The foundation of jade food: exploring the mystery of "skin within skin" from Chinese food civilization
In the vast expanse of traditional Chinese food culture, the extreme use of ingredients and the profound understanding of life aesthetics have always been intertwined and go hand in hand.
When the ancients talked about diet, they not only sought to satisfy their hunger, but also sought the wonders of health and the elegance of beauty.
At present, the collagen that we are paying attention to from the perspective of modern nutrition has actually been deeply rooted in the wisdom map of the Chinese diet a long time ago.
In the traditional food and nutrition system, it is regarded as a subtle substance that can maintain the body's "strong muscles and bones and moist skin." Just like the simple understanding of "repairing the shape with the form" in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" and other classics, it is believed to be closely connected with the fullness and strength of the human body's skin, flesh, muscles, bones, and blood vessels.
Soup for a Thousand Years: Aesthetic Presentation and Philosophical Thinking of Collagen in Traditional Cooking
Looking back at the history of Chinese food, we have a long tradition of using colloid-rich ingredients.
Whether it is sea cucumbers roasted with green onions in Shandong cuisine, which emphasizes heat, or chicken stewed with fish maw that pursues the original flavor in Cantonese cuisine, or the famous Huaiyang dish of braised silver carp head, the key point is to use the natural colloid in the ingredients to give the dishes a unique "mellow" taste and "lip-hanging" texture.
Although people in ancient times did not know what "collagen" was, they were very familiar with its related principles through thousands of years of cooking practice.
The pursuit of this colloid is refracted and shows a high degree of unity of "taste" and "nourishing" in Chinese cooking aesthetics.
From the complicated cooking techniques such as "pork buns with bitter polygonum" recorded in "Book of Rites: Nei Ze", to the food nutrition theory gradually formed in later generations, "the soup is made from simmering; the paste is made from glue", all reflect how the ancestors used slow fire to stew, water and fire. The way of healing transforms hard bones into a soup as warm as jade. This is not only a transformation of physical form, but also a philosophical sublimation from hardness to softness. It is a simple interpretation of the Chinese food culture that life vitality originates from the inside and emerges from the outside.
Seasons of the Year: The Wisdom and Etiquette Connotation of “Gluo Replenishing” in Traditional Food Customs
Go in-depth to explore the traditional festival food customs of various places, and then you can discover the close connection between collagen and people's lives.
In many areas in the south of the Yangtze River, you must eat a kind of "braised mutton" or "mutton jelly" during the winter solstice. The jelly formed after it cools down is regarded as a very nourishing item that contains the essence of mutton.
However, in the north, at the Spring Festival family banquet, there is a plate of meat jelly, which is crystal clear. This meat jelly also carries the connotation of thrift and housekeeping, as well as the wish for plump skin, and the beautiful meaning of "moisturizing" in the coming year.
These seemingly ordinary home-cooked dishes actually contain the ancestors’ in-depth exploration of the relationship between seasons and the human body. Autumn and winter are mainly about collection, and the human body’s qi and blood converge inward. Replenishing the easily absorbed colloidal essence at this time is in line with the principle of “nourishing yin in autumn and winter”.
Such a kind of eating behavior is no longer just a simple and pure nutritional supplement, but has gradually evolved into a kind of dietary etiquette that is integrated into the seasons and is a display of humanistic emotions. It highlights the grand ideological system of "the correspondence between nature and man" included in Chinese food culture.
Reform the past and innovate: the modern dietary concept inherits and surpasses the essence of traditional food nutrition
Up to now, modern biotechnology has been developed, and this development has opened up a new dimension for us to understand this ancient proposition.
Traditional ways of "food supplements", such as eating pig's trotters, eating claws, and enjoying bird's nests, are full of cultural sentiments. However, the macromolecular collagen in them often has a molecular weight greater than 100,000 Daltons. After entering the human body, it has to go through a complicated digestion and decomposition process. The absorption efficiency is actually relatively limited, and it is often accompanied by the intake of too much animal fat.
This encourages us to adopt a rational attitude towards issues of absorption efficiency while inheriting traditional dietary wisdom.
What modern food technology is persistently exploring is how to extract and utilize these essential ingredients with higher precision and efficiency, and that’s right.
Research shows that collagen is hydrolyzed into collagen peptides with the help of biological enzymatic hydrolysis technology. Its molecular weight is between 1,000 and 3,000 daltons. At this time, its absorption efficiency can reach more than 90%, and it can truly achieve the purpose of being used throughout the body and nourishing the skin, joints and bones. This is undoubtedly a modern upgrade of the ancients' pursuit of "taking food for results".
Chinese food civilization has always been developing through inheritance and innovating during development.
From the thick soup stewed by ancient methods to the collagen peptides carefully made with modern technology, what we see is not only the continuous evolution of technology, but also the Chinese nation’s tireless pursuit of vitality and health.
When savoring this "glue" nourishing wisdom that spans thousands of years, on the one hand, we need to appreciate the relatively simple humanistic care in traditional food customs, and on the other hand, we must make good use of the precision and efficiency brought by modern technology, so that this source of life originating from the depths of the Chinese land can continue to nourish our bodies and minds, and maintain a richness and calmness from the inside out in the long river of time.
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