Among these ancient wheaten foods, sesame seed cakes, soup cakes and other wheaten foods have not been fermented, and steamed bread is the most famous fermented wheaten food in China, which is regarded as a symbol of ancient pasta culture in China. Modern people often compare it with western bread.
According to Things Are Beads, "Qin made steamed cakes". In Shu Qi, Xiao Zixian said that the imperial court stipulated that "bread" should be used when offering sacrifices to ancestral temples, that is, "yeast will make you relaxed". The "bread" mentioned here is the earliest steamed bread. It can be seen that the history of China people eating steamed bread can be traced back at least to the Warring States Period. In the Three Kingdoms period, steamed bread had its own official name. According to the origin of the matter, Zhuge Liang conquered Meng Huo in the south, and when crossing the Lushui River, evil spirits worshipped him. According to the southern custom, he wanted to sacrifice the gods with the head of a savage (that is, the head of a southerner), so he ordered that cattle, sheep and pork be wrapped in wheat flour as sacrifices like human heads, and then called it "steamed bread". This provides us with a clue to the origin of steamed bread, that is, steamed bread originated from the head sacrifice in barbaric times, and then gradually evolved into the stuffing of poultry with the development of history. In the Southern Song Dynasty, pork steamed bread was very popular. According to the Records of Swallow's Wings, Emperor Injong was very happy when he was born. The minister asked him to make a "steamed stuffed bun" for his ministers, which was full of precious stones. "Fried flower steamed bread" similar to the later flowering steamed bread appeared in the Yuan Dynasty. Hu Sihui's "Eating Records" records: "Stir-fried flower steamed bread: mutton, sheep fat, sheep tail, onion and dried tangerine peel are finely cut", "Add salt sauce in turn, mix steamed bread and rouge to dye flowers". It can be seen that steamed bread was originally stuffed, and later it experienced the evolution from stuffed to solid. It was not until the Qing Dynasty that there was a record of "solid steamed bread". Later, northerners called it "steamed bread" without stuffing, and "steamed bread" with stuffing. Since then, people in northern China who mainly grow wheat have gradually learned to make steamed bread, which is their staple food. After the appearance of steamed bread, the quality of people's staple food has improved, and from this, foods such as flower rolls and steamed bread have been derived.
Steamed bread, the staple food in China, is basically made of flour, yeast (pure yeast, fermented wine or flour seeds) and water, and the dough is steamed after a period of fermentation. In recent years, with the improvement of living standards, people's eating habits have changed greatly, but steamed bread is still the main food for people in the northern wheat producing areas of China, and it is also very popular in the south. It is reported that 70% of the flour in the north is used to make steamed bread.
For thousands of years, China's steamed bread production has been in a rut. Although it has improved in recent years, it is still not enough on the whole. The trend of steamed bread in China should develop in the following directions:
1. Develop towards industrialized mechanized production.
At present, the production of steamed bread only stays in the workshop stage, and there are few large-scale industrialized manufacturers. It is necessary to keep up with western bread and develop into large-scale mechanization and industrialization. This will help to study the production technology of Chinese steamed bread and improve the quality of steamed bread.
2. Develop towards convenience.
Bread can be eaten when it is bought, while steamed bread is mostly cold after it is bought, and its taste is not as good as hot steamed bread, so it needs to be reheated to be delicious. So it's inconvenient to eat. Nowadays, frozen steamed bread and frozen steamed bread can be said to be a great progress in the production technology of steamed bread in China, but the research in this field needs to be strengthened, and efforts should be made to make steamed bread close to bread in convenience and turn steamed bread into real convenient food for the masses.
3. Develop in the direction of variety diversification
The variety of steamed bread produced in China is single, mainly white steamed bread. In the future, we should pay attention to increasing the variety of colors and products, such as producing all kinds of fortified steamed bread, nutritious steamed bread and health steamed bread to form high, medium and low grades to meet the needs of different consumers.
4. Develop towards nutrition.
At present, many steamed bread manufacturers, small workshops and rural families in China are still using chemical baking powder and old flour for fermentation. Chemical baking powder contains aluminum ions and other chemical components harmful to human body; However, the fermentation of old flour contains many miscellaneous bacteria, and it will also cause the loss of nutrients due to improper alkali addition, which is time-consuming and laborious to make. Yeast fermentation is a trend and progress of pasta fermentation in China, which is convenient and hygienic to use and has high nutritional value. It should be promoted nationwide.