Were there delivery boys in the Song Dynasty?

In the Song Dynasty, urban white-collar workers and small businessmen, like urban white-collar workers today, were not used to cooking at home, but instead went out to restaurants or ordered takeout. ——That's right, restaurants in Kaifeng during the Song Dynasty had already begun to provide fast food and ordering services that were "required on an hourly basis" and "can be done without hesitation".

In "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", there is a hidden restaurant waiter who is delivering takeout to someone...

The restaurants on the bank of the Bianhe River are food stalls

Some of the restaurants (excluding hotels and teahouses) in "Along the River During Qingming Festival" are located on the banks of the Bianhe River, docks and roadsides. Judging from the buildings and facilities, they all appear to be relatively simple, with low tile-roofed houses and Open a few tables and chairs. The tables are square tables with little decoration, and the chairs are long benches, similar to today's food stalls. It should be a restaurant that satisfies the needs of porters, boatmen, trackers, cart drivers, vendors, vagrants and other people.

Although it is a street food stall, the prices are very affordable, but the dishes are rich and diverse:

“Specializes in daily meals, such as meat soup, bone soup, and hoof soup. , spicy fish soup, chicken soup, spicy fish soup, pork bone soup, hybrid soup, north and south soup, and also sells butterfly noodles, fried pork, big bran shrimp and other butterfly noodles, as well as fried meat, fried liver, frozen Fish, frozen catfish, frozen meat, fried duck, pan-fried catfish, vinegar catfish, etc. are also sold. They also specialize in blood-streaked noodles, pork and vegetable noodles, bamboo shoot noodles, vegetarian bone noodles, and vegetarian rice with braised bamboo shoots. Soup restaurants also sell fried tofu, fried fish, fried fish, fried vegetables, and fried eggplants. These shops are the places where the lower classes come to the market in search of a good meal."

High-end hotels are called main restaurants

These restaurants are basically located near the street or river, with the walls opened (to facilitate lighting and opening to customers), and usually only use pillars to bear the load. . In order to increase the business area, some restaurants also build eaves and use parasols. Some restaurants will decorate their entrances with colorful flags and market signs to attract diners. Some restaurants attach great importance to interior decoration and arrange the environment very elegantly: "Bianjing Delicatessen has famous paintings on them, so they seduce viewers and linger over diners."

There was a fast food ordering service in the Song Dynasty

There is another historical detail that is particularly interesting: because the catering industry in the cities of the Song Dynasty was very developed, "everywhere was crowded with teahouses and hotels. Eat and drink everywhere. Market brokers often only buy food and drinks in the market stores and do not buy home vegetables.”

This means that urban white-collar workers and small businessmen in the Song Dynasty, like urban white-collar workers today, were not used to cooking at home, but instead went out to restaurants or ordered takeout. ——That's right, restaurants in Kaifeng during the Song Dynasty had already begun to provide fast food and ordering services that were "required on an hourly basis" and "can be done without hesitation". "Along the River During Qingming Festival" depicts a restaurant waiter who is delivering takeout to someone unknown.