Imagine that at the feast of the Zhou Dynasty, the princes and nobles were sitting on their knees, and the delicacies were presented one by one. Do you think these aristocrats are just enjoying the delicacies of the mountains and the sea?Wrong!They dare to eat anything, even termites, bees and other insects that modern people dare not try are on their menu!
According to the record of "Zhou Li: Heavenly Official", the diet of the emperor of the Zhou Dynasty was very particular, and every time he served a dish, he had to change a sauce, and the dishes were strictly matched with the sauce, and there was no room for confusion. If you see what kind of sauce is coming up, you can guess what the next dish will be.
Termites, an insect with tenacious vitality, are often referred to as "flying ants". And in the recipes of the Zhou Dynasty, they were served to the table of the Son of Heaven. And bees, insects that provide sweetness to humans, were also a delicacy for the nobility during the Zhou Dynasty. Eat raw fish with mustard sauce, eat raw meat with soy sauce, eat grilled fish with egg sauce, and eat stewed chicken with snail sauce. Mustard sauce is mustard sauce, snail sauce is minced meat sauce, egg sauce is termite eggs, and snail sauce is snail sauce.
Not only that, but the Book of Rites and the Inner Rules also recorded the more vigorous ingredients in the recipes of Zhou Tianzi and his royal family: scorpion, fan, and locust. The locusts are the larvae of the cicada, the fan is the larva of the bee, and the locust is the larva of the locust. These ingredients are difficult to eat in the eyes of modern people, let alone put them on the tables of nobles.
Although it may sound unbelievable to modern people, history is so full of surprises and incredibles. The next time you hear about the Zhou Dynasty's heavenly sons eating termites and bees, don't be surprised, people take food as their sky, and people have their own unique food culture in each period.