Is it sweet? natural instinct
So-called? Things have no definite taste, but what is palatable is precious? Sweetness is the first taste that people accept after birth. Fetal taste has not yet formed, swallowing sweet amniotic fluid, baby tastes breast milk is sweet, and children chew rice is also sweet. Human beings love sweetness, leaving a deep memory reflection, which will accompany them all their lives.
Studies have shown that sweets will be produced in the body after ingestion? Dominoes? The type of happiness. When people taste sweets, dopamine neurons in the brain are activated, secreting opioids similar to morphine, stimulating the brain to feel excited and further enhancing the desire for sweets. Sugar enters the body, and the accumulated blood sugar promotes insulin secretion and converts blood sugar into energy. As a result of this process, the human body feels excited. Because of this, nei? Is it sweet? Instinctively driven, produce a strong spiritual pleasure.
Every place has streams from all over the country.
Jiangnan, named after its location, is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, covering Shanghai, southern Jiangsu, northern Zhejiang, southern Anhui and eastern Jiangxi. Topographically, the land in the north is flat and fertile, with occasional hills, and the south is divided into mountains, showing a trend of high in the south and low in the north. How many hills, plains and waters are there? Sanduo? Features.
Jiangnan, located in the mid-latitude region of the Asian continent, is close to the sea and belongs to the subtropical humid monsoon climate zone, with distinct seasons and mild climate. The local annual average temperature is l5 ~ 18℃, and the annual precipitation is l400 ~ 1600 mm, with the most rain in spring and summer, accounting for 60 ~ 80% of the annual precipitation, and the annual sunshine hours exceed 2000 hours.
Every year in late spring and early summer, the South China Sea summer monsoon rises strongly northward and joins the subtropical southwest monsoon on the northwest side of the subtropical high. Under the convergence of cold air and wind speed, the unique rainy season in Jiangnan is formed. Rainy and rainy, humid and sultry, human skin is exposed, perspiration increases, metabolism accelerates, and a lot of energy is excreted with sweat. The wet and cold climate in the south of the Yangtze River in winter intensifies the energy consumption of human body. In this regard, eating sweets is the most effective means of energy supplement, which meets the physiological needs of the human body. The local customs are the external reasons for the sweetness of Jiangnan cuisine.
Salty and sweet.
In fact, Jiangnan cuisine was equally important at first? Is it salty? , gradually turned to the Ming and Qing Dynasties? Sweet and salty? . At the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, Han Yi, a dietetician, compiled Yi Ya's Legacy and collected 49 cooking methods. It is clearly mentioned that 33 species used salt, accounting for 67.35%, and only 7 species used sugar, accounting for 14.29%, indicating that salt was still the main seasoning in the diet at that time.
The increase of sugar proportion benefited from the maturity of sugar-making technology in Ming Dynasty. According to the Book of Rites? Internal rules record:? Jujube, chestnut, pulp and honey are all sweet. ? Maltose and sucrose appeared in the Western Han Dynasty. In the 6th century A.D., Jia Sixie, an agronomist in the Northern Wei Dynasty, recorded for the first time the production process of rock sugar from juicing, frying, exposure to the sun to solidification in Qi Yaomin's Book. Five methods of sugar production are listed in the book, and their processes are basically the same as those of modern sugar production methods. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, Indian sugar boiling method was introduced to China through the Silk Road. Craftsmen learned the essence from it, improved the original technology, and improved the sweetness and brightness of white sugar and rock sugar. The whole process is famous for its sophistication and maturity, and it is in a leading position in the world.
Despite this, the output of sugar is hovering at a low level, and the price remains high. Sugar is a luxury in daily life and it is difficult to benefit the whole society. During Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty, sugarcane planting and sugar making technology made a breakthrough. Sugarcane is widely planted in Guangdong and Fujian, and the output of sucrose is increasing. The supply and demand of sugar market tend to be balanced, and the price gradually drops.
Nanzhili, mainly located in the south of the Yangtze River, has stable society, developed economy and rich people, and can pay a lot of money. Jiangnan consumes hundreds of millions of kilograms of Guangdong sugar and Fujian sugar every year, making it the largest sugar consumer in China. In the third year of Chongzhen (AD 1630), the population of Nanzhili was about 30.94 million. According to the annual sugar consumption of 65438+ 100 million Jin, the per capita sugar consumption exceeds 3 Jin, and the sugar consumption is at least 4 grams per day. In contrast, the human body's daily salt intake does not exceed 6 grams. Facts have proved that the importance of sugar is increasing day by day.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Yuan Mei, a writer, mentioned Jiangnan cuisine in "Suiyuan Menu", and sugar was widely used in cooking. ? A reporter in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China for three years? Among them, Lingxiao Xu wrote "100 Stories of the Old City", and once admitted that southerners like sweetness and eat delicious food and fruit, with sugar as the key factor. ? Today, the banquet in Suzhou still retains the tradition that dessert must be served after three courses to show respect for the guests. The popularity of boiled sugar represents the combination of sugar and daily diet in Jiangnan. The evolution of history has shaped the inevitable trend of replacing salt with sweetness.
Honey life
Jiangnan has been the main rice producing area since ancient times. When Su Hu matures, will the world be enough? Known as. Among the remains of Majiabang culture, Songze culture and Liangzhu culture, 7,000-year-old rice remains have been found successively. The cultivation of rice changed the way of life of early human beings in gathering, hunting and fishing, marked the establishment and development of rice farming, and inherited the folk culture in the south of the Yangtze River. Rice, rice and fish? Lifestyle and rich cultural connotation.
In the final analysis, rice cultivation is soil and water agriculture. The people in the south of the Yangtze River adjust the dynamic balance of water and fertilizer in the soil by planting according to the soil, reasonable rotation and increasing fertilizer, and maintain the vitality of agricultural cultivation. Wang Zhennong wrote in his book:? When the grass grows in March in the south of the Yangtze River, it is necessary to mow the grass and step on the rice fields. Years are like this, and the soil fertility is always prosperous. ? Adequate food supply gave birth to a rice-based diet structure in Jiangnan area.
The resource advantage of rice permeates all aspects of people's lives, and foods based on rice emerge one after another. In important festivals, shredded pork dumplings on the first day of the Lunar New Year, Tomb-Sweeping Day's reunion festival, black rice on Buddha washing festival, Zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival, Chongyang cake on Double Ninth Festival and Laba porridge on Laba Festival are all sweets, but in daily life, sugar lotus root, fermented wine, flower cake and so on. They are all explosions. The life style of honey juice conveys the dietary characteristics of rice fragrance and sweetness in Jiangnan area.
A passionate personality
The influence of sweetness is tangible and intangible. Sweet is not as strong as spicy, tasteless is not like vinegar, bleak is not like bitterness, salty is not like dry mouth. It embodies a delicate and gentle taste experience, while Jiangnan people are warm but capable, frank and alert, flexible and determined, and their unique eating habits are deeply rooted in people's hearts from the outside to the inside.
The research report published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology points out:? People who like sweets do show more kindness. ? This provides the best annotation for the graceful and gentle humanistic character of people in Jiangnan area. The two are interrelated and resonate with each other, which nourishes the humanistic feelings in Jiangnan.
Aristotle once said: No one can survive without food. Different foods determine different lifestyles. ? Jiangnan? Is it sweet? It does not exist in isolation, but combines many elements such as mountain phenology, local customs, human history, natural products and so on. ? Salty and sweet? The dietary characteristics of Jiangnan are not only the sense of acquisition of rice farming, but also the flexibility of Jiangnan culture.