding a glass in your right hand and a crab claw in your left hand is enough for you to spend your whole life on a floating wine boat." Writer Li Yu once praised that crab claws will never be forgotten.

In the Yangtze River Delta, when investigating the Songze culture in Qingpu, Shanghai, Yuhang, Zhejiang and Liangzhu culture in Caoxie Mountain, Weiting, Suzhou, Jiangsu, we found that our ancestors had a large number of crab shells in the edible waste. It shows that people in China have a long history of eating crabs. Western Europe, North America and other countries still dare not eat river crabs.

Suzhou folklore: According to legend, in the Dayu era, river crabs were called "human-catching insects". When Dayu was in charge of water conservancy, there was a supervisor named Plo. In order to prevent the invasion of "human traps", a deep ditch was dug in the station. A large number of "human-catching insects" were trapped in the ditch and scalded to death by boiling water. The scalded "human trap" has a unique fragrance. PLO picked it up and took a bite. It felt delicious. The first taste of this award brought Qian Qian ten thousand mouths in the future. Since then, "arresting people" has become a delicious food on earth. Eating "catching people" has been out of control since then. But for this kind of food, it is always inappropriate to call it "catching people and insects", and it should be given a more suitable name. Because the PLO suppressed this "human trap", its name is crab.

In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, a man named Tao Yi was a professional document drafter, who drafted the rules and regulations of the Later Jin Dynasty, the Northern Han Dynasty, the Later Zhou Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin laughed at him and said that he was "imitating the gourd".

Not satisfied with pottery, he wanted to make contributions, so he sent Wu Yueguo to persuade Qian Chu, king of wuyue, to surrender to the Song Dynasty. Actually, Qian Chu and Zhao Kuangyin have a good relationship. I heard that Lao Zhao sent someone to entertain them and asked Tao Yi what he wanted to eat. Pottery said, "I heard that you have something called crab here." I have never seen it. Eat this. " Qian Chu hurriedly asked people to steam crabs, all kinds of which were available. Start with hairy crabs and introduce them one by one. Because the first big and then small, pottery said to Qian Chu, "You are really a crab." Qian Chu was so angry that the cook muttered for a long time. Before long, a pot of soup was served, green.

Pottery asked, "What kind of soup is this?"

Qian Chu said, "It's made of gourd. This is called painting a gourd as usual. "

Ceramic art was a big blush, and Qian Chu finally got out of this tone.

Pottery writes papers every day, but he doesn't know much. In fact, at least in the Zhou Dynasty, people knew about crabs. I ching said: besides being a crab, it is rigid outside and soft inside. So some people say that you are "soft inside and hard outside", don't be complacent. This means you are like a crab.

The earliest ancients ate crabs, which is the most important thing. Bi Zhuo, a great alcoholic in the Jin Dynasty, once said, "Holding a glass in your right hand and a crab claw in your left hand is enough for you to spend your whole life on a floating wine boat." Writer Li Yu once praised that crab claws will never be forgotten.

In China, the first person who was famous for eating crab roe was Liu Chengxun. This man is the youngest son of Liu Zhiyuan, the founding emperor of the later Han Dynasty. As soon as he saw the crab, he picked up the fat crab with a round shell and opened it to eat crab roe. Someone asked him, is crab roe delicious? Don't everyone eat crab claws? Liu Chengxun ate his mouth full of oil and replied, "A hundred thousand crab claws are not worth a crab yellow." This sentence made crab roe popular, so Liu Chengxun got a nickname called "Huang Da".

Scholars have a soft spot for crabs. Starting from Songs of the South, you can find dozens of poems about crabs, so I won't list them one by one. I want to talk about Ni Zan, a great painter in Yuan Dynasty, who wrote the Collection of Dietary Systems in Yunlintang, which specifically talked about the cooking method of hairy crabs and the method of brewing sea crabs with honey. The former is cooked with ginger, cinnamon, perilla and salt. When the water boils, turn it over When it is boiled again, you can eat it. He particularly emphasized that a person can make at most two, and if he is not full, he will make another one. In particular, it is forbidden to cook a lot of dishes and put firewood, which will ruin it. As for honey-stuffed crickets, they should be cooked first. Once the sea crab changes color, it should be fished out, and the crab feet and the meat on the crab should be taken out. Crab paste should also be taken out and put aside. First, put the crab meat into the crab shell, stir the egg yolk and honey, sprinkle it, spread the crab yolk and crab paste on it, and steam it on the drawer for a while. Once the egg is solidified, you can eat it. Very delicious.

But compared with Li Yu, these are dwarfed. It is said that Li eats twenty or thirty crabs a meal. This way of eating even caused him economic pressure. In summer, he began to save money-this money was specially used to buy crabs, which he called "money for life". Li Yu loves crabs. He called autumn "crab autumn", and prepared "crab pot" and "crab stuffing" to pickle "crab bad"-probably drunken crabs, which he ate in winter. And Meidochan, who manages all this, is called "crab slave" by him. He praised crabs as "fresh, fat, sweet and greasy, white as jade and yellow as gold", which is the ultimate in color, fragrance and "omnipotent". Painter Xu Beihong may be comparable to Li Yu. Xu Beihong said: "Fish is my life, crab is my enemy, and meeting the enemy is fatal."

Li Yu is also very experienced in eating crabs. He insists that crabs are "delicious on earth and good at walking their own way". All frying, boiling and seasoning are unnecessary, spoiling things and jealous of the delicious and beautiful crabs. The whole crab should be steamed and served on the table, and it has to be peeled by itself to taste it. If others help them, they will lose their fun.

Speaking of which, we must talk about Cantonese. Guangdong people do aquatic products, ranking first in the world. Only crabs are always chopped and fried, which is really annoying.

In modern times, there are three people who talk about eating crabs. One is Xu, a writer of Yuanyang Butterfly School. No matter how much money this person spends, he goes to Yangcheng Lake every year to buy 100 hairy crabs and hold a crab feast. The second is the famous doctor Shi Jinmo, who goes to Jiangnan to eat crabs every autumn. He also divided crabs into three or six grades and awarded titles and titles, from "special official" to "sesame green bean official", and had a good time. The third is Huang Jigang, a student of Zhang Taiyan, who participated in the league-he bought the China Southern Airlines lottery and won the grand prize. He was ecstatic, led his family into the restaurant and ate crabs. As a result, he became seriously ill and died at home. This is a tragedy.

After talking about so many people who love crabs, I finally told a story that makes people laugh and cry. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Lv Yihao guarded Bazhou. The imperial court remembered his hard work, and Pegasus sent him a batch of big crabs by express. Good things can't be enjoyed alone, so Lao Lu gave crabs to his men. But those rough people who fight see that crabs are mighty, so they simply hang crabs on the gate to ward off evil spirits.

River crabs are the best food in the world. As the ancients said, the river crab is "as beautiful as a jade column, as fresh as an oyster house, as crisp as the tongue of a stone and as fat as the fat of the right army".

After a long period of historical precipitation, it is found that the quality of river crabs grown in three areas of China is the best. That is, the three famous crab producing areas in China:

1. Huajin Crab, a river crab in osawa, ancient Danyang, located in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces; 2. Hebei Baiyangdian River Crab-Fangsheng Crab; 3. Yangcheng Lake Crab, a crab in Yangcheng Lake, Jiangsu Province.

To become a famous crab producing area, there are three conditions: first, the natural conditions for breeding are good-there are large wetlands; Second, we should trace back to a large number of natural crab seedlings-originated from the coastal rivers; The third is to be close to the developed big cities-there are emperors and generals, dignitaries and literati to give praise and recommendations.

"Yangcheng Lake Crab" was in the middle of Ming Dynasty, and became famous with the development of Suzhou economy. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, after the opening of Shanghai, the reputation of "Yangcheng Lake Crab" gradually overshadowed the first two producing areas. Especially after liberation, "Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab" is almost unique. This great achievement can not be separated from the government's vigorous publicity, but also from the careful breeding of crab farmers.

Historically, Gudan Daze includes Danyang Lake, Shijiu Lake, Gucheng Lake, Nanyi Lake and a large area of low-lying wetlands around it, covering an area of nearly 3.5 million mu. This wetland spans southern Jiangsu and southern Anhui provinces and is triangular, which is called the "golden triangle" of river crabs. Among the three major river crab producing areas, the oldest one is "Huajin Crab" in Danyangze, Gudong. It was very famous in the Tang Dynasty. Li Bai lived in Dangtu in his later years. In his poems, there are many poems about crabs. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang made Nanjing its capital, and Huajin Crab flourished. In the Qing Dynasty, Huajin Crab was a tribute from the local county grandfather to the emperor, and Emperor Qianlong named it "Imperial Crab".