Dispersed from the summer clouds, the breeze cooled. Bai Juyi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, described the comfort of the hot season: the heat gradually drifted away, the cool breeze quietly arrived, and everything in the world shifted from prosperity to convergence. The "Monthly Decree on the Settlement of the Seventy-Two Hours" mentions: "Everywhere, go, the heat stops here. It was finally time to bid farewell to the summer heat.
During the heat season, there is a particularly tasty custom - eating ducks. When the autumn breeze rises, the duck meat is beautiful, and the stove heads of households are fragrant. At this time, the duck skin is thin and tender, and the fat is rich and fragrant, making it the most attractive food in this season.
Ducks are one of the oldest domesticated poultry in China, dating back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties. It has many affectionate names, such as "Shu", "Shu", "Flat mouth", "Quack", and each name carries the daily life of people accompanying ducks. There are also very early records of duck meat entering the duck. In "Qimin Yaoju · Raising Goose and Duck" in the Northern Wei Dynasty, it is mentioned that "the cook, the calf is 100 days away, and the calf is 60 or 70 days away, which is good." In the Tang Dynasty, Hanshan, a poet, gave poems to eat ducks, and wrote the famous phrase "steamed pork and garlic sauce, grilled ducks and pepper salt". In the Qing Dynasty, Yuan Mei recorded the method of steaming ducks in detail in the "Meal List with the Garden". Glutinous rice, ham, and salsa were filled into the duck stomach, and the chicken soup was steamed through with water, which was delicious.
A bite of duck meat contains 3,000 years of cooking fireworks. The heat is at the turn of summer and autumn, and the heat is still there and the autumn is dry. People often have "autumn dryness" symptoms such as dry nasopharynx, dry cough and less phlegm, and tight skin. Ducks are a "flat tonic" tailored by nature for this node. It tastes sweet and cool, returning the spleen, stomach, lungs, and kidney meridians, which not only clears the residual heat at the end of summer, but also moisturizes the early autumn dryness. Folk people regarded ducks as a "holy medicine to compensate for exhaustion". Duck meat is not dry, moisturized and not greasy, suitable for autumn supplements. Modern nutrition also believes that duck meat is rich in high-quality protein and unsaturated fatty acids, which helps to moisturize and reduce dryness, and nourishes without increasing burdens.
