There was no refrigerator in ancient hotels. How to preserve vegetables and meat?

There were refrigerators in ancient times - - but they were called ice cookers at that time, but ice cookers were only used by wealthy families. Most ordinary families used cellars to store vegetables and other things. Cellars are still used in our country until now. tradition.

In the "Book of Songs", there are records of slaves digging ice in winter to store it for the nobles to drink in summer. The ancient book "Zhou Rites" records "Sacrifice to *** Bingjian". "Jian" is actually a box with ice inside, and food is placed in the middle of the ice to preserve the food's freshness. It can be seen that there were primitive refrigerators in the Zhou Dynasty, but ice was not available all the year round. Especially in the hot summer, ice was extremely precious.

In ancient times, no matter how hot the weather was, the emperor could not stand it. Thus, there was the first ‘machine’ in the palace. The Bingjian is a double-layered vessel with a fou inside. In summer, ice cubes are placed between the fou and wine inside the fou to cool down.

Two ice mirrors were unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Hou Yichu in Suixian County, Hubei Province in 1978. There was also a long ladle on the ice mirror specially used to scoop cold drinks. In addition, it is also recorded in the ancient book "Wu Yue Chun Qiu": "When Gou Jian traveled, he rested, ate and slept in the Ice Kitchen." The "Ice Kitchen" mentioned here is a house specially used by ancient people to store food. A place where food and drinks are served in the summer. Jian Fou, with its ingenious design and exquisite casting, is known as the "refrigerator" in ancient China. The Fou Jian is composed of a wine container Zun Fou and a jian. The Fang Zun Fou is placed in the middle of the Fang Jian. The Fang Jian has a cover with a pattern of holes. The square mouth in the middle of the cover just fits the Fang Zun Fou's neck. There is a movable mechanism at the bottom of the mirror, which firmly fixes the fou. There is a large gap between the jian and the zunfou, which should be used to hold ice cubes in summer and hot water in winter.