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Soy Sauce
Soy sauce (also called simply soy in American English and soya sauce in British English) is a liquid condiment of Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermented paste of soybeans, roasted grain, brine, and ''Aspergillus oryzae'' or '' Aspergillus sojae'' molds. It is considered to contain a strong umami taste. Soy sauce in its current form was created about 2,200 years ago during the Western Han dynasty of ancient China, and it has spread throughout East and Southeast Asia where it is used in cooking and as a condiment. Use and storage Soy sauce can be added directly to food, and is used as a dip or salt flavor in cooking. It is often eaten with rice, noodles, and sushi or sashimi, or can also be mixed with ground wasabi for dipping. Bottles of soy sauce for salty seasoning of various foods are common on restaurant tables in many countries. Soy sauce can be stored at room temperature. History East Asia China Soy sauce (, ) is considered almost as old as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantities in seawater. The open ocean has about of solids per liter of sea water, a salinity of 3.5%. Salt is essential for life in general, and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous food seasonings, and is known to uniformly improve the taste perception of food, including otherwise unpalatable food. Salting, brining, and pickling are also ancient and important methods of food preservation. Some of the earliest evidence of salt processing dates to around 6,000 BC, when people living in the area of present-day Romania boiled spring water to extract salts; a salt-works in China dates to approximately the same period. Salt was also prized by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, By ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wushi Zhongkuilu
Wushi Zhongkuilu () is a late 13th century Medieval Chinese culinary work on household cookery written by an anonymous author from the Pujiang region known only as "Madame Wu". It is the earliest known culinary work written by or attributed to a Chinese woman and is believed to have been published in during late Song Dynasty or early Yuan dynasty. Content The full title of the work is "Song Dynasty Pujiang Woman of the Wu Surname Records on Household Essentials", which echo's the contents of the book as a detailed guide for preparing essential household dietary ingredients and dishes of the period. This includes cooked items as well as various pickled and preserved foods that can be eaten straight or used as ingredients. Wu's work consists of three chapters grouped according to the types of recipes and originating ingredients: # "Preserved Meats and Pickled Fish" (): 20 sections # "Vegetable preparations" (): 38 sections # "Sweet foods" (): 15 sections It is also the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Song Dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China, the Song was eventually conquered by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The dynasty is divided into two periods: Northern Song and Southern Song. During the Northern Song (; 960–1127), the capital was in the northern city of Bianjing (now Kaifeng) and the dynasty controlled most of what is now Eastern China. The Southern Song (; 1127–1279) refers to the period after the Song lost control of its northern half to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. At that time, the Song court retreated south of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qimin Yaoshu
The ''Qimin Yaoshu'' is the most completely preserved of the ancient Chinese agricultural texts, and was written by the Northern Wei Dynasty official Jia Sixie.Wenhua Li, 200Agro-Ecological Farming Systems in ChinaTaylor & Francis, p. 26 -27 The book is believed to have been completed in the second year of Wu Ding of Eastern Wei, 544 CE, while another account gives the completion between 533 and 544 CE. The text of the book is divided into ten volumes and 92 chapters, and records 1500-year-old Chinese agronomy, horticulture, afforestation, sericulture, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, breeding, brewing, cooking, storage, as well as remedies for barren land. The book quoted nearly 200 ancient sources including the '' Yiwu Zhi''. Important agricultural books such as '' Fàn Shèngzhī shū'' (氾勝之書) and ''Sì mín yuè lìng'' (四民月令) from the Hàn and Jìn Dynasties are now lost, so future generations can only understand the operation of agriculture at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mawangdui
Mawangdui () is an archaeological site located in Changsha, China. The site consists of two saddle-shaped hills and contained the tombs of three people from the Changsha Kingdom during the western Han dynasty (206 BC – 9 AD): the Chancellor Li Cang, his wife Xin Zhui, and a male believed to have been their son. The site was excavated from 1972 to 1974. Most of the artifacts from Mawangdui are displayed at the Hunan Provincial Museum. It was called "King Ma's Mound" possibly because it was (erroneously) thought to be the tomb of Ma Yin (853–930), a ruler of the Chu kingdom during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The original name might have been the similarly-sounding "saddle-shaped mound" (馬鞍堆 - mǎ ān duī). Tombs and their occupants The tombs were made of large cypress planks. The outside of the tombs were layered with white clay and charcoal. White clay layering originated with Chu burials, while charcoal layering was practiced during the earl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Restaurant
A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearance and offerings, including a wide variety of cuisines and service models ranging from inexpensive fast-food restaurants and cafeterias to mid-priced family restaurants, to high-priced luxury establishments. Etymology The word derives from early 19th century from French word 'provide food for', literally 'restore to a former state' and, being the present participle of the verb, The term ''restaurant'' may have been used in 1507 as a "restorative beverage", and in correspondence in 1521 to mean 'that which restores the strength, a fortifying food or remedy'. History A public eating establishment similar to a restaurant is mentioned in a 512 BC record from Ancient Egypt. It served only one dish, a plate of cereal, wild fowl, and on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wasabi
Wasabi ( Japanese: , , or , ; ''Eutrema japonicum'' or ''Wasabia japonica'') or Japanese horseradish is a plant of the family Brassicaceae, which also includes horseradish and mustard in other genera. The plant is native to Japan and the Russian Far East including Sakhalin, also the Korean Peninsula. It grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan. It is grown for its rhizomes which are ground into a paste as a pungent condiment for ''sushi'' and other foods. It is similar in taste to hot mustard or horseradish rather than chili peppers in that it stimulates the nose more than the tongue, but freshly grated wasabi has a subtly distinct flavour. However, most common wasabi flavorings are ersatz, and are made of horseradish and food coloring. The two main cultivars in the marketplace are ''E. japonicum'' 'Daruma' and 'Mazuma', but there are many others. The oldest record of wasabi as a food dates to the 8th century AD. The popularity of wasabi in Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sashimi
is a Japanese delicacy consisting of fresh raw fish or meat sliced into thin pieces and often eaten with soy sauce. Origin The word ''sashimi'' means "pierced body", i.e. " 刺身" = ''sashimi'', where 刺 し = ''sashi'' (pierced, stuck) and 身 = ''mi'' (body, meat). This word dates from the Muromachi period and was possibly coined when the word " 切る" = ''kiru'' (cut), the culinary step, was considered too inauspicious to be used by anyone other than samurai. This word may derive from the culinary practice of sticking the fish's tail and fin to the slices for the purpose of identifying the fish being eaten. Another possibility for the name is the traditional method of harvesting. "''Sashimi''-grade" fish is caught by individual handline. As soon as the fish is landed, its brain is pierced with a sharp spike, and it is placed in slurried ice. This spiking is called the ikejime process, and the instantaneous death means that the fish's flesh contains a minimal amo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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