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Past and present lives
Chinese food culture has a long history, just the cooking techniques, there are frying, frying, boiling, frying, steaming, stewing and other 24 kinds, different cooking techniques also have corresponding cooking utensils. Chinese since learning to make pottery, has successively invented clay pots, clay pots, pottery ding, pottery bristles, pottery and other cooking utensils, so that cooking food in addition to burning, roasting, there are steaming, boiling options, the creation and use of pottery marks the leap of human beings from grilled to cooking.
Steam cooking, that is, through water vapor to transfer heat energy to cooking raw materials in the form of hot convection, the ancients put the zèng (zèng) on top of the kettle or bristle into a pottery (yǎn), plus the pottery grate, so that the steam through the grate and the koshika hole into the koshiki to steam the food. This steam cooking method has become one of the six steaming techniques of Chinese food after steaming, steaming, sealing steaming, buckle steaming, and steaming, using steam pots to cook ingredients, which seems simple, but preserves the original taste of ingredients to the greatest extent.
(Picture from the Network: Bronze Triptych of the Tomb of the Woman)
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Past life: The kitchen secret of the female general Yin Shang
The steamed copper pot excavated from the tomb of the woman in Anyang, Henan Province, the bronze steam column reel, has been more than 3,000 years ago, and it is the earliest and only Shang Dynasty steam pot discovered so far. Its shape resembles an open deep abdominal basin, with a pair of appendages on the ventral side, a hollow bottom cylinder in the middle of the bottom, the stigma is made into a three-dimensional petal shape, the surface of the bud has four willow leaf-shaped cutouts, and there is an inscription with the word "good" on the inner wall of the abdomen.
(Picture from the network: bronze vapor column shaper)
Bronze steam column shaper needs to be used with bristles or kettle cooking utensils, the upper part is tightly covered, and the water vapor enters the koshiki through the hollow inner column of the utensils, and is emitted by the perforation of the column head, and the steam cannot be leaked out to steam the food around the middle column. This bronze steam column shaped vessel more than 3,000 years ago has an inseparable historical origin with Yunnan, according to relevant experts, the raw materials of the Shang Dynasty bronze ware are from Dongchuan, Huize and other places in Yunnan, and its shape is extremely similar to today's Yunnan steam pot. It is touching that this instrument shape was reproduced in distant Yunnan nearly 3,000 years after it was lost.
This life: Yunnan steam pot
Yunnan steam pot is famous for a Dian dish, steam pot chicken. Steam pot chicken has been rated as "the first famous dish in Yunnan" by Southeast Asian countries, and when US President Nixon visited China in 1972, Premier Zhou personally ordered steam pot chicken for the state banquet.
According to legend, the steam pot chicken was created by Yang Li, a chef at Fudeju in Lin'an Province (present-day Jianshui County, known in the Ming Dynasty as Lin'an Province in the Ming Dynasty, and renamed Jianshui during the Qianlong Period of the Qing Dynasty). The Qianlong Emperor inspected Lin'an, and the prefect issued a notice soliciting delicacies, and the selected reward was 50 taels of silver. Yang Li was rewarded by the old mother's serious illness, and integrated the local method of eating hot pot and steaming steamed buns, creating steam pots with Jianshui purple pottery and making bird's nest steam pot chicken applications. Unexpectedly, the steam pot was stolen, Yang Li was asked about the crime of deceiving the king, fortunately, the emperor asked the truth, spared Yang Li's death, and renamed Fudeju "Yang Li steam pot chicken", and since then the reputation of the steam pot chicken has been greatly enhanced, and it has become a famous dish in Dian.
(Picture from the network: Yunnan steam pot chicken)
Yunnan steam pot chicken is made of Jianshui purple pottery, one of the "four famous potteries" in China, and the purple pottery firing technology was also included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008.
Collection: Yunnan Jianshui purple pottery chrysanthemum pattern steam pot
Collection: Yunnan Jianshui purple pottery "95 Supreme" steam pot
The traditional Chinese Doctrine of the Five Elements holds that water, fire, gold, wood, and earth are the five basic elements that make up all things, of which "earth", in the yellow color, is the sacred of the center, and the middle is correct, with the earth pot as the heaven and earth, and the righteous qi is born. Jianshui purple pottery steam pot belly flat round, from the bottom of the pot upwards extended a hollow tube, like an inverted horn, cooking steam pot chicken, steam pot in the hollow pipe (harmonic "righteous qi") into the pot to cook chicken, the steam between heaven and earth (positive gas) is full; according to the theory of Traditional Chinese medicine, steam pot chicken is rich in nutrition, food can make people full of positive qi, strong disease resistance, so it is called "cultivating positive qi". Mr. Wang Zengqi, a famous writer who studied at the Southwest United University during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and lived in Kunming, commented in "Eating in Kunming": "The shop specializing in steam pot chicken is near Jinbi Road on Zhengyi Road. The name of this house is not known to many people, but there is a plaque in the store hall that reads 'Cultivate Righteousness', and Kunming people who bump into each other and want to eat steam pot chicken say: 'Let's cultivate righteousness'. ”
Jianshui purple pottery steam pot to take the local red, yellow, blue, purple, white five-color clay town pulp mud, tire quality is delicate, after the body is formed, painted on the ceramic billet and yin carved Yang filled with color mud, no glaze, above 1000 ° C high temperature firing after firing is dark purple, with pebbles and other pottery surface carefully polished, there is "color as copper, bright as water, bright as mirror, sound like chime" of the "Ya pottery" reputation. Jianshui purple pottery also has the characteristics of acid resistance, temperature resistance, breathability, moisture resistance and long heat preservation, with the characteristics of "flower bottled water does not stink, flower pots do not rot roots, teapot brewing tea taste is tulip, tableware storage overnight is not satisfied" and other characteristics. Ceramic steam pots generally have the characteristics of easy heating, high temperature resistance, acid and alkali corrosion resistance, good breathability, preservation of taste and freshness, cooking food, the taste is particularly mellow; also because it contains certain trace elements is of great benefit to the body.
The ability of yunnan traditional steam pot chicken to "cultivate righteous qi" lies not only in chicken soup and chicken meat, but also in the southern medicine "three seven".
(Picture from the network: Wuding chicken)
Cooking steam pot chicken, chicken breeds to choose local chicken, can not be large nor small, chicken lean meat firewood, fat is tasteless, it is best to use just to lay eggs of the tender hen or just opened the small rooster. Only The Wuding castrated hen, extremely fat and flavorful, is the preferred material for cooking steam pot chicken. Since the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Wuding castrated hen has always been a tribute to the kings of all dynasties, according to the "New Yunnan Tongzhi": "Wuding chicken is the best work in the province, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, it is well-known in Quandian".
(Picture from the network: Yunnan Sanqi)
Yunnan people are also accustomed to putting yunnan precious medicinal herbs such as panax notoginseng, cordyceps and tianma into the steam pot chicken for steam, which not only increases the flavor, but also plays a tonic role. Sanqi steam pot chicken soup is slightly bitter cold, chicken nuggets are slightly bitter, and the whole body is warm and refreshed after eating. Because the steam pot can escape the active ingredients of precious Chinese medicine without damage, and fully integrate with the oily chicken soup in the high temperature steam, the soup color is extremely clear and has a very tonic effect, which makes people "righteous qi" vibrate.
Nowadays, the steam pot has moved from Yunnan to Yixing, Jiangsu Province, and the convenient and practical "steam pot" has entered the kitchens of thousands of households. Jiangnan region has developed Huangjing steam pot chicken, astragalus steam pot chicken, Lingzhi steam pot duck, Bagua steam pot soup, etc., and there are also Ginseng steam pot chicken in Jilin in the northeast, and "steam pot chicken" has also become the "hometown flavor" of various places from "Yunnan Yiwei".
The original article was published in The Nation Today, No. 4, 2014