Fire is the foundation of food and cooking. It should be said that with fire, there is food culture. Before the birth of fire, the ancestors could only live a primitive, animal-like life. The so-called "eat the food of plants and trees, the meat of birds and beasts, drink their blood, and eat their hair." As "Han Feizi" said: "People eat fruits, clams, and clams, and the fishy and foul smell hurts the stomach, and the people suffer from many diseases." After the birth, "cannons are cooked, making people have no abdominal diseases, and are different from beasts." The inventor of fire, a common legend in China, is the Suiren family who drilled flints to make fire. Archaeologists have preliminarily speculated from the stone tools used by the Zhoukoudian Peking Man that Chinese ape man began to consciously use fire about half a million years ago.

"Zi Zi": "The Sui people look up at the stars, and look down at the five trees to see fire." According to the theory of yin and yang and the five elements, fire is born from wood, so the Sui people use wood to make fire. "Lu Shi" says that Sui people observe the Qianxiang, observe the Chen heart and produce fire, and make drills. "Chen Xin" is called "Xin Su" according to the ancients, which is the "big Mars". The so-called "five woods" refer to the five kinds of wood that were believed to be suitable for making fire according to the weather at that time. That is, "elm; willow is green, so it is taken in spring; jujube: apricot is red, so it is taken in summer; mulberry: zhe is yellow, so it is taken in summer; tussa: (wood chieftain) is white, so it is taken in autumn; Sophora japonica; sandalwood is black, so it is taken in autumn Therefore, it is taken in winter."

After the Sui people drilled fire to make fire, their wood-drilling tools were called Sui. Later generations also invented the use of metal to make fire from the sun, so there were also "Wu Sui" and "Yang". "Sui" distinction. "Huainanzi" records: "When Yang Sui sees the sun, it will burn and become fire. Yang Sui is gold. The sun is three to four feet high. Hold it toward the sun. If there is more than an inch of dry moxa attached to it, there will be a moment. If it is burnt and blown, it will cause fire." "Ancient and Modern Notes": "The Yang Sui is made of copper and is shaped like a mirror. When it shines on something, it makes the scene look upside down. It makes fire towards the sun."

Before the Han Dynasty, Yang Sui was used to make fire, which was called "open fire". "Using wood to make fire is called "national fire". According to the "Da Zhu" and "Da Sikou" in "Zhou Li", Yang Sui is taken from the sun and is close to the sky, so it is used for divination and sacrifice. Wooden firewood is made from five kinds of wood and is close to people, so it is used for cooking. After the Han Dynasty, when metal and stone were struck against each other, fire could also be produced by friction, so a simple piece of iron could be used as a yangsui. When people go out, they usually wear a Yang Sui on the left side of their waist and a wooden Sui on the right side to prepare fire at any time. There is also a tinder made of moxa mixed with saltpetre. When the friction causes sparks to fall on the velvet and burn, a "hair candle" can be used to catch the fire. The so-called "hair candle" is a small piece made of peeled hemp straw, five or six inches long, with sulfur flowing from the head, and will burn when exposed to fire.

After there is fire, there is a stove. One theory is that the person who created the stove was Emperor Yan. "Huainanzi" says: " Emperor Yan died of fire and became the stove." Note: " Emperor Yan Shennong, who ruled the world with the virtue of fire, sacrificed his life to the God of Kitchen." Another theory is that it was Huang Emperor: "The Story of the Continue" ": "The stove was placed by the Yellow Emperor." Therefore, "The Original Meeting of Things" says: "The Yellow Emperor built the stove and died as the Kitchen God." And the God of Fire is generally said to be Zhu Rong. "Huainanzi? Shi Ze" notes: "Zhu Rong returned to Wu and was the Huozheng of the Gaoxin family. He died as the God of Fire and entrusted the stove." "Historical Records of the Chu Family": "Dong Li was the emperor and Gaoxin lived in Huozheng. , very effective, can light up the world, the emperor ordered it to be "Zhu Rong". "Book of Rites Monthly Order": "On the month of Meng Xia, its emperor Yandi, his god Zhu Rong, worshiped the stove and offered sacrifices to the ancestors." The stove was in the form of a pit dug on the ground. The stove excavated at the Banpo site in Xi'an today is a double-connected stove, that is, two fire pits dug on the surface. The two pits are separated on the surface, while the two pits are connected underground. One pit is for entering firewood, and the other is for leaving people. The opening connecting the two pits is the stove door. Banpo in Xi'an has a history of six or seven thousand years. Its inventor should be Emperor Yan rather than Emperor Huang. It is estimated that the time when the Yellow Emperor was in power was about 4,600 years ago. Emperor Yan preceded Emperor Huang for seventy generations. Calculated based on the twenty-year life cycle, it is about six or six thousand years ago. By the Warring States Period, the production of stoves had been perfected. "Zeng Lianzi" records: "One stove has five protrusions (tu: chimney). If there are many smokers, the cooking will be ten times."

Cooking with fire, the ancients immediately noticed the importance of heat in cooking. The first ancient text that talks about the importance of heat in cooking is "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals? Original Flavor Pian". Among them, Yi Yin told Shang Tang: "The root of all flavors is water. The five flavors and three materials are nine boils and nine changes, and fire is the discipline. When the illness is slow, the fishy smell is eliminated, the smell is eliminated, and the smell is removed. This will definitely win. It's unreasonable. When it comes to blending, there must be sweetness, sourness, bitterness, pungentness, and saltiness. They all come together in a very small way. The changes in the tripod are subtle and subtle. You can't say it with your mouth, and you can't tell it with your mind. Metaphor. It is like the transformation of yin and yang, the number of the four seasons. Not thin, fat but not [Yuehou]." The general meaning of this sentence translated into Chinese is: the root of all tastes, water is the first.

Cooking is based on the five flavors of sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and salty and the three ingredients of water, wood and fire. Nine times of boiling in the cauldron will produce nine changes, which rely on fire to detect and adjust. Sometimes strong fire is used, sometimes slow fire is used to remove the fishy, ??smelly and smelly smell. The key is to control the heat. Only by mastering the rules of using fire can you turn odor into fragrance. The five flavors of sweet, sour, bitter, spicy and salty must be used for seasoning, but the order of adding the seasonings and the amount of ingredients used, their combination is very subtle. The changes in the cauldron are also subtle and subtle, indescribable. Even if you know it in your heart, it is difficult to explain clearly. Just like shooting an arrow while riding a horse, you need to practice your cooking skills until you are good at it. Like the natural combination of yin and yang, like the natural change of the four seasons, cooking skills can make it possible to cook for a long time but not lose, be cooked but not rotten, sweet but not overly sweet, sour but not strong, cooked but not astringent, pungent but not irritating. Light but not boring. , fat but not greasy.

Yuan Mei later included a special section on heat in "Suiyuan Food List". He believes that the key to cooking food is to control the heat. Stir-frying must be done over a high fire. If the heat is insufficient, the fried food will become weak. For simmering, a warm fire must be used. If the heat is too high, the simmered food will become shriveled. For food that needs to be boiled, high heat should be used first. Then use warm fire. If you are impatient and keep using high heat, the food will be burnt on the outside but undercooked on the inside. He believes that the more cooked they are, the more tender they become, such as kidneys and eggs; while the more tender they become, such as fresh fish and clams, become less tender. The pork must be taken out of the pot when it is cooked. In this way, the color will be red, but it will turn black if it is not taken out of the pot later. If you cook fish too late, all the live meat will become dead. When cooking, if you open the lid too many times, the dishes will be more foamy and less fragrant. If the fire is put out and then burned again, the vegetables will lose their oil and taste. Yuan Mei said that it is rumored that Taoists must go through nine cycles of transformation before they can make a true elixir, while Confucianism is based on not overdoing it but also achieving perfection. The chef must master the heat correctly and operate it carefully before he can basically master cooking. A chef who has mastered cooking should make fish that is as white as jade when it is eaten, and the meat is congealed but not scattered. This kind of meat is alive meat. If it is white as powder, loose and not sticky, it is dead meat.

The ancients believed that fire can be divided into new fire and old fire. The charcoal fire, charcoal fire, bamboo fire, grass fire, gāi fire and Ma Xiao fire used for warming wine and roasting meat and cooking. : Fire burning with hemp roots), each with a different smell. In the Qing Dynasty's "Tiao Ding Ji Huo", a variety of fires are listed for cooking with various foods: "Sang Chai Fire: Cooking food and eating it, the main benefit is people. It also cooks old people." Duck and meat can make people extremely rotten, and can detoxify all poisons. Dirty firewood should not be eaten. Rice Suihuo: Cooking food can soothe the soul to the internal organs. Wheat Suihuo: Cooking food can relieve thirst and moisten the throat. , facilitates urination. Pine firewood: for cooking, strengthens muscles and bones, not suitable for making tea. Oak firewood: cooked with pork, it will not be exposed to wind, and cooked with chicken, duck, goose and other fishy things. Mao firewood: for cooking, it is used for detoxification tomorrow. Reed fire and bamboo fire: suitable for frying all nourishing medicines. Charcoal fire: suitable for frying tea, which is delicious but not turbid. Bran fire: cook food on a ground stove, which can be set up in two pots. Southerners often use it, and it costs less than firewood. Half. When you cherish the spring, there will be insects in the chaff, which will harm the life of things." However, Jia Ming of the Yuan Dynasty told in "Instructions on Diet": "It is better to use Yangsui fire beads to capture the true meaning of the sun. For fire, the next best thing is to stick a locust tree to make fire." He believes that "it is not suitable to use iron tools to strike flints to make fire. It means: if you use pine fire, you will get sick and it is difficult to recover), cypress fire hurts the mind and causes sweating, mulberry fire hurts the muscles, zhe fire hurts the Qi pulse, jujube fire hurts the internal organs and vomits blood, tangerine fire hurts the Yingwei meridians, elm fire hurts the bones and causes loss of will, and bamboo fire hurts the tendons and eyesight. "

Gu Yanwu also opposed using stones to make fire, believing that using flint to make fire would affect life span. But he believed that the fire of wood should be taken according to the changes of the four seasons and five elements. He said: "When people use fire, they must get wood, and there will be changes in the four seasons and five elements." Huangdi said in "Suwen": Strong fire disperses the energy, and less fire makes it angry. "Zhou Li": The fire in spring is more valuable for its newness, and less fire is more important. The meaning of fire is that everything used today is made of stone, which is violent and unpleasant in nature, causing diseases and phlegm and shortening of life. "

The ancients called fire "the essence of yang". ". "Later Five Elements Chronicles": "Fire is the essence of Yang, and fire is inflammatory." "He Tu? Bianguang Chapter": "The essence of Yang is scattered and distributed as fire." The ancients called people one of the five elements and believed that it has Qi has no substance, can give birth to and kill all things, and is infinitely wonderful. The ancients believed that fire alone has two of the five elements, and the others have only one. The so-called two means that fire can be divided into yin fire and yang fire. The ancients also divided fire into three types: heavenly fire, earthly fire, and human fire. They believed that there were four heavenly fires, five earthly fires, and three human fires. There are two types of yang fire in the sky: the sun, the real fire; and the star spirit, the flying fire. There are two types of yin fire in the sky: dragon fire (called the fire at the dragon's mouth) and thunder fire. There are three types of Yang fire in the earth: the fire that drills wood, the fire that strikes stone, and the fire that strikes gold.

There are two kinds of yin fire in the earth: the fire of oil (the ancients said that oil will naturally catch fire when stored in a certain amount), and the fire of water (the ancients said that the rivers, lakes and seas have fire at night). There is one yang fire in human beings, Bingdingjunjun fire (which is the so-called Li fire in the heart and small intestine). There are two yin fires in humans, Mingmen Xianghuo (which originates from Beihai and is called Kan fire, and travels through the three burners and resides in the liver and gallbladder). Fire (pure yang, dry fire). The total number of Yang fire is six, Yin fire is six, and *** is twelve.

China’s tools for making fire have always been very backward. For a long time, primitive "fa candles" were used. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, more refined "fa candles" made of pine wood were developed. "Weixiang Congtan": "Hangzhou people cut pine wood into small pieces, which are as thin as paper, and coat them with sulfur to make them sharp. They are called 'Fa Zhu'." After the Song Dynasty, it was also called "Huo Cun". "Qing Yi Lu? Utensils": "There is an emergency at night, and it is difficult to make a lamp. A wise man batches pine strips, dyes them with sulfur, and sets them aside for use. Once they meet the fire, they will get the flames, which is the spirit; they call out to ignite the fire. slave". Now there are those who borrowed money and changed their name to 'Fire Cun'"

It is said that in the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a workshop specializing in making "Fire Cun". Therefore, the Japanese early called matches "Phosphorus Cun". Invention The match makers were said to be Swedish. In 1833, they began to use yellow phosphorus as friction matches. However, yellow phosphorus was highly toxic and prone to spontaneous combustion and was unsafe. In 1855, Lentastrom invented the use of red phosphorus to replace yellow phosphorus. Since then, the world's first safety matches have entered China. The British Richard opened the first match business in Shanghai in 1890. The factory "Swiss Merchant". The trademark of the first match produced in China was printed with the bust of Cixi. It is said that the first match in China was produced during Cixi's 60th birthday. Because the matches were imported from abroad, the Chinese called it so. For "match"