seating arrangement
First of all, the first one is the order of sitting. If the entrance of the room is in the south, according to the rules of the Song Dynasty, the main seat is in the east of the table, and the guest is in the west of the table. The south of the table is the guest (commonly known as "Yokota"), and the north of the table is the most distinguished position, and only the elders can sit.
Generally speaking, the host treats guests to dinner at home, and the formal dinner is placed in the main hall. The entrance to the main hall is in the south. If the host and the guest are equal, the host will sit in the east (left hand side) and the guest will sit in the west (right hand side). Therefore, in ancient times, the master was also called "master", while the distinguished person was called "Xibin".
The most expensive wine in Song Dynasty
"Tokyo Dream" records that there was an east-west street called Quyuan Street in front of Kaifeng Imperial City in the Northern Song Dynasty. There are many winemaking workshops in this street, some of which mainly brew mutton wine. Because of the small territory and few sheep farmers in Song Dynasty, mutton was a first-class product. So the price of mutton wine is very expensive, and most people can't afford it. If someone invites you to drink mutton wine, it is equivalent to opening a bottle of Moutai to entertain you.
Mutton wine is made of rice and mutton. Mix mutton soup with rice, and then mix with bream for brewing, and the finished wine will not be distilled. Qin Shou's New Book for the Aged records its brewing method: soaking rice with one stone as usual. Seven Jin of fat mutton, fourteen Liang bream, all kinds of bream. Cut the mutton into four pieces, boil it until it is rotten, leave seven buckets of juice, mix the rice with snapper, and brew with one or two pieces of radix aucklandiae without water. Ten days ripe, very sweet and slippery.
Appetizers of Song Dynasty people
According to Sima Guang's memory, Song Renzong once hosted a banquet for Qidan Mitchell, and the banquet was extremely rich. How to enrich the law? "Four dishes for every wine", and four dishes for a glass of wine. It feels a bit like eating French food! But the normal specifications are not that high. Generally speaking, "every wine should be served, and both dishes should be served." A glass of wine with two dishes.
What do you eat? According to Lu You, I once attended a state banquet, drank nine glasses of wine and served nine courses successively. They are:
Meat? Douchi mutton
Fried meat with double lower corners-a long and narrow steamed stuffed bun
Lotus oil cake
White meat paste cake
Taipinglou-A Pie from Iran
Pseudo-turtle-a pictographic food made of chicken, sheep's head, egg yolk, vermicelli and fungus.
Naihuasu powder-similar to mung bean powder, cooked and decorated with ginger flowers.
False sand fish
Water and rice? Making Pickles with Semi-fermented Rice Soup —— Rotating Cucumber Ginger
You might think that such a rich meal is also true of the daily diet of Song people. Of course not! In normal times, some people in the Song Dynasty only ate "Chaozhou" and "Shi Gang" meals, and generally didn't get together at noon.
No drinking, entertaining.
Ouyang Xiu wrote in Drunk Pavilion: The joy of a banquet is not silk or bamboo. Among the shooters, the player wins, and everyone who sits up is happy. In this paper, "cup" refers to wine glass, and "slice" refers to stick. It is used for counting and drinking water.
People in the Song Dynasty also liked to spell wine, for fear that everyone was drunk and could not remember the numbers, they counted them with sticks. After a drink, put a chip in front of yourself. It is not an ordinary stick, but it is engraved with words such as "afraid of his wife drinking" and "short man has a lamp". Put these sticks with various contents into a big bamboo tube. Everyone draws lots from the bamboo tube in turn, and the winner will get a drink.
In addition, the reception in Song Dynasty is also a good place to show all kinds of talents. There are quite a few drinking orders in the Song Dynasty, some are about luck, some are about memory, some require you to master the rhythm of poetry, and some are about projection skills, such as "throwing a pot" and "shooting nine shots".
Eat, drink and be merry. Although people in the Song Dynasty didn't play karaoke or mobile online games, they also knew how to entertain themselves and get together for fun. Do you also want to travel to the Song Dynasty and learn about the joys of the ancients? I recommend you to read "Eat an Interesting Song Dynasty Dinner" written by Li Kaizhou, which will help you learn more about the food culture of the people in the Song Dynasty.