Taste And Odor: Medieval Food And Regional Culture Research

Diet is the natural instincts of mankind.At all times and in all countries,food is the most fundamental material condition for human survival.Under the special historical background of the middle ancient times,the catering culture in the North and the South areas showed great differences.This difference was not only caused by the different resource endowments of the two places,but also by the different cultural concepts of the two places.Under the guidance of their own cultural concepts,the North and the South have obvious differences in the choice of meat,grain and drink.The first part,taking meat as point of penetration,carding the history and general situation of early sacrificial and sacrificial animals,the use of animals in the ritual system,as well as the role of early sacrificial and sacrificial animals in shaping and forming the ritual paradigm,so as to demonstrate the " orthodox flavor " identity of five animals——cattle,sheep,dogs,pigs,chickens in the ritual system.The Northern region is the cradle of the formation of etiquette,so it has a significant impact on the choice of food in the Northern region.Under the influence of the etiquette,the Northern region has formed such a "etiquette and orthodox" dietary habits with five animals as the basic meat.In contrast,there were abundant food resources in the early Southern region,and lack of norms of etiquette for a long time.Therefore,they formed a diet habit of "all tastes are heterodox".In the second part,taking the main grain as the breakthrough point;the author investigated the concept of rice in the north and the concept of wheat in the south in the middle ancient times,and found that the northern region basically accepted and recognized the rice with "Southern attribute" for two reasons:first,because of the rice planting tradition in the north since ancient times,the northern region has a long history of rice farming It has covered up the original Southern attribute of rice,making people in the North unconsciously accept rice.The southern region’s attitude towards wheat farming is constantly fluctuating,sometimes recognizing,sometimes not recognizing.The reason is that wheat farming in the south is closely related to the southward migration of the northerners.When the northerners first arrived in the south,they still insisted on their own inherent recognition of the northern food,so they actively planted wheat with the support of the government and the consciousness of individuals.However,as their descendants gradually became indigenous people And then their recognition of wheat disappeared.The third part,taking drinks as the research point,investigates the dispute between tea and cheese in the Southern and Northern Dynasties,and reveals that the essence of the dispute is not the taste preference,but the regional and orthodox disputes of the divided Northern and Southern regimes.In fact,the dispute between tea and cheese is a reflection of the "orthodox flavor " debate about food in the Northern and Southern Dynasties.After the middle Tang Dynasty,Buddhism and Taoism advocated tea drinking,which created a" orthodox flavor " identity for tea,therefore it enter the North,and tea culture has been integrated into the orthodox culture,and has been inherited and continued.On the basis of a large number of descriptive studies on the diet in the middle ancient times,this paper studies and interprets it from the perspective of cultural concepts in order to provide a new research perspective on the diet culture in the middle ancient society through the combination of material history and ideological history.