Famous Doctor Story | Fu Shan and the "Mind"

Text: Yan Runhong

What is a "mind"? Ordinary people are afraid that it is difficult to associate with food, but as everyone knows, it is indeed a kind of local "famous food", and it is also a special "medicinal food", which was invented by Fu Shan, a famous shanxi celebrity in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

Fu Shan (1607-1684), courtesy name Qing, was a native of Yangqu, Shanxi (present-day Taiyuan). Fu Shan was born in Shuxiang Mendi, his grandfather was a jinshi, and his father was Gongsheng. Since childhood, he has read a lot of books, is very intelligent, and is 14 years old, and is deeply valued and appreciated by Wen Taiqing, Yuan Jixian, and other people in Shanxi at that time. After the Jiashen Rebellion (1644), because of his strong Confucian orthodoxy, believing that the Manchu Qing Dynasty had entered the Central Plains and "destroyed the country and the world", he became a monk, called himself a "Zhuyi Daoist", used the practice of medical preaching as a cover, secretly engaged in anti-Qing activities, and after the failure of the anti-Qing dynasty, insisted on not cooperating with the Qing court, maintained national integrity, lived in seclusion in the countryside, discussed calligraphy and painting, talked about learning, and applied medicine, and achieved great academic achievements. His friends once made an evaluation of him that "words are not as good as poetry, poetry is not as good as painting, painting is not as good as medicine, and medicine is not as good as people", which depicts from one side the general situation of Fu Shan's ability and ability, and the refinement of medicine and Confucianism.

"Mind" examination

"Mind" as a food name is not Fu Shan's first creation, according to research began about the end of the fourteenth century (the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty), "Water Margin" in the fifty-first time there is a "bowl of mind", which shows that there were already restaurants selling "brain" in that period, and it is unknown what materials and how to do it for "mind" at that time. As a food, the "mind" is not just the traditional famous food in Taiyuan, there is a famous food in Shanghai called "mind", which is completely different from the raw materials and methods of Taiyuan's "mind". But in any case, when it comes to "mind", people always think of Taiyuan famous food and think of Mr. Fu Shan, this is because Taiyuan's "mind" was invented by Fu Shan, and Taiyuan's "mind" has the most health value and the richest cultural heritage.

It is said that after Fu Shan lost his wife in middle age, he never continued to serve his mother. His mother was elderly and frail and bedridden. In order to make his mother Kang Tai yishou, Fu Shan developed the "Eight Treasures Soup" with fat lamb, lotus root, yam, astragalus, galangal, simmered noodles, yellow wine, lees eight kinds of herbs and food as raw materials, as an early and tonic for the elderly to eat in winter. After a winter of meticulous treatment, his mother's illness was exhausted, the spirit was refreshed, since then, the name of "Eight Treasures Soup" has not gone away, people call it "Famous Doctor Filial Piety Agent", have come to the door to ask for this recipe, when the Qing soldiers entered the Central Plains, Fu Shan was determined to oppose the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming, so the name of the "Eight Treasures Soup" was "Mind", which means that the anti-Qing and restoration need to use the mind. At that time, a migrant household surnamed Gǎ in Gansu province opened a restaurant specializing in haggis cutting in Nancang Lane, Taiyuan, with a light business, and Fu Shan, with the desire to help the poor in the world, taught him the preparation method of "brain". He also wrote a plaque for this restaurant in his own handwriting, taking the name "Qinghe Yuan". Whenever he encountered patients who were weak and needed nourishment, Fu Shan let them eat the "mind" of "Qingheyuan", which was widely publicized by Fushan and the remarkable health effect of "brain", and the "Qingheyuan" restaurant in Taiyuan three hundred years ago was lively and bustling. It should be noted that the "Qing Heyuan" restaurant of that year was on the west side of the middle section of Nancang Lane in Taiyuan City, and was moved to Qiaotou Street in Taiyuan City during the Republic of China.

Fu Shan's invention of the "mind" was only oral transmission of the people, and it was not recorded in books, because in the Qing Dynasty, where there were many literary prisons, no one was willing to use Fu Shan's deep and tortuous anti-Qing restoration with a pen and paper. Judging from the formula of "Mind", it is a tonic, with a profound principle of drug compatibility and a specific dosage, which can also be proved by its invention by Fu Shan.

"Mind" formulation and precautions for taking

The production method of "mind" is: take lamb, yam, lotus vegetables (lotus root) as raw materials, first cut the lamb into cubes, put it into the pot and boil it over high heat, add peppercorns, astragalus, and galangal, switch to cooking over low heat and then fish it out, add the lees juice into the pot and boil, add cooking wine, simmer noodles, cook into batter soup, and then put the lamb pieces, cooked yam, lotus root into a bowl and add diced lamb tail oil, pour the paste soup to make it. When you taste it, you can feel the mixed aroma of medicine, wine and lamb, and the flavor is unique, and the more you eat it, the more you want to eat it.

When eating "brain", it is generally accompanied by pickled leeks and "hat box", pickled leeks are like medicinal primers for taking medicine, "hat box" is a kind of baked dough cake, short cylindrical, empty in the middle, is made of non-fermented flour shell, combined together, baked in the oven, when drinking "brain", the "hat box" is broken into small pieces, soaked in the "mind" soup, fragrant and chewy, unique flavor.

In the Qing Dynasty, Shanxi Yuci also had several restaurants operating "Brain", of which "Qingsheng Garden" and "Mind" were the most famous, which was characterized by the use of mutton as a high-grade fat goat instead of sheep mutton. A bowl of "mind", usually four pieces of fat goat, two pieces of long yam, two pieces of lotus root, white soup tasteless, seasoning self-added.

In the Jinzhong area of Shanxi, in addition to Taiyuan and Yuci, there are still Xiyang "brains". Xiyang "mind" and Taiyuan "Qingheyuan", Yuci "Qingshengyuan" and "mind" from the same source, in the way of eating, Taiyuan, Yuci "mind" with a little wheat, hat box and other noodles, and Xiyang "mind" is accompanied by dumplings, "mind" after doing a good job, that is, began to boil dumplings, the cooked dumplings into the bowl, poured "mind", pour a little white wine inside, eat sweet and warm.

Fu Shan has special requirements for the season and time of eating "Mind", which is listed from Bailu to Lichun every year, and the sale time is from Yinshi to Midnight (3:00 to 7:00 a.m.). In the past, restaurants were hung with lanterns in the early morning to sell "minds", and the advantages of this were two ways, one was to prompt diners to carry out morning exercise, which had both a nourishing effect and exercise, killing two birds with one stone; some people said that Fu Shan let people come with lanterns before dawn to take the meaning of "the sky does not want to see what people want to see".

The author personally believes that there is a very deep medical truth, as mentioned earlier, Chinese medicine health care should follow the principle of "heaven and man corresponding", from the composition of the "mind", it belongs to the warm medicinal diet, used to subsidize the lack of yang of the human body, from the modern nutrition point of view, it belongs to high-fat, high-protein, high-calorie food, three to seven o'clock in the morning is the time of the day when the natural yang rises, the temperature is the lowest at this time, but "yin is yang", the peak of yin qi is the time when yang germinates, then taking warm supplements can be described as "going with the flow of heaven." Coinciding with the "biological clock" of the human body, the natural effect will be good. Now there is a new theory of weight loss, that is, do not advocate eating less, especially breakfast, should be full, as long as the meal time can be raised can not only ensure enough energy for a day, but not to cause excess nutrition, this theory coincides with the ancient tradition of "catching the mind" The sooner the better, now many people are used to not eating breakfast and dinner excess, from the perspective of Chinese medicine health theory, this is "against the sky", which is not conducive to health.

It must be pointed out that the "mind" belongs to the medicinal diet of Chinese medicine, and must follow the principle of taking medicinal food, that is, dialectical diet, and the three conditions (according to people, places, and times). The so-called dialectical diet is to take the medicinal diet as medicine. Medicine has bias, the truth of Chinese medicine treatment, popularly speaking, is "to correct the deviation", medicinal diet also has bias, compared with medicine is only the degree of difference, so the medicinal diet must have a suitable population, specific to the "mind", its sex is warm and scattered, so it is suitable for people with a cold physique, plain spleen and stomach deficiency, cold and warm people or postpartum nutrition deficiency and lack of milk is the most appropriate; Yangsheng physique, usually easy to "fire", or yin deficiency and yang hyperactivity such as some hypertension, arteriosclerosis is not suitable. In terms of age, middle-aged and elderly people are more suitable than adolescents. In addition, according to the principle of "adapting to the place" and "adapting to the time", the "mind" is suitable for taking in the autumn and winter of the north, and it is not suitable for the southern and spring and summer seasons. The above needs to be paid great attention to, otherwise it is not conducive to the promotion of the traditional cuisine of "mind".

About the author: Yan Runhong, male, excellent expert of Shanxi Province, professor, chief physician, master tutor. He is a member of the Standing Committee of the Prescription Science Branch of the Chinese Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the vice president of the Economics Branch of the China Association for the Promotion of Traditional Chinese Medicine Research. Leader of the discipline of traditional Chinese medicine and prescription in Shanxi Province. He specializes in the treatment of common internal medicine diseases, skin diseases, gynecological diseases, and difficult diseases. Visits are available on Tuesday mornings. Place of visit: The Center for The Treatment of Diseases in the Affiliated Hospital of Shanxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.