The Origins of Braising: Reaction Post

A commentator on the SCA Chinese research group posted an article on the origins and history of lu cai, (there are various names for it), which is a class of dishes made by braising typically meat in stock.  I'd not heard of these before, and the article was a fun read.  I thought I'd put the highlights here in English, and translate the original sources mentioned.

"滷 Lu" is the operative word and originally meant "to boil water to obtain salt, sometimes an alkali salt," and from there gained meanings around reduction by boiling in general and so can refer to sauces or gravies, as well as things like halogens.  Fun!

The article points first to Chu Ci, a collection of poems from what was then the southern kingdom of the fractious warring states period, from around 300-250 BCE.  One poem talks about the various foods one eats when returning home, and includes the line 露雞臛蠵，厲而不爽些, narrowly translating as "nectar-chicken and braised-turtle, none can contravene them!"  One scholar, Guo Moruo reportedly points to this as the first mention of this cooking style.  Perhaps!  There's not much else to go on here.

The next reference is to my most familiar text, Qimin Yaoshu.  Chapter 79 is "[this character screws up Blogger]綠 Pickled greens."  The unprintable character is fairly obscure, and the link for it gives several historical dictionaries under a claimed homograph 菹 zu defining it as variously

• Pickled vegetables
• Salted or pickled vegetables, fermented when fresh, and then stored at moderate temperatures so as to not go mushy (probably a lacto pickle)
• "When finely cut, we call it 齏 ji, when whole pieces we call it 菹 zu"
• A few meanings around fresh pond grass

They call out a recipe titled "綠肉法 Recipe for Green Meat," which they claim is a homophone for braised meat.  I'm not sure, but the recipes in it are certainly along the lines of braises or stews:

[X]綠第七十九 Chapter 79: Pickled greens

白𦵔 White Pickles

《食經》曰：「白𦵔：鵝、鴨、雞白煮者，鹿骨，斫為准：長三寸，廣一寸。	The Classic of Food reads, "White 'pickles:' take boiled goose, duck, or chicken white meat, deer bones, cloven following the rule: 3 inches long, one inch broad.
下杯中，以成清紫菜三四片加上，鹽、醋和肉汁沃之。」	Place down into a cup, take 3-4 sheets finished green nori, salt, vinegar, and the meat broth and immerse it.
又云：「亦細切，蘇加上。」	It also reads, "Put finely cut vegetables on top."
又云：「准訖，肉汁中更煮，亦啖。少與米糝。凡不醋，不紫菜。滿奠焉。」	It also reads, "When ready, boil the meat broth again, and enjoy it.  A few add rice gruel.  In general, if you do not have vinegar, do not add nori.  Serve it forth.

[X]法：To Make Like-Pickles:

用豬肉、羊、鹿肥者，䪥葉細切，熬之，與鹽、豉汁。	Take pork, sheep, or deer fat, finely-cut scallion leaves, and braise them.  Add salt, and juice from fermented and salted black beans.
細切菜菹葉，細如小蟲絲，長至五寸，下肉裏。	Finely cut vegetables and pickled leaves, as fine as small worm silk, up to 5 inches in size, and add it to the meat broth.
多與菹汁令酢。	Add pickle broth until it is sour.

蟬脯菹法：To Make Dried Cicada Pickles:

「搥之，火炙令熟。細擘，下酢。」	[source not given, perhaps the Classic of Food?] "Pound them, then fire-broil them until cooked.  Finely split/"thumb" them, and add vinegar."
又云：「蒸之。細切香菜置上。」	It also says, "Steam them.  Finely cut fragrant vegetables and place them on top."
又云：「下沸湯中，即出，擘，如上香菜蓼法。」	It also says, "Add them to boiling water, immediately take them out, split/"thumb" them, and do as the above fragrant vegetable method, with smartweed [Persicaria sp.]

綠肉法：To Make Green Meat:

用豬、雞、鴨肉，方寸准，熬之。	Take pork, chicken, or duck meat, cut square, and braise it.
與鹽、豉汁煮之。	Boil with salt and fermented black bean juice.
蔥、薑、橘、胡芹、小蒜，細切與之，下醋。	Add finely cut scallions, ginger, tangerine peel, celery, and sand leek [Allium scorodoprasum], and add vinegar.
切肉名曰「綠肉」，豬、雞、名曰「酸」。	Cut meat is called "green meat."  Pork and chicken is called "sour"

白瀹〈瀹，煮也，音藥。〉肫法：To Make White Suckling Pig Soup:

用乳下肥肫。	Use a fat suckling pig.
作魚眼湯，下冷水和之，擘肫令淨，罷。	Boil water until it appears like fish eyes, and then add cold water and mix it.  Break apart [pry open? separate?] the pig until clean, and then stop
茅蒿葉揩洗，刀刮削令極淨。	Wipe it clean with cogongrass [Imperata cylindrica] and wormwood [Artemisia sp.] [possibly Drosera instead of these two, but that seems unlikely] leaves, and then scrape it very well with a knife.
淨揩釜，勿令渝，釜渝則肫黑。	Wipe clean a cauldron that will not overflow, for if the cauldron overflows then the pig will blacken.
絹袋盛肫，酢漿水煮之。	Put the pig in a tabby-woven plain dense silk bag, and boil it in vinegar soured water.
繫小石，勿使浮出。	Bind on small stones so that it does not float out.
上有浮沫，數接去。	When there is foam floating on top, you may take it [the foam?] out.
兩沸，急出之，及熱以冷水沃肫。	At the second boil, immediately remove it, and immerse the pig in cold water.
又以茅蒿葉揩令極白淨。	Again take cogongrass and wormwood leaves and wipe it so that it it is white-clean.
以少許麵，和水為麵漿；復絹袋盛肫，繫石，於麵漿中煮之。	Take some flour and mix it with water to form flour broth; put the pig back in the silk bag, tie on stones, and boil it in the flour broth.
接去浮沫，一如上法。	Remove foam, and do as above.
好熟，出，著盆中，以冷水和煮肫麵漿使暖暖，於盆中浸之。	When done, remove it, and place in a basin.  Mix cold water with the boiled pig/flour broth to make it pleasantly warm, and soak it in the basin.
然後擘食。	Then, break/"thumb" it to eat.
皮如玉色，滑而且美。	The skin is the color of jade, smooth and delicious.

酸肫法： To Make Sour Suckling Pig:

用乳下肫。	Use a suckling pig.
燖治訖，並骨斬臠之，令片別帶皮。	Scald it and when done, cut parallel to the bone and divide it into pieces, separated from the surrounding skin.
細切蔥白，豉汁炒之，香，微下水，爛煮為佳。	Stir-fry with finely cut onion-whites and fermented black bean juice, add aromatics, a tiny amount of water, and boil until soft and good.
下粳米為糝。	Add polished non-glutinous rice to make a gruel.
細擘蔥白，並豉汁下之。	Finely break onion whites, and again add fermented black bean juice to it.
熟，下椒、醋，大美。	When done, add Sichuan peppercorn, and vinegar, and it is very delicious.

These certainly look like stews in the direction of braising.  The word I'm translating here as "braise" can also mean "to roast, to dry-fry," and acquires a meaning of "boil" as the medieval period progresses but I think this reading of "braise" is more likely for this section.  It could equally be boil, however - it's not clear.  I'm not sure why this section is titled "pickled greens."

The next reference is from Record of the Dream of Rafters, a pretty disorderly text about life in the late Song dynasty around the greater Shanghai area.  The page in question talks about how everybody in Hangzhou, no matter how rich or poor, enjoys soups.  Salted fish is the main ingredient, and vast amounts of it are on sale spread out in the market and being carried about.  The author then lists a bewildering list of kinds of "famous kinds of dried fish", and transitions into "and there's also..." listing other foods that are a little unclear but include "wine river skate, wine fragrant snails, wine oysters, ..., small nail-head fish, purple fish, fish fat, arc clams, mackerel, ... " before mentioning 鹵蝦, "salted shrimp" but which our article claims is the braised shrimp 滷蝦 (remember the etymology of braising originating from salt brine reduction).  Another list follows with salted fish condiments (鮓) and jellies, and it does proceed on to "roasted" (炙) fish of various kinds, as well as steamed and stirfried white shrimp.

Basically this but it's all dried fish
Image owned by its copyright holder and not released under cc-sa-4

Initially I was unconvinced: 鹵 is not 滷, but when I went to look at the scanned text the character is actually 滷.  Now, this is not a slam dunk: this kind of character swap is fairly common historically and while the text appears printed that doesn't meant there are no errors.  I'm inclined to think that this is just salted shrimp, since it's not with the prepared food in the list.  Either way, we don't have a recipe - the article uses this to cite the beginning of the name 滷 for this cooking method.

The rest of the citations are from the Qing dynasty and I won't be pursuing them in this post, but Sean Chen over at Way of Eating has a recipe for Braised Chicken and Hanged Soy Braised Duck ("braised" as in 鹵) from 1792 cookbook Suiyuan Shidan.  Give them a read!

The rest of the article gives more historical background but I'm not equipped to assess it.  Enjoy the recipes!  Let me know if you try them.

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