For those who are interested in ancient poor people, the History Encyclopedia editor brings detailed articles for your reference. What did ancient poor people eat? Is everything portrayed in TV dramas true?
The meticulous writing of many ancient novels is very impressive, especially for foodies. The short words in the book can be written so deliciously that after being adapted into TV dramas, we often watch them as food broadcasts. For example, in the Water Margin, Wu Song’s “eating broadcast” is particularly typical. Whether it’s the eating and drinking scenes before the tiger fight in Jingyanggang or in the prison on Mengzhou Road, they are all tempting
The shopkeeper went inside and cut out two pounds of cooked beef, made a large plate, and placed it in front of Wu Song in the future. Then he sieved another bowl of wine. Wu Song ate it and said, ‘Good wine!’ He sieved another bowl. ”
Beef doesn’t require any seasoning, just adding some oil and salt to it and cooking it is so delicious that it makes people crave it. Wudutou actually cut two pounds in one breath, eating beef and drinking alcohol at the same time. This taste is so enviable! However, Wudutou is still Wudutou, even if he had not yet become a Wudutou at that time, he was still one of the few “big brothers” in society, and his food was not comparable to that of ordinary people.
Many people, when watching historical dramas, wonder why did ancient people eat so well every day? If only I could travel back in time, it would be great. Actually, it’s not like that. In TV dramas, we only play the meals of ancient celebrities. Today, we have at least one million fans and a big V level character. Can we have the same meals as ordinary people? If they were to truly travel back in time to ancient times, their cuisine would be completely beyond what the vast majority of people today can imagine.
The first difficulty is that ancient commoners may not have had enough salt to eat, and even most commoners may have only added a little salt to their dishes. Because in ancient times, salt and iron were monopolized and scarce commodities. At that time, transportation was not well-developed, and there were only fixed areas producing salt. Therefore, if ordinary people wanted to eat salt, they had to bear its high price. In ancient times, many people made a fortune by smuggling salt, among which the most famous was Huang Chao.
Chen Youliang, who was divided into three parts of the world at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, was actually a salt trader before. It can be seen how arrogant ancient salt traders were. While salt traders make huge profits, ordinary people naturally fall into the problem of difficulty and high cost in buying salt. Therefore, if ordinary people want to ensure sufficient physiological needs for themselves, they must reduce the amount of salt and achieve a steady flow of water. So, if you travel to an ordinary family, you may have to endure eating dishes without much salt every day.
Of course, salt is not completely absent, and more importantly, it may be a matter of staple food. Although ancient people could have had enough to eat, such prosperous times were still rare in history. In the heyday, staple food could be eaten freely. In Du Fu’s poem, it is written: “In a small town, there are still thousands of households, with rice flowing fat and corn white. But in history, there were actually very few prosperous times, more days between prosperous and chaotic times, during which food became a problem.
It’s not that there’s nothing to eat. But rather, in order for ordinary people to have enough to eat for a long time, they must have planned expenses, such as some things that modern people find difficult to eat, or things that modern people use as supplementary snacks, which ancient people may have eaten as staple food. During busy farming seasons, one may still be able to eat some dry rice; And once in the off-season, in order to save food, they usually eat more porridge and maintain a certain level of hunger.
After all, there is no need to do anything. In the eyes of the common people, having enough to eat during the off-season is a bit of a waste of food. Our current coarse grains, such as sweet potatoes, are likely to be eaten as staple or semi staple foods during the off-season. If we eat such things for a long time, we will definitely find them very unappetizing. As for eating beef in large bites like Wu Song, it is almost impossible, after all, killing cows was forbidden in ancient times.
Even if there are a few old and dead cows used to sell meat, or beef obtained through special channels, the prices are mostly very high. Just like modern people eating to protect animals, ordinary people can’t even think about it. And pork may have been difficult to eat in some slightly older dynasties. Because pork needs to be processed – specifically castrated – if not processed enough, it will taste worse. Moreover, if the common people raise a pig, most of them will also sell it.
How can one be willing to eat on their own because they have to earn some money to buy farming tools and seeds? There are also some foreign imported foods that were not available in ancient times. For example, some foods with the character “Hu” are mostly imported from foreign countries, either difficult to eat or very expensive. For example, cucumber – called Hu Gua in ancient times, could not be eaten in earlier times; Pepper is also from outside, it’s not necessarily impossible to eat, but it’s very expensive.
Because in ancient times, pepper was equivalent to gold – a corrupt official in the Tang Dynasty even embezzled 64 tons of pepper. Chili peppers seem to have been introduced from outside, so people from Jiangxi, Hunan, Sichuan and other places who travel back in time to ancient times are likely to find eating particularly uncomfortable and tasteless. After reading these, do you still want to travel back to ancient times?
