Huya
The book Huya ( Chinese湖 雅 "Fine from Hu", ie from the city of Huzhou in Zhejiang , China ) was written by Wang Rizhen王 日 桢 (1813–81) during the Qing Dynasty . It is a compendium on realism and high material culture of the region of Huzhou (Zhejiang Province), which describes the most diverse raw materials and products of this area. It was completed in 1872 and first printed in 1877.
It is a prime source on the history of Chinese food and drink culture.
While most of the products produced there are generally also named in other plants, Chapter 8 provides important information on the preparation methods of the regional cuisine of Zhejiang in this part of the province during the Manchu dynasty, in particular on fermentation methods (zaoniang 造 酿) and Fine steamed products made from wheat flour and rice or glutinous rice as well as pan-fried pastries (and everything else that is hidden behind the broad Chinese term bing'er 饼饵) and exquisite porridge dishes (zhoufan 粥 饭). Over 100 different foods are covered in this chapter.
His descriptions of the production of the diverse bean curd products (i.e. products made from processed bean curd) show that the variety and sophistication of fermented and unfermented Chinese bean curd products and their terminology can only be vaguely imagined from Western representations. This is due, among other things, to the fact that the western specialist literature is mostly influenced by the Japanese or Japanese-influenced tofu culture and literature, which is shaped by completely different ideals in terms of taste and aesthetics, as the word tofu , borrowed from Japanese, already indicates.
Note on the book title
The book title Huya , which is composed of the two characters 湖 (hu) and 雅 (ya) and which we have translated as “Feines aus Hu”, refers to the city of Huzhou in Zhejiang on the one hand, and to the word ya , like it, on the other in other book titles - such as B. Erya yi , Piya etc. - is used and that means "delicacy, elegance".
Footnotes
- ↑ Needham / Huang ( Fermentations and Food Science , Cambridge 2000) translates as “Lakeside Elegance” and dates the work to approx. 1850
expenditure
First printed in 1877 of the Guangxu era, it was included in the modern Japanese book collection Chugoku shokkei sosho on ancient Chinese culinary art.
literature
- Zhongguo pengren wenxian tiyao . No. 124
- Zhongguo pengren cidian . P. 665.
- Zhongguo pengren baike quanshu . P. 243.
- Hsing-Tsung Huang: Fermentations and Food Science. edited by Joseph Needham. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-65270-7 . (Part 5 of Biology and Biological Technology , Volume 6 of Science and Civilization in China )
See also
List of sources on the history of Chinese food and drink culture