Investigation Of Agricultural Product Processing Recorded In Qi Min Yao Shu

As the earliest and most complete agricultural monograph preserved in China at present, Qi Min Yao Shu A Manual of the Important Arts for Ordinary People is not only the most influential agricultural book, but also one of the earliest and most systematic agricultural literature in the world. Jia Sixie compiled the book with the agricultural product processing ways as main contents, through both extensively collecting and reviewing from the ordinary people and various recordation and continuously testing and inventing new techniques by his own. Therefore, Qi Min Yao Shu have been a historic literature with practical, profound contents and true, reliable materials, which reflected the real situations of processing techniques of the agricultural products at that time.In the present paper, along with illustrating the status of society and economy, general conditions of production and consumption of agricultural products in Wei, Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the agricultural product processing techniques were employed as the main subjects by classifying the agricultural products to three groups, grain crops, vegetable and fruits, livestock products and aquatic products. First of all, the raw processing and advanced processing for grain crops and various processing methods for principal foods and other auxiliary dishes were completely reviewed. Secondly, the processing techniques of drying and making pickle for vegetables and fruits were studied. Thirdly, the techniques of processing and cooking for livestock products and aquatic products were systematically explored. At last, the agricultural advanced processing techniques, especially fermentation by making use of various enzymes and microorganisms, to produce soy sauce, vinegar, fermented soy beans, sugar, wine, soy juice, cheese, were deeply investigated. On the basis of systematically collecting historical literatures, the present study on the agricultural processing techniques in Qi Min Yao Shu completely discussed the status of developing and processing agricultural products, processing methods and procedures and achievements and then quantitatively analyzed various references. Combining with themodern processing mechanisms for the agricultural products and knowledge of food science and microbiology that the writer mastered, some new and creative opinions were put forward in the present study.In the part of processing of grain corps, the techniques for removing the hull and milling the materials to powder, and different kinds of methods for making various rice, cake, noodle, boiled cake, fried cake, rice cake, rice dumpling were discussed. Firstly, the characteristics of various processing tools such as mortar, stone pestle, pestle, and stone mill for grain crops and their effects on the agricultural products were illustrated. Combining above tools with sieves, fine rice and flour could be produced. Furthermore, on view of powers used in the processing techniques, the situation of using mortar, pestle driving by foot-operation, livestock power or waterpower, and mill were analyzed, which could draw a conclusion that using the power of livestock and water to drive the pestle not only gradually liberated the labor force from the onerous grain-processing, but also promoted the processing quality and quantity. However, the application of the water- or livestock-drove pestle was limited by the natural conditions. Relatively, the foot-operating pestle that could save labor force to some extent had been more widely applied. Therefore, the changing of driving power, the innovation of the processing tools had a vast influence on the processing techniques of grain crops, which had not ceased in use until the introduction of milling machine for making rice and powder in the nineteen century. The reformation of processing hardware must have result in the fundamental changes in the food used the rice and flour as raw materials, which mainly brought about increasing the types of food and varieties of processing techniques. There were about 15 kinds of cakes and nood...