Ancient Chinese Food?

Question

please give me food DETAILS on ancient chinese food other than rice/millet. thnx

Answer 1

Food in China has been the basis of life for centuries. Millet, a common crop in Northern China, has been grown since the fifth millenium BC. Rice, a common crop in Southern China, has been grown since the fourth millenium BC. Ever since then food was thought to be the basis for good health. The first Chinese crop was grown in the Upper Yellow River Valley.

In order to keep up their crops, the ancient Chinese used wood and stone tools. In the fifth century BC, iron plows were developed. On the Northern grasslands, oxen pulled plows. But in the marshy South, water bison pulled the plows.

Regardless of these beasts of burden, men did most of the agricultural work. They would cut wheat with sickles, carried crops by a pole hung across their shoulders with bags at the endto hold the grain, and they would loosen wheat by beating it with sticks. But the most complex tool was their irragation system.

In Southern China, rice was, and is, the staple grain. Rice grows much easier in a marshy area, but is much easier to harvest without any water. How did they do this, irragation. Foot powered pumps was the ancient Chinese?s answer. Many people would power these pumps.

The Chinese wanted to ensure a good harvest. They acomplished this by many ways. Ashes and manure (dung) were used to fertilize the crops. Another way Chinese ensured a good crop was by crop rotation. They would not grow the same crop in the same spot consecutively.

Rice wasn?t the only crop. The Chinese grew hundreds of various crops. Some of them include cabbage, soybeans (and other beans), peas, and bamboo shoots.

In Norrthern China wheat and millet were grown. Rice was expensive, due to the fact that not many places in northern China were suitable for this. Common foods include steamed buns, noodles or pancakes with vegtables soybean products (for protein), pickles, and some times meat, eggs, or fish on the side.

Regardless of the type of crop you ate each Chinese meal had fan and Cai. Fan refers to cooked grain. While Cai means vegtables. But Cai refers to the general arrangement of side dishes.

Food was generally based on class though, the rich cooked in elaborate ways such as stir-friing or steaming. The rich also ate more meat and eggs and fish.

Regardless of class, Chinese had two meals a day. One was at mid morning. The other was before nightfall.
China is noted for it?s tea, but before it was invented in China warm rice beer was ussually drinken. Tea was developed by the Chinese in the Han dynasty.

Fish was important to the Chinese. By 100 BC artifficial ponds were made to breed carp.

Hunting was ussually considered a sport. The meat they caught was either sold at the market, eaten, or preserved.
The Chinese? celebrating signified many good foods. The Chinese celebrated on weddings, birth of a son, a funeral, or holidays. Regerdless of class, everyone celebrated. The poor ate a roast duck or chicken, fried fish, vegtables, grains, and soup. The wealthy had many more foods such as bear paw, shark fin, and wild boar. Rice wine was drinken at these occasions.

Much until the Rennaissance, China and the many foods they had stayed in their natural boundries. Some atempts had been made in the Ming dynasty, but until the coming of Marco Polo all of China's food had been kept a secret.
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The Chinese nation has a civilized history of 5,000 years and Chinese cuisine has evolved over time. Its culinary techniques, preparation, serving and appreciation of food have been developed to the highest level. Cooking has occupied an important position in Chinese culture throughout its history. Chinese culture considers cooking an art and a science.As early as the 7th century B.C. Chinese cuisine began to be separated as Southern and Northern cuisines. In general, the southern dishes emphasize freshness and tenderness. Northern dishes, due to its colder climate, have more fat and garlic which is offset with vinegar. During the period of the Tang (618-907 A.D.) and the Song(960-1279 A.D.) dynasties, people went in a great deal for nutritional medical value of different plants: fungus(mushrooms), herbs, vegetables. At this time "medicinal food" for prevention and cure of diseases, for overall health became important.

Confucianism

Confucius dreamed about and fussed about food. He emphasized the art of cooking and enjoyment of life. He showed people how they could cultivate their palate and delight their senses. The art of cooking encompassed more than food. Culinary etiquette, social sharing of food, presentation and combining of tastes and textures was important in this school.

He established culinary standards and proper table etiquette. Most of these are still considered to be the standards of today. The tradition of cutting foods into bite size pieces during preparation and not at the table is unique to the Chinese culture (so one did not need any knives on the table).

The art of food was also in the eating. Sharing food with friends and family is an important part of Chinese culinary tradition. To the Chinese, food and friends are inseparable. A gathering without food is considered incomplete and improper. Confucius described that enjoyment of food as one of the beautiful and gentle things which contribute to the peace and harmony of society.

Confucius taught that while maintaining the itegrity of the individual food it is important to blend taste and textures and the use of condiments to give the palette the whole experience. He also stressed the use of color and aroma in the presentation of the dish.

Most certainly Confucianism helped elevate cooking from a daily and repetitive task to a satisfying art form.

Taoism

Taoism emerged in 500 B.C. and shaped Chinese cuisine by emphasizing the need to study the life giving properties of food. Taoism studied the effects (both physical and psychological) of foods and prepared dishes. It concerned itself with the nourishment of the body, prevention of disease and the search for longevity.

Over the centuries the Chinese have studied plants, roots, herbs, fungus and seeds to find their healthful properties. They discovered their medicinal value and how not to destroy this value during cooking. They explored seasonal cooking and understood the elements found in each ingredient.

Their contributions have resulted in Chinese cuisine embracing lots of vegetables, grains, herbs and cooking with little fat. Traditional Chinese cuisine is low-calorie and low-fat. Food is cooked using poly-unsaturated oils, and milk, cream, butter and cheese are avoided. Meats are used as flavorings and condiments and seasonings are used to satisfy the taste buds.

Answer 2

There're many kinds of Chinese traditional food which further classified by eight main schools. some representative dishes are squirrel fish, twice cooked pork and whole goat roasted

Answer 3

When you think of Chinese food you think of rice, and rice was the first grain that was farmed in China. There is archaeological evidence of rice farming along the Yang-tse River as early as about 5000 BC. People cooked rice by boiling it in water, the way they do today. Or they made it into wine. Rice wine has been popular in China since prehistory.

But rice doesn't grow in northern China, which is much drier and colder. People in northern China gathered wild millet and sorghum instead. By 4500 BC, people in northern China were farming millet. They ate it boiled into a kind of porridge.

Another food people associate with China is tea. Tea grows wild in China. By about 3000 BC (or it could be much earlier), people in China had begun to drink tea. Soon everybody drank tea.

Wheat was not native to China, so it took much longer to reach China. People in northern China first began to eat wheat in the Shang Dynasty, about 1500 BC. Wheat was not native to China, but people brought it to China from West Asia. People in China boiled it like millet, to make something like Cream of Wheat.

These were the main foods of China - rice, millet, sorghum, and wheat. In northern China, people mostly ate millet, wheat, and sorghum. In southern China, people mostly ate rice. Poor people ate almost nothing but these foods.


When people could afford it, they bought or grew vegetables to put on their rice. Soybeans, for instance, are native to China. So are cucumbers. For fruits, the Chinese had oranges and lemons, peaches and apricots. The native flavorings are ginger and anise (Americans use anise to make licorice).

On special occasions, people also put little pieces of meat on their rice. By 5500 BC, the Chinese were eating domesticated chicken, which came originally from Thailand. By 4000 or 3000 BC, they were eating pork, which was native to China. Sheep and cattle, which were not native, reached China from West Asia also around 4000 BC.

Since meat was so expensive, and because Buddhists didn't eat meat, starting around the Sung Dynasty (about 1000 AD) people also put tofu, or bean curd, in their food as a source of protein.

Because China doesn't have big forests, it was always hard to find fuel to cook with. Chinese people learned to cut up their food very small, so it would cook quickly on a very small fire.

During the Han Dynasty, millet wine became very popular and was even more popular to drink than tea. Also beginning in the Han Dynasty, about 100 AD, Chinese people began to make their wheat and rice into long noodles.

Marco Polo, a visitor to China from Venice, wrote that by the time of Kublai Khan, about 1200 AD, Chinese people ate millet boiled in milk to make porridge. Even as late as 1200 AD, Chinese people did not bake bread.

ancient chinese food recipes:

http://www.grouprecipes.com/s/ancient-chinese-food/recipe/1/relevancy

Answer 4

I know only chowmin

Answer 5

there u go