Tang Dynasty Crossing Guide: Chang'an and People's Life Manual

Chapter 10 How to be a qualified foodie in the Tang Dynasty (5)
Dr. Liquor wandered over and looked at you first. Seeing that you were dressed in ordinary clothes, he opened his mouth to announce the kind of alcoholic products that are close to the people: "Liquor and sake are available in all small shops."

Liquor?Moutai or Wuliangye?Sake?Imported from Japan?Hey, what do you think, guest?Really, in order to let you have an intuitive understanding of these two common wines in the Tang Dynasty, let us first have a jar of each.

Pat on the shoulder, it's okay, a pot of wine can't kill you, really.The cheapest white wine was served first. Dr. Kaifeng scooped out the wine with a wooden spoon and poured it into the wine bowl in front of you. You took a closer look and couldn't help shouting: "What is this?"

I saw the liquid in the wine bowl, which was light green in color, not only cloudy, but also had a layer of white, ant-like floating objects floating on it.Smell, slightly boozy, but probably also slightly rancid.Guest, please don't frown and cover your nose with a look of disgust, okay?This kind of baijiu was very famous in all dynasties after the Tang Dynasty, because it was advertised by great poets.

Green Ant New Distillery, red clay small stove.

It's like snow in the evening, can you have a drink? ①
If you still think that the name of baijiu is too foolish, and the name of green ant wine is too uncommon, then this kind of wine has another more popular name called "turbid wine".

"A cup of turbid wine goes thousands of miles away, and Yan Ran is not reined in. There is no way to return. Qiang pipes are long and frosty all over the ground." ② "A pot of turbid wine is happy to meet. There are many things in ancient and modern times, and they are all laughed and talked about." ③ "Although there is no waste of money, You can rely on chatting with dirty wine." ④
You just ask, why did literati in the past dynasties like wine with such a bad appearance?The reason is simple, it's cheap.

In fact, restaurants and hotels with higher grades may not prepare this kind of wine, and more "dirty wine" is brewed at home as a daily drink.The method is very simple, you also come to learn it.

The first step is to make distiller's yeast.This is something similar to baking powder.You can buy it from outside or borrow it from neighbors, or make it with some alcohol and medicine left at home.Every year in June and July, use japonica rice or millet, mix it with wine and medicine, mash it, mix it with hot water into a cake shape, put it in a clean place, control the temperature and humidity to let it ferment slowly, and after the fermentation reaches a certain level, tie it up and hang it Hanging on the stove to smoke, it can be stored for a long time.

The second step is feeding.Wash the large wine urn, put in the koji, rice and water, the ratio is roughly controlled at 1:10:10, that is, if you want to use 1 bucket of koji, add 1 shi of rice and 1 shi of water at the same time.According to the requirements of the wine quality, the dosage can be increased or decreased within a certain range. For example, if you want the wine to be brewed to be richer, then add less water, more koji, and more rice.

The third step is to open the altar.How long does it take for the koji, rice, and water to ferment in the urn?It is also based on personal requirements. If you are impatient and want to drink after making wine, after six or seven days of sealing the wine, you can open the altar and get the wine even if you are so-so.However, the wine poured out in this way can only be the "turbid wine" you saw in the hotel above, with low alcohol content, poor selling price, very cheap, and very fake.

If you can hold your breath and wait two or three months before picking up the wine, it will be much clearer and have a higher alcohol content.But don't pour it directly, if you want to get more advanced wine, you have to go through several processing procedures.

The fourth step is to add ash.On the day before opening the altar to take the wine, pour a small amount of lime, coal, plant ash and the like into the jar, this is to end the microbial fermentation process in the altar.Otherwise, after the wine is taken out, it will continue to ferment, and it will easily become rancid.

The fifth step is to press the wine.This is to separate out those floating lees in the liquor.Use wooden wine beds, trough beds or bamboo utensils, or even use your own headscarf to pour the original wine liquid in the urn into it, and the clear and impurity-free part that is filtered out is "sake".Don't pour out the remaining thick liquid full of distiller's grains. It can be used to process food, or it can be drunk as "turbid wine".

The sixth step, guests, don't rush to drink, the wine made in this way is called raw wine.It’s fine if you can drink it all in one meal, but if you can’t finish it and keep it, there is still a danger of it becoming rancid, and you may have diarrhea if you drink it, so in the end, these wines still need to be heated to sterilize them.There are two heating methods: high temperature heating and low temperature heating.Heating at high temperature is also called "cooking wine". Do you hear this word familiar?Two big men sat opposite each other, talking about the heroes of the world, and boiled the wine on the fire until it was bubbling... However, the taste of this boiled wine was said to be very mutated, and many people in the Tang Dynasty did not like it.

①From Bai Juyi's "Ask Liu Nineteen".

②From Fan Zhongyan's "Fisherman's Pride".

③From Yang Shen's "Linjiang Fairy".It is also the opening line of the novel "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

④From Tao Yuanming's "Drinking Wine".

People in the Tang Dynasty liked "shochu" more, which is to use a low fire to cook slowly. It is enough to heat the raw wine to [-] to [-] degrees Celsius.The wine finally made in this way is called "Shaochun", and the most famous wine produced in Sichuan in the Tang Dynasty is called "Jiannan Shaochun".

Now I understand, the baijiu that the hotel doctor told you is "turbid wine", a cheap product similar to the current fermented glutinous rice and low alcohol content.As for sake, it is processed grain wine after filtering the "turbid wine". The alcohol content is slightly higher and the price is also slightly more expensive.

However, the non-nominated sake is mostly self-brewed by the store, and the price is limited, and the alcohol content is probably not as high as modern beer, so I say that you can drink a jar without any problem.

If you want to save face with your friends, friends and beauties to drink, then you don't want these two kinds of cheap wine.Glancing at the doctor, he asked him to report all the good wines in the store. If the store is too small and poor, then I can go to another one to drink.

When the doctor saw that the riveting was done, he didn't show weakness. He opened his mouth and said a long list: "Small shops include Yingzhou Fushui, Wucheng Ruoxia, Xingyang Tukuchun, Fuping Shidongchun, Jiannan Shaochun, Hedonggan and Grape, Lingnan Lingxi Boluo, Yicheng Jiuyun, Xunyang River, and Qidilu Wine. If guests like fine wines from the capital, we also have Xishiqiang, Xinfeng Wine, Langguan Qing and Grandma Qing from Xiamaling.”

Obsessed?It's normal, who can remember so many things from South China Sea to North China this day.So which wine should you order?Generally speaking, if you want to drink sake made from rice, it is safer to order Fushui, Wucheng Ruoxia, Lingnan Lingxi Boluo, and Yicheng Jiuyun, which are originally from the south of the country; drink sorghum wine For millet wine, order Lu wine or Chang'an's local Xishiqiang, Xinfeng wine, Langguanqing, and grandma.

Once the wine is served and poured into the bowl, how can you tell whether it is good or bad, and whether it is worth the extra money you paid?
The easiest way is to look at the color.There was no aseptic workshop in the Tang Dynasty. During the brewing process, various microorganisms often mixed into the wine, causing the wine to turn green after it came out. This is where the name of the wine "Zhuyeqing" came from. So what are green ants and green fermented grains? It all shows that the wine-making environment is average, the operation is not careful, and most of the green wine is cheap.

If the producer pays more attention to maintaining the purity of the koji and liquor during the wine making process, then the koji will be red while the liquor will be yellow, and the best one will be amber, which is relatively close to modern rice wine.Bai Juyi said: "Yellow fermented wine is a good thing in the world." ① There is a more famous poem that everyone can recite: "Lanling fine wine and tulips, and amber light from jade bowls."②
Very good, the bowl of wine in front of you is faintly amber in color, looks viscous and greasy, and may hang on the wall.Pick up the bowl and try it.

Hmm... It doesn't feel spicy and exciting, but rather sweet.You say this is fake wine mixed with saccharine?

Hey, don't lift the table, listen to me, as a modern person, the kind of high-strength liquor you are used to, which is often [-] to [-] degrees, is made by distillation. This technology was not introduced until the Yuan Dynasty.Prior to this, the wine with the highest alcohol content in the Tang and Song Dynasties would not exceed [-] degrees.Most of the wine-making grains that undergo a chemical reaction with koji are saccharified, and only a small amount can continue to be saccharified after saccharification. Therefore, the main taste of Tang Dynasty wine is sweet, not spicy.

The reason why the "Eight Immortals in Drinking" represented by Li Bai drink ten beers in draft beer cups is mainly not to test their liver function, but to test their stomach capacity.

You still feel weird, can't drink this sweet wine, and want to drink something close to the modern taste?It's okay, call the doctor over again and ask him to serve you a jar of "Hedong Dried and Grapes".

what is this?This is the petty bourgeoisie's favorite red wine with a glass of thirteen.

The introduction of wine into the ancient Central Plains can be traced back to Zhang Qian's introduction to the Western Regions in the Western Han Dynasty.But before the Tang Dynasty, people in the Central Plains did not know how to make wine themselves, so they could only import finished wine from the Western Regions, which was very expensive and unavailable to ordinary people.

①From Bai Juyi's "Tasting the New Fermentation of Yellow Fermentation and Reminiscing about Weizhi".

②From Li Bai's "Ke Zhong Zuo".

At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the Tang army opened the Western Regions and established the Gaochang State, which is now the Turpan region, as a state of the Tang Dynasty. At the same time, the local specialty Masuizi grape and wine-making technology were introduced to the Central Plains.

Under the kind care of Tian Khan, craftsmen of the Tang Dynasty successfully brewed wine in the interior, and achieved large-scale production.Probably because of the geography and climate, the Hedong region (now the south-central part of Shanxi Province) at that time became the concentrated production area of ​​inland wine. Since then, "Hedong Ganhe Grape" has become famous all over the world, and it is a royal tribute wine.

The common wine in the Tang Dynasty is almost the same.In addition to grain wine and wine, Tang Dynasty people, like many modern people, like to soak various medicinal materials in grain wine, claiming that drinking it can nourish and preserve health.Chrysanthemum wine, turpentine wine, tiger bone wine, raw snake wine...even chicken dung wine, pig cream wine, pig gall bitter wine, owl wine...

A customer over there protested, saying that he was allergic to alcohol, and he could not drink alcohol with a lower alcohol content, otherwise he would go into anaphylactic shock and get an epinephrine injection for him.OK, we'll just order some non-alcoholic drinks for you.

At a modern dinner, when the host is about to pour strong alcohol on the male guests, he will also ask the female guests, "What drink? Yogurt or fruit juice?"

The non-alcoholic beverages on the table for the hosts of the Tang Dynasty also fell into these two categories: dairy products, fruit drinks, and other plant-based drinks.

The "yogurt" in the Tang Dynasty is generally called cheese, which is made from the milk of cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock through processing.According to different processing methods, the finished products also have different names such as crisp, cheese, and daigo.Dairy products were common and popular in the Tang Dynasty, especially in the northern regions.The so-called "Only Chinese people in the world do not have the habit of eating dairy products" did not hold true in the Tang Dynasty.

There are many names for fruit drinks. Generally, they are called ebony pulp, grape pulp, peach pulp, etc. according to the raw materials used to squeeze the juice.Cane pulp was the most popular at that time. The juice squeezed from sugarcane was not only very common in the south, but also used as a home-cooked drink in northern regions like Chang'an.There is also a kind of sanle pulp made from rare Nanyang fruit, which has been very popular for a while.

Finally, the summer in Chang'an is very hot, and iced Coke... um, iced drinks are quite popular.There are special officials in the royal family who are responsible for storing ice in winter and collecting ice in summer according to the express regulations; ordinary noble ministers often make their own ice cellars, and the emperor often gives ice to ministers in summer.Even in the Chang'an market, there are merchants who sell ice to ordinary people. Of course, the sales are very expensive, so the poor should not expect extravagant expectations.

References & in-depth understanding recommendations for this article:
Wang Saishi. Diet of the Tang Dynasty. Jinan: Qilu Publishing House, 2003
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