Research On Huizhou Diet During Ming And Qing Dynasties

Accompany with the overall maturity of the Chinese diet,the content of the diet in Huizhou became constantly abundant,the performance of the local characteristics was more prominent at the same time.The main content of Huizhou diet can be devided into the following three parts:stable food,non-stable food,beverages and spices.Meat and vegetable were the main non-stable food.Pork,fish,poultry meat were eaten relatively frequently.Meat was too expensive for normal people that they could barely afford it. There were a variety of vegetables and fruits in Huizhou.The price was much cheaper and the taste was pretty good which made them the most common food in Huizhou.There was a wide variety of pastry produced in Huizhou.They tasted delicious, the name of them were elegant,so that they were deeply loved by people and appeared in the daily diet with extremely high frequency.Drinks were mainly tea and wine.There was a various of spices.They were widely used in the normal life.Dry,salty processing,smoking processing,bake and many other similar processing were widely used for prolong the shelf life of food.The special delicious taste thus produced.The cooking methods in Huizhou area were mainly frying, roasting, stewing, steaming, warming, baking and so on.The customs of Huizhou diet had outstanding features.Restricted by the planting environment, the problem of lacking food existed in Huizhou area for a long time.Grain gap in Huizhou region was a strong restriction factor of Huizhou diet,the diet customs bred from this.People in Huizhou alleviated the food problem by transporting foodstuff from out of Huizhou and mutual assistance in all areas,surplus accumulation,going out for business,taking the coarse cereals and vegetable as supplement.There were roughly three aspects of the diet in Huizhou-firstly,the offering in the sacrifice.Secondly,the food in the festival celebration.Thirdly,the daily diet.The food appeared in the sacrifice and the festival celebration provided a lot of help for the promotion of the cooking skills and the rich of the content of daily dietThe whole food system shaped on the above.In addition to the basic survival needs of people, food and drinks played important roles in the consolidation of clan rules in Huizhou.It was an essential part in salvation,winning people’s support and adjusting the feast atmosphere.Food and drinks was a reflect of social custom,it also had an essential impact on the development of social custom. Social custom changed accompanied by the diet which was becoming gradually extravagant.Food and drinks could also be the medium for educating the clansmen by setting rules in table manners,attitude towards the elder and the way to support their elder family members.Attitude against the murder was an inevitable result of social development and progress.It was also an indispensable element in social relationship.Literati were always drinking and creating poem together.Normal people entertained their guests.Food and drinks were bridges in these activities.The contradictory opinion of the wine was an reflect on the conflict between reason and emotion, norm and real life.Besides,food and drinks were playing their function all the time-they entertained people with the basic properties.The paper described the formation background of the food structure by analysis of the food problem and custom in Huizhou in chapter one.In chapter two,the diet will be divided into five parts:grain and coarse cereals,meet,fruit and vegetable,pastry,beverages and condiments.The concrete content of the diet will be discussed,the processing technology and cooking method will be involved as well.Chapter three will focus on the social function of food and drinks,including consolidating the clan rules,affecting social customs,promoting social activities and entertaining people.