What did the people in the Tang Dynasty eat?

During the Han and Tang Dynasties, the Central Plains introduced many kinds of vegetables and fruits, such as alfalfa, spinach, Brassica, gourd, beans, garlic and coriander, grapes, almonds, watermelons and pomegranates, as well as spices such as pepper and sugar, through exchanges with ethnic minorities in the northwest. At the same time, the cooking methods of the western regions were also introduced to the Central Plains, such as cheese, Hu cake, Qiang cooking and baking, Hu roasted meat, Hu soup, mutton sausage and so on. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, various Hu foods introduced from the Han Dynasty gradually spread in the Yellow River valley and were loved by the majority of Han people, among which the cooking method of "Qiang cooking and roasting" was the most typical. The so-called "Qiang cooking" means cooking or rinsing sheep and venison; Braised pork is similar to roasted whole sheep.

The most peculiar food in the Tang Dynasty is "Hu Cai", which comes from the Han people's views on food imported from the western regions. There were many kinds of Hu foods in the Tang Dynasty, such as noodles, beer and Hu cakes. Crab is a kind of fried bread. The word Robbie comes from Persian. Generally speaking, it refers to a kind of food with flour as the skin and stuffing, steamed or baked. In the Tang Dynasty, there were many restaurants operating Robbie in Chang 'an, including crab roe Robbie, pig liver Robbie and sheep kidney Robbie. Hu cake is a sesame cake with meat in the middle.

Popular foods include 1,000 yuan, black chicken soup, Huangpi mutton, vinegar celery, miscellaneous cakes, century-old soup, duck feet soup, unitary soup, apricot cheese, goat cheese, Huang Er, Hale, rice, green rice, boiled rice, zongzi, windbreak porridge, fairy porridge, wheat rice, cold washed Sophora leaves and muffins. The production of these foods is very distinctive, which fully embodies the colorful dietary customs and superb cooking level in the Tang Dynasty. "Qianjin Yuan" is a dietotherapy product initiated by the great medical scientist Sun Simiao. It is made of ball-shaped soybean sprouts, which can be taken by women in the late pregnancy to facilitate delivery. "Black hen soup" is the black chicken soup that is often said today. Chicken with black hair, black meat and black bones is selected as the top grade. "Huangpi Mutton" is made of Chinese herbal medicine Huangqi and mutton, which is a patent for the elderly, the weak and the sick to invigorate qi and nourish the stomach. "Vinegar celery" is a mixed cake made by pickling celery into sauerkraut and mixing it with five flavors. It is also a production method suggested by Sun Simiao, that is, pork belly and pork intestines are filled with starch and minced meat to prepare flavoring drugs such as pepper, fennel and cinnamon. Later, the shopkeeper hung the medicine gourd donated by Sun Simiao at the door of the store, and the miscellaneous cake also had a common name, called "Hulutou." "Hundred Years Soup" is shepherd's purse soup, which is said to have the effect of prolonging life, so people like to drink it. Duck feet soup is sunflower soup, because people called sunflower leaves "duck feet" in the Tang Dynasty, so it was called "duck feet soup." "unitary soup" is chicken soup, which comes from the ranking of chickens on the twelfth birthday. "Almond cheese" is almond cream, which can be regarded as a popular drink. Huang Er is a kind of steamed bread made of yellow rice flour and jujube. Hale is a kind of steamed bread made of buckwheat flour and jujube. Huang Liang rice is made of millet. Green rice is mashed with branches and leaves of a shrub in Ericaceae to make juice. It is used to soak rice, steam it and dry it, and the rice turns blue. Taoist priests said that this kind of rice was nourishing, so everyone rushed to eat it, making green rice a regular food at that time. "Cold Pottery with Sophora leaves" is a summer food and a kind of pasta.