First appeared a long-term expensive "hard currency" spicy ingredient: pepper.
For example, in the Tang Dynasty, peppers were particularly popular. Many rich people exchange their property for pepper to preserve their value. When Yuan Zai, a corrupt official in the Tang Dynasty, fell off his horse, 800 stones were found at home for pepper alone, and saving pepper was equivalent to saving money. Even some dynasties paid wages directly with peppers. During the period from Hongwu to Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty, the salaries of officials and frontier soldiers were often capped with peppers. Even during the reign of Ming Yingzong, Beijing officials took pepper for half a year, and every time they told everyone to carry it home with joy. "Market reputation" is far more than large bills.
Compared with this local pepper, a spicy food originated in China is the favorite seasoning of thousands of families since ancient times: mustard.
Like mustard, there is also a spicy food that spread all over the country in ancient times, which was written into a famous poem by the great poet Wang Wei: Cornus officinalis. Yes, it is the "Cornus officinalis" that Wang Wei remembered when he wrote "One person is missing from Cornus officinalis" with tears in his eyes.
Cornus officinalis is another important medicinal food in ancient China, which was produced in northern and southern provinces of China. In the Tang Dynasty, its value was not only the ingredients. When people in the Tang Dynasty climbed mountains on the Double Ninth Festival, they all wore dogwood bags with dogwood on their arms. The sentence "one person is missing from the dogwood" means how much I miss the person I love.
It is worth mentioning that according to Chen Zangqi, the bark of the ancient dogwood tree has bactericidal function. When ordinary people brush their teeth and gargle, they often chew a piece of dogwood bark, which can not only clean the mouth, but also sterilize and relieve pain. It's ancient household toothpaste. This plant is full of treasures.
In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this kind of "cornus of Shushan" developed into an exclusive Chili sauce-spicy rice wine. Compendium of Materia Medica records its making method, and even describes its taste: "It's spicy and can be eaten". This unique condiment is still popular in many areas of southwest China. There is a kind of sauce made by Cornus officinalis in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, called "Spicy Tiger". Do locals want to eat spicy food every day? This is also the first choice.
The evolution of spicy ingredients is actually a microcosm of the changes of ancient catering culture in China. These ingredients, which were extremely popular thousands of years ago, are memorable in the history and culture of China, whether they are still popular today or not.
Pepper is expensive, for one thing, because there is too much demand, and for another, because the output is too small. In fact, peppers are also imported. During the Western Han Dynasty, pepper was introduced into China, which set off a pepper fever. At that time, there was a "pepper room", which said that the emperor painted his wife's walls with pepper mixed with white paste mud, the nobles used pepper mixed with heavy incense to smoke clothes, and the bureaucrats had to put a pepper, a fresh breath and an aphrodisiac before going to court.
There was such a thing in the Tang Dynasty: some officials' homes were robbed, and besides gold, silver and jewels, thousands of pounds of peppers were also taken away. This is because peppers are expensive and resistant to storage. Storing peppers is like storing gold bars.
China is not the only country that loves chili peppers. Europeans are more obsessed with peppers and the price is more expensive. At that time, Arabs imported pepper from India, shipped it to Egypt and sold it to Italians in Egypt, and then Italians shipped it to Venice and sold it to retailers everywhere. The distance is long and the freight is high. After several twists and turns and price increases, the retail price of peppers in Europe is almost the same as that of gold. Even when Columbus went to sea, pepper was a great stimulus. Focusing on the huge profits from selling pepper, he tried to open up a new channel to India and reduce the cost of importing pepper and other precious spices. 1492, he crossed the Atlantic, arrived in America and discovered the new continent. As a result, he found pepper instead of pepper.
America was the first place to grow and eat peppers, but Columbus had never seen peppers. He thought that America was India and pepper was pepper, so he was very excited about the high yield of pepper and brought the seeds back to Europe and planted them around the Mediterranean. In the following centuries, Europeans introduced pepper to other continents.