In today's abundant material life, the availability of meat has become very easy. As long as we have enough financial strength, we can buy the meat we need in the supermarket at any time, and we don't have to worry about the limit of the amount of purchase.
Although modern people are accustomed to living without meat, in fact, in ancient times, eating gourmet meat was a very luxurious enjoyment. Especially in the pre-Qin period, when society was still in the transition stage between slavery and feudalism, meat was considered a noble and rare food, which was difficult to obtain and taste easily.
In ancient times, eating meat was a noble etiquette. The "Zhou Li" clearly stipulates that the Son of Heaven can eat cattle, sheep, and pigs, the princes can eat cattle, the Qing can eat sheep, the doctors can eat pigs, the scholars can only eat fish and barbecue, and the Shu people can only eat vegetables.
In other words, in ancient society, only Zhou Tianzi could eat meat as he pleased, while ordinary people had to follow strict etiquette and could not eat meat casually. But with the turmoil in society, this set of weekly rituals gradually became ineffective, and ordinary people could also start to come into contact with meat.
However, due to the limited production conditions at that time, the aquaculture industry was not developed, and the amount of meat was very limited, so for ordinary people, eating meat was still a luxury enjoyment.
In the pre-Qin period, owning meat was often a symbol of status, such as the "meat eater seeks it" mentioned in "Cao Di's Polemic". By the Han Dynasty, although productivity had increased, there were more restrictions on diet, especially the prohibition of the indiscriminate consumption of horses and cows.
Ancient societies had strict protection rules for horses and cattle, prohibiting their slaughter at will. This is because horses are an important means of transportation, while cattle are an important means of labor.
Especially during the Han Dynasty, killing horses and cattle was a serious crime. At that time, the Han Dynasty began to use troops against the Xiongnu, but the country was not rich in horses, so killing horses was very dangerous.
At the same time, the protection of cattle is also very strict, and for the next thousand years, they are not allowed to be slaughtered at will, and even need to be filed with the government. In this case, people's diet is mainly based on sheep, fish, pigs, dogs and poultry, and occasionally they can go to the mountains to hunt some wild animals.
Due to the etiquette system, sheep sometimes cannot be eaten casually, so many civilians began to choose to eat dog meat. For example, the famous founding general of the Han Dynasty, Fan Xu, his profession is a professional dog killer.
There is an old Chinese saying, saying"Righteousness mostly comes from the small people in the market, and betrayal comes mostly from scholars"。The so-called small people here refer to those who do not have a higher education and live at the bottom of society.
with"Slaughtering dogs"It is because in ancient society, dogs were regarded as food for ordinary people, and the people who killed dogs were often the people at the bottom of society. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, after the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, although the Jin Dynasty briefly achieved a situation of great unification, China soon entered the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
During this period, the eating habits of the North and the South differed greatly. The north is mainly ruled by the original northern nomads, so their eating habits are mainly meat; In the south, the original Han nationality is the main body, so their eating habits are relatively light.
Differences in eating habits between the north and the south: the eating habits of the Qin and Han dynasties continued in the south, while the diet was relatively open under the rule of the nomads in the north. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the social productive forces progressed, and ordinary people could eat domestic chickens and pigs.
During the Song Dynasty, meat was further liberalized, and although it was illegal to eat cattle, the law was not strict, such as the hero in "Water Margin" ordering beef at the restaurant. This shows that the laws of the Song Dynasty were more lenient than those of the Han Dynasty, and robbers or bandits could also order beef, and the fact that restaurants could provide beef also showed that the law was not strict.
The cattle were released, but the horses were not. If the heroes of Liangshan shouted "come to two catties of horse meat" in the wine shop, it is estimated that the government will come immediately. From the Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing dynasties, although there was a Yuan Dynasty in the middle, the Yuan Dynasty was a little special in eating meat.
According to the laws of the Yuan Dynasty, the domestic population was divided into Mongols, Semu, Han Chinese, and Nanren, and their meat-eating treatment varied. The nomadic Mongols were accustomed to eating meat, but it was more difficult for ordinary people at the bottom to eat meat than during the Tang and Song dynasties.
Although the Yuan dynasty ruled for a short period of time and was in the period of peasant revolts for a long time, these prohibitions did not have a significant effect. It was not until the relatively stable Ming and Qing dynasties that the policy of eating meat underwent major changes again.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, social productivity increased significantly, and except for cattle and horses, other meats were basically free to eat. However, the premise is that you have to be rich. Although eating meat was not legally regulated at that time, the ** of meat was still very high, much higher than our current **.
For example, during the Jiajing period, Hai Rui bought two catties of pork to celebrate his mother's birthday, which caused a sensation throughout the county. Because Hai Rui is known for being incorruptible and never **, so in the case of a normal Yulu, he usually can't afford meat, and can only eat vegetables.
Although families with a little more affluent family can already easily taste meat delicacies, eating meat during the Chinese New Year is not an unattainable dream. This has been going on since the time of the **, when we can really enjoy meat without any worries and no longer worry about eating too fat because of the price of meat, and this has happened in the last two or three decades.