by Ying-shih Yü
second century c.e.) also makes this very clear in his “Qi Ji” when he describes
pears from Yongzhou being off ered after the meal.54 Evidently, the end of a
feast was not necessarily the end of eating and drinking, however. According to
Ying Shao, sometimes it happened that when the feast was fi nished, the host
still wanted to continue drinking with his guests. In such cases, it was already too
late for the kitchen to prepare any fresh food, so dried meat and fi sh seasoned
with fagara, ginger, salt, and shi (salted darkened beans) were served instead.55
This story seems to indicate that as early as the Later Han Period, Chinese had
already developed the habit of always having some kind of food when drinking
wine.
To conclude our discussion of the Han feast, let us quote a passage from the
famous “Tongyue”
(Contract for a Slave) by Wang Bao of the fi rst century
b.c.e. The “Contract,” dated 59 b.c.e., is a semihumorous account of Wang Bao’s
purchase of a bearded slave named Bianliao at Chengdu, Sichuan. Among the
numerous house hold tasks Wang Bao assigned to the slave was to prepare feasts
for guests. The “Contract” says: “When there are guests in the house he [the
slave] shall carry a kettle and go after wine; draw water and prepare the eve ning
meal; wash bowls and arrange food trays; pluck garlic from the garden; chop
vegetables and mince meat; pound meat and make stew of tubers; slice fi sh and
roast turtle; boil tea and fi ll the utensils.”56 The passage speaks for itself. The
only point to be briefl y noted is whether or not tea was already in use in China
this early.57 However, based on vari ous pieces of literary evidence, including the
“Contract,” Gu Yanwu came to the conclusion that tea drinking had begun in
the Sichuan region even before the Han dynasty.58 The spread of tea drinking
as a habit in the rest of China, especially in the north, prob ably came much
later.59
F O O D A N D E AT I N G I N E V E R Y D AY L I F E
Because of the nature of the evidence at my disposal, I have thus far confi ned
my discussion of food and eating in Han China to the upper classes. Food re-
mains and food lists from Mawangdui, kitchen and feast scenes from vari ous
106 f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e
mural- painted tombs, the historic Banquet at Hong Men, the numerous delica-
cies described in a mouth- watering fashion by men of letters— all these be-
longed exclusively to the rich and power ful who constituted but a small fraction
of the sixty million Han Chinese. Now I must try to fi nd out what sorts of foods
were generally available to the great majority of people in their everyday life
during the Han Period. This is easier said than done, for historical rec ords and
archaeological fi nds normally refl ect the life of people of at least some means.
Moreover, it is also desirable at times to bring the well- to-do into the discussion
that follows both for contrast and comparison.
Grain was the main food for the Han Chinese, as it still is for Chinese today.
What, then, were the major categories of grain that were cultivated in Han China?
The Han Chinese, following the ancients, often talked about “fi ve grains,” “six
grains,” “eight grains,” or “nine grains,” but scholars from Han times down to
the pres ent have never come to a complete agreement as to the identifi cation of
these grains.60 Thanks to recent archaeological discoveries, however, we are now
on a much more solid ground to determine the staple grains on which the Han
Chinese lived, philological confusion notwithstanding.
As listed at the beginning of this study, the following grain remains were
uncovered in Han Tomb No. 1 at Mawangdui: rice, wheat, barley, two kinds of
millet, soybean, and red lentil. With the exception of red lentil, all have long
been included, one way or another, in the identifi cation lists of traditional exe-
getes and philologists. Grain remains have also been found elsewhere. At Sha-
ogou (northwestern outskirts of Luoyang) in 1953, a total of 983 earthenware
grain containers were unearthed from 145 tombs datable from middle Earlier
Han to late Later Han. Grain remains of the following were found in many of
the containers: millets of vari ous kinds (P. miliaceun Linn., Setaria italica Beauv.
var. maxima, spiked millet, etc.), hemp, soybean, rice, and Job’s tears ( Coix
lacryma- jobi) . Moreover, most of the containers bear inscribed labels indicating
the food content of each. In addition to the grains just given above, we also fi nd
the following names: wheat, barley, bean, lesser bean, hulled white rice, and
others.61 The rice remains from Shaogou, it is in ter est ing to note, were ana-
lyzed by a Japa nese expert and turned out to be closer to the Indian rice, Oryza
saliva var. indica.62 In 1957, more such inscribed grain containers with remains
were discovered at another Luoyang site, at Jin- guyuan village.63 Based on these
archaeological fi nds, we can now say with confi dence that the major categories
of grain generally accessible to the Chinese in Han times included millets of
vari ous kinds, rice, wheat, barley, soybeans, lesser beans, and hemp. It is par-
ticularly noteworthy that this archaeological list matches very closely the “nine
grains” recorded in the agriculturist book by Fan Shengzhi of the fi rst century
b.c.e.64 Unlike Han exegetes such as Zheng Xing and Zheng Xuan, whose
knowledge of agriculture was mainly bookish, Fan was a professional agricul-
turist and had actually taught people in the vicinity of Chang-an the art of
farming.65
f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e 107
It is almost superfl uous to say that not all these grain foods were equally
available in all parts of Han China. Since antiquity, vari ous kinds of millet had
been the grain staple in north China, whereas rice had been the main starch
food for southern Chinese. This situation seems to have continued well into the
Han Period. Moreover, we have reasons to believe that on the whole, Han China
produced much more millet than rice.66 According to the Huainanzi, only water
from the Yangzi River was suitable for rice cultivation.67 Ban Gu (32–92), in the
geo graph i cal section of his Hanshu, also singles out Sichuan and the Chu region
(mainly Hunan and Hubei) as the two major rice- producing areas ( HS, 28b.20a,
33b–34a). This point has been born out recently in archaeological excavations. In
1973, a group of nine tombs of early Western Han date was excavated at Feng-
huang Shan, in Jiangling, Hubei. From Tombs 8, 9, and 10, food remains of
vari ous kinds and over four hundred inscribed bamboo slips were found. The
remains include rice, melon seeds, kernels of fruit, eggs, millet, chestnuts and
vegetable seeds. Many of the bamboo slips also yield information on grain.68
The slips rec ord rice, glutinous rice, millet, wheat, beans, and hemp. Judging
by the number of slips and quantity of the remains, it seems safe to conclude
that rice and millet, but especially the former, were the grain staples of this area
during the Han.69 By contrast, it is in ter est ing to note that millet of vari ous
kinds comes in much greater
quantities than rice from the Shaogou in Luoy-
ang.70 Allowing for this geo graph i cal diff erence between the north and the
south, it still may not be too far- fetched to say that millet by and large was more
common than rice as the main grain food in Han China. In antiquity, rice had
been regarded as an expensive and delicious grain food even by nobility. There
is no evidence to suggest that the situation had under gone a drastic change
during the Han dynasty.
Next to rice and millet in popularity were wheat, barley, soybeans, and hemp.
A word about hemp fi rst. It is common knowledge that hemp fi ber provided the
basic material for manufacturing cloth in traditional China, but hemp seed
proved to be edible also, and for that reason, it was often classifi ed by the an-
cients as a “grain.” The Yantielun (Discourses on Salt and Iron) reports that the
early Han Confucian scholar Baoqiu Zi had hemp seed for his grain food.71
However, hemp seed as food did not appear to assume an importance compa-
rable to that of other grains.
For the existence of the very poor, soybeans and wheat could be even more
vital than millet. Although Han China undoubtedly produced more millet (of
vari ous kinds) than other grains, the consumption of millet was prob ably even
greater. There was therefore always a pressing demand for soybeans and wheat
as substitutes. Indeed, Ban Gu points out that the poor only had soybeans to
chew and water to drink ( HS, 91.3a).72 The Discourses on Salt and Iron also men-
tions “bean stew” as the simplest kind of meal.73 Fan Shengzhi has given us a
good explanation as to why this was the case. He says: “From soybeans a good
crop can be easily secured even in adverse years, therefore it is quite natu ral for
108 f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e
the ancient people to grow soy as a provision against famine. Calculate the acre-
age to be covered by soybeans for members of the whole family according to the
rate of 5 mou per capita. This should be looked at as ‘the basic’ for farming.”74
Wheat was regarded as a coarse grain food together with beans. There is a fa-
mous story about bean conjee (gruel) and wheat food being prepared as a hur-
ried meal by Feng Yi for Emperor Guangwu and his soldiers during a period of
military campaigns. Many years later, the emperor wrote to Feng Yi apologiz-
ing that he had not yet returned the latter’s favor of bean conjee and wheat food
( HHS, 17.3a and 12a). Wang Chong also says, “although bean and wheat are
coarse, they can nevertheless satisfy our hunger.”75 In 194 c.e., when there was a
great famine in the vicinity of the capital, prices for grains went sky- high:
500,000 coins for only one hu of unhusked grain (millet) and 200,000 coins
for one hu of beans or wheat ( HHS, 9.8a).76 This shows conclusively that beans
and wheat were considered much inferior to millet as grain food. An offi
cial
would be highly praised for having led a simple life if after his death it was
found out that he had left behind only a few bushels ( hu) of wheat or barley
( HHS, 31.22b, 77.4b).
But even the same grain varied considerably from fi neness to coarseness. In
Han times, one hu of unhusked grain ( gu
or su ) would normally yield six
parts to every ten of the same grain husked ( mi
).77 The husked grain was
considered coarse ( li
) if its ratio to the unhusked grain was seven to ten.78
Sometimes grain food for the poor was even coarser. Zao
(distilled grain)
and kang
(husks) are also mentioned as grain food ( HHS, 41.18b–19a). The
“Suoyin” in Rec ords of the Grand Historian even defi nes zaokang as food for the
poor ( SJ, 1, 61.8b), but this could be just a literary exaggeration. According to
Meng Kang (ca. 180–260 c.e.), the so- called kang was merely leftover unhusked
wheat ( HS, 40.11b). In any case, zaokang was an expression for grain food of the
coarsest kind.
What sorts of dishes, if any, went along with grain food for the Han Chinese
in their everyday life? Geng is the usual answer. The Classic of Rites says, “Geng
was eaten by all, from the princes down to the common people, irrespective of
status.” Zheng Xuan comments that geng was the main food in a meal.79 Here the
Han commentator was obviously speaking from his own daily experience. Geng
could be cooked with or without meat. The following is the only clear description
known to me of meat geng in real ity under the Han. During Emperor Ming’s
reign (58–75 c.e.), Lu Xu of Kuaiji (in modern Zhejiang) was imprisoned in the
capital, Luoyang. One day when he was given a bowl of meat geng to eat, he im-
mediately knew that his mother had come to Luoyang to see him. He told the
people around that the kind of geng he had just received could have been cooked
by none other than his mother. As he described it, “When my mother cuts the
meat, the chunks always come in perfect squares, and when she chops the scal-
lions, the pieces always come in sections exactly one inch long” ( HHS, 81.21a– b).
From this story we know that meat stewed with scallions was a common type of
f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e 109
geng. But meat geng was more a luxury than a daily necessity in Han China.
During Wang Mang’s reign (9–23 c.e.), a eunuch bought fi ne millet food and
meat geng from the marketplace to deceive Wang Mang about what the resi-
dents in Chang-an ordinarily had for meals ( HS, 9c.21b–22a). This act of decep-
tion on the part of the eunuch proves that meat geng was beyond the reach of
people of ordinary means. A fi rst- century scholar, Min Zhongshu of Taiyuan
(in Shanxi), being impoverished, of ill health, and advanced in age, could not
aff ord meat, which he badly needed. Instead, he daily bought a piece of pork
liver from the meat shop, without perhaps knowing that it was rich in vitamins
( HHS, 53.2a). In Min’s case, the meat he wished to have was prob ably pork, al-
though beef and mutton seem to have been more in demand in the Han mar-
ket.80 Beef was especially prized because the ox was such a useful animal that
the government occasionally prohibited its slaughter ( HHS, 41.3a– b).81 In the-
ory, meat was exclusively reserved for the aged and nobility.82 In an imperial
decree of 179 b.c.e., Emperor Wen ordered the government to provide the aged
( those age eighty or older) in the empire with monthly provisions of grain food,
meat, and wine ( HS, 4.6b–7a). Throughout the Han dynasty, similar decrees
had been issued from time to time. Evidence shows, however, that offi
cials in
charge rarely took such orders seriously.
Of all animal meats, chicken was prob ably more within the reach of the
common people than other kinds. Local offi
cials also made special eff orts to
encourage people to raise pigs and chickens as a supplementary house hold
occupation ( HS, 89.5a– b, 13a). Pottery chickens, pigs, and pig houses have been
found in many Han tombs, especially those of Later Han date.83 This may well
be taken as a faithful refl ection of an ordinary Han house hold. Pig butchering
was, however, a rat
her large operation for an individual family. According to
Cui Shi, it took place only once a year in the family a few days before the New
Year— a practice that had generally been followed by the rural Chinese until
the pres ent century.84 When one or two guests came for dinner, therefore, the
Han Chinese, like their ancestors in the time of Confucius, usually had only
chicken to off er. In fact, chicken paired with glutinous millet ( shu) was regarded
as a very presentable food for guests both in pre- Han and in Han times.85 Even
the plea sure of chicken meat was denied to the very poor, however. Mao Rong
of the second century c.e. had only one chicken for his aged mother and none
for his honorable guest Guo Linzong ( HHS, 68.4b). Also under the Later Han,
it is said that an old lady had to steal her neighbor’s chicken, which she cooked
for herself and her daughter- in- law ( HHS, 84.14a– b).
We have shown that both meat and poultry were not as readily available to
the common people as they were to the rich and the power ful. The only other
category of dishes that occupied an impor tant place in everyday meals of the great
majority of Han China was, therefore, vegetable dishes of vari ous kinds. As men-
tioned above, geng was by no means necessarily associated with meat, though the
list of geng from Mawangdui does seem to create such an impression. In fact, it
110 f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e
was perfectly legitimate to speak of vegetable geng in Han as well as pre- Han
times. Han Fei, for example, already mentioned lihuo zhi geng
with
coarse grain food.86 Huo was bean leaves, which, according to Fan Shengzhi,
“can be sold as greens.” 87 We are not sure what li was, but it has been described
as a scallionlike plant.88 The lihuo expression later became so ste reo typed that it
came to mean collectively any kind of coarse vegetable eaten by the poor.
In history we fi nd only a few dietary details concerning the poor. The afore-
mentioned Min Zhongshu was, on another occasion, given some garlic by a
friend, to go with beans and water ( HHS, 53.lb). Also, in the fi rst century c.e.,
Jing Dan was once off ered wheat grain and scallions for a meal that he neverthe-
less refused to eat ( HHS, 83.10b–11a). Thus, we know that garlic and scallions
