Chang 'an people often eat two staple foods on weekdays, one is cake and the other is rice. First of all, it must be stated that cakes in the Tang Dynasty and cakes in the modern sense are two concepts. They call most shaped pasta "cakes" and there are countless forms. There are only dozens of kinds of Hu cakes, steamed cakes, pancakes, soup cakes, cakes and sugar cakes recorded in the literature.
Among them, Hu Bing is the most popular. Hu cake is a kind of baked pasta. As soon as you hear the name, you know it was introduced from the western regions. People also like to add sesame seeds to it, so it is also called sesame cake, which tastes "crisp and oily". You can buy this kind of pasta in any restaurant in Chang 'an.
Of course, it's a bit extravagant for you to eat in a restaurant every day. You might as well cook it at home. You can refer to the barbecue in Xinjiang today. You can also add other fillings according to your own taste. For example, rich people usually make a kind of Hu cake called "Gu Lou Zi", which is described in "Tang Yulin": "Take a catty of mutton, spread it on a giant Hu cake with pepper and black beans in the middle, and moisten it until it is crisp", and then put it in the oven for baking. This kind of cake is not small. You can eat alone for several days. Of course, it doesn't matter if you think it's easy to get angry when you eat baked Hu cakes every day. We can also eat steamed cakes.
Steamed cakes existed in the Han Dynasty. The ancients called all steamed pasta steamed cakes. For example, our steamed buns are steamed cakes. In the Tang Dynasty, steamed cakes with stuffing were also called cage cakes. Just like the steamed stuffed bun shop now, Chang 'an people also have fixed shops and mobile vendors who specialize in selling this.
Not only is it popular among the people, steamed cakes are also a common royal food in the palace, but the ingredients are more exquisite than ordinary people. For example, Tang Dezong likes to eat steamed cakes, hence the name "pointed steamed bread". This kind of stuffing is not eaten by ordinary people, but people use bear oil, that is, "bear-killing" and venison. Where's the deer? As an ordinary Chang 'an Piao, let's eat steamed cakes with pork stuffing.
In addition, people in the Tang Dynasty often ate a kind of pasta called soup cake, which refers to our noodles or noodle soup today. The practice is to hold the prepared dough in your hand, tear it into pieces and cook it in a pot, which is also called "asking for cakes" and "cooking cakes". Chang 'an people are good at eating. Don't think that all kinds of noodles today were invented by later generations. Many kinds of noodles have been around since 1000 years ago, such as duck flower soup cake, ginger soup cake, mutton soup cake and so on. Including longevity noodles that must be eaten on birthdays, others also have them.
In addition, there are cold noodles, which were called "cold scouring" at that time and also appeared in the Tang Dynasty. It is said that it was invented by Wu Zetian. The most popular cold scouring in Chang 'an also belongs to Sophora japonica leaf cold scouring. The specific method is also introduced in my series of articles "Anecdotes on the Supply of Mountain Rooms with Clear Codes", and interested friends can also have a look.
After eating so many cakes, let's have a change, for example, to have a meal. Don't think that northerners only like pasta, because rice was the original staple food of their ancestors. What do Chang 'an people like to eat? There are also a wide range of varieties, including corn rice, rice, carved rice, and polished rice for cultivating immortals and monasteries.
Xiaomi, which is now Xiaomi. This is a very old food, domesticated and planted by our ancestors as early as the Neolithic Age. In the Tang Dynasty, it was still the most common meal for ordinary people, but the grain processing in ancient times was very rough, unlike the millet we eat today, which was carefully crafted, so the millet at that time, that is, the outermost husk, was worn off and tasted very rough. Coarse millet is also called bran food.
So luxury people don't like it very much. What do people eat? For example, there is "crystal rice", which is specially made for the emperor. It must be cooked crystal clear to be qualified. I don't know the specific method and I haven't tasted it. Some modern restaurants also serve similar rice. As for whether it is genuine or not, it's hard to say.
Back to the topic, as a northern drifter, we can't count on those precious jade foods. Have some simple tea and light rice honestly. If you think that dry eating such as corn rice and rice is too monotonous, you can also follow others' example and make it into "water rice" and "vegetable rice", which is what we now call soup-soaked rice and vegetable-soaked rice, or add seasoning to cook rice porridge.
All right, enough with the staple food. There are many delicious foods here, such as wonton and jiaozi, and all kinds of cakes, such as Yu Liang cake, Chongyang cake, crystal dragon and phoenix cake, and folded goose cake. There are many pastry workshops in Chang 'an, which will ensure that you have enough to eat and time is limited. I won't go into details one by one. Take your time to explore.