SC - OOP - Ancient Chinese cuisine recipes found in Han dynasty tomb

[Valoise Armstrong]

This came across the Archives & Archivists mailing list I'm on and I
thought some of you might be interested.

Valoise
**********
Xinhua 9/23/99
Ancient Chinese cuisine recipes found in Han dynasty tomb
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CHANGSHA (Sept. 23) XINHUA - Several ancient Chinese cuisine recipes recorded
on bamboo slips which may date back more than 2,000 years have been unearthed
from a Han Dynasty tomb in central China’s Hunan Province.
Archeologists believe that this find in Yuanling County in western Hunan is
the oldest food recipes ever found in the country. The recipes are written in
ink on 20 pieces of bamboo slips and detail cooking procedures for rice and
other dishes, as well as ways to mix beverages and make smoked meats.
Hu Pingsheng, a member of the Chinese Relic Research Institute, said that
Chinese archeologists have collected the names of many ancient dishes from
historical records of the Qin and Han dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D. 24). The
cooking methods, however, have never been found before.
He said his excavation team found that the recipes written on 20 bamboo slips
were divided into two categories to separate the cooking of rice from other
dishes, and the largest serial number of the recipes is 46.
According to the recipes, there are nine kinds of rice and seven ways to cook
them. Meat dishes include pork, beef, rabbit, deer and fish.
“The recipes were recorded in such a detail that we can understand how people
in ancient times butchered animals, cleaned the viscera, and cooked and
presented the dishes,” Hu said.
Archeologists here believed that they have found only a small fragment of a
complete recipe book, but it is enough to see how luxurious the imperial life
was at that time.
The occupant of the tomb was identified as Wu Yang, a high ranking official
guarding Yuanling Prefecture during the Western Han Dynasty (206
B.C.-A.D.24). He died and was buried in 162 B.C.
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