A Mouthful of Sky-high Fried Rice, Lao Tang Apprenticed on the Spot

After the team competition buffet project, the next project the next day was the hot dish kitchen.

Different from the buffet project, the judges of this project are only professional culinary professionals, so the audience has no chance to enter and taste.

But facing more professional judges, the difficulty of this project is naturally much higher.

Therefore, the participating teams from each country came to the kitchen early and started preparations.

The Huaxia team was the last team to arrive because Li Yi played video games with Liu Yifei for several hours last night and overslept a bit.

But no one in the Huaxia team was worried at all. After arriving at the place, they started preparing on their own without panicking.

Seeing Li Yi wash his hands, put on an apron, and come to the desk, they felt at peace in their hearts.

Li Yi personally takes action, is there any suspense about this project?

The hot dish kitchen has a theme. This year's theme is "Children's Meal", with the purpose of making dishes more suitable for children's tastes.

The relevant topics were announced in advance, and all participating teams were prepared in advance, and the Chinese team was no exception.

This project does not stipulate the number of dishes, but based on past experience, the number of dishes cannot be too few or too many.

The number of dishes is not a problem for Li Yi. If he wants to do it, he can make a 108-course Manchu-Han banquet.

What he wants to do is dishes that have Chinese cultural characteristics and closely adhere to the theme.

But it's not difficult. When ordering the buffet menu, he had already made the menu for the hot dish kitchen.

In the buffet item, Li Yi uses the twenty-four solar terms to order dishes.

As for the hot dish kitchen, Li Yi uses the twelve zodiac signs.

The twelve zodiac animals are derived from the heavenly stems and earthly branches and are the visual representatives of the twelve earthly branches.

The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches are closely connected with the twenty-four solar terms, which are traditional Chinese cultures that have lasted for thousands of years.

There are ten heavenly stems, namely A, B, B, D, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui.

The twelve earthly branches are Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu and Hai.

Corresponding to the twelve zodiac animals, they are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog and pig.

While each team was preparing, the media from the surrounding countries were also busy, conducting live broadcasts and interviews on the sidelines.

CCTV reporters were also filming the scene of Li Yi cooking.

In the live broadcast room, the audience watched Li Yi's skillful movements, and they were all posting comments and chatting happily.

"It's not easy! I finally see Brother Yi cooking again!"

"Those foreign judges are so lucky to be able to taste Brother Yi's cooking."

"What are you doing? Fish?"

"Good guy, this knife skill is so good!"

Li Yi had already removed two pieces of meat from a mandarin fish and quickly cut it into pieces.

The reporter was obviously a foodie, so he asked, "Captain Li, are you going to make squirrel mandarin fish?"

"right."

Li Yi nodded while patting his fans.

"The first dish of the Chinese zodiac is squirrel and mandarin fish. Children will definitely like to eat this dish."

The reporter laughed and made a joke, and then said: "The twelve zodiac signs are indeed the most essential traditional culture of China, and I am born in the year of the sheep.

This culture must have a history of at least thousands of years, and it is definitely a treasure of our China..."

After listening to her words, Li Yi reminded: "It's not just a thousand years, it's at least more than two thousand years."

"More than two thousand years?"

The CCTV reporter was stunned for a moment, then handed the microphone to Li Yi and asked curiously: "Captain Li, do you know when the zodiac culture originated?"

"No one knows this."

Li Yi picked up the powdered fish, shook the loose powder on it, and said: "However, the bamboo slips of the Qin Dynasty excavated in Yunmengsuihudi, Hubei Province, contain records of the twelve zodiac signs.

This shows that before the Qin Dynasty, the twelve zodiac culture appeared.

The predecessor of the twelve zodiac signs was the twelve earthly branches. The ancients divided the sky into twelve equal parts and expressed them with twelve branches.

On this basis, the ancients divided the stars near the ecliptic and the equator into twenty-eight constellations, and unified them with seven stars.

In the celestial constellation, Jupiter moves around once every twelve years, and the annual branch sequence can be determined from the position of Jupiter.

The ancients believed that astrology is closely related to the rise and fall of the human world. There are sayings: "Three years old is love, three years is ruin, three years is good, three years is drought" and "The world is six years old, and six years old is healthy."

After observation, the ancients discovered that the rise and fall of plants and the living environment of animals on the earth also corresponded to the twelve-year cycle.

On this basis, the ancients developed a totem worship culture, hoping to grow the ethnic group by worshiping and sacrificing animal totems.

Therefore, some people analyze that the twelve zodiac signs are the totems worshiped by the twelve large tribes in ancient times.

The twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac are divided into six animals and six beasts.

The six kinds of livestock are the six kinds of domestic animals that were first raised in captivity by the Chinese ancestors, that is, the six kinds of horses, cattle, sheep, chickens, dogs and pigs.

The six beasts are rats, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes and monkeys, which are the six most common beasts seen by the Chinese ancestors.

Over time, these twelve animals were referred to as the twelve earthly branches and evolved into the twelve zodiac signs. "

Listening to Li Yi's explanation, countless barrages passed by the audience in the live broadcast room.

"So the zodiac culture has such a long history? It feels so magical."

"Eh? Then I remember someone said that the Chinese zodiac came from the West. Is it true or false?"

"It is said that ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, and Babylon all had similar zodiac signs, but the animals were different."

"Guo Ruomo said it. He said that the twelve zodiac signs originated from the Babylonian zodiac signs and were introduced to the country through the Silk Road in the Han Dynasty."

"I used to think that it came from the zodiac, but after listening to Brother Yi's explanation, I realized that we had the zodiac in the Qin Dynasty."

"Some literati like to praise the stinky feet of foreigners. It started from Guo's time."

"Our Chinese culture is the only one that has no gaps. It has been passed down from ancient times to the present. It is a systematic and traceable one. How can we suddenly absorb Western culture and forcefully insert other people's zodiac signs?"

"It's nonsense from the outside. The twelve earthly branches are clearly placed there, but there are still people who pretend not to see them."

"But having said that, all eleven animals in the Chinese zodiac exist in reality. Why is there a dragon?"

"Yes! The ancients would definitely not just add a non-existent animal. I think there must have been dragons in ancient times!"

The reporter was also paying attention to the barrage in the live broadcast room. When she saw the audience starting to discuss the authenticity of Qilong, she also planned to liven up the atmosphere, so she asked Li Yi: "Captain Li, do you think dragons exist?"

"existing."

Li Yi answered without thinking at all.

"Huh? Really?"

The reporter was stunned for a moment, then asked jokingly: "Is Captain Li talking about Dongfeng Citroen?"

"That's not true."

Li Yi felt the temperature of the oil in the pot with his hands and found that the temperature was enough. He took the cut mandarin fish and put it into the oil pot to fry. He explained: "But I'm not talking about that kind of mythical beast. Dragon, but a real prototype in history.

According to unearthed cultural relics before the Qin and Han Dynasties, ancient dragons were actually crocodiles.

The ancient name of the crocodile is Tao, also known as Pig Po Dragon.

In ancient times, the Yellow River Basin was rich in crocodiles. Many crocodile fossils were unearthed in Fenshui, Shanxi Province, and were named "Fenhe Crocodiles".

"Book of Rites" also contains records of crocodiles being produced in Luoyang.

The chronicle of the Spring and Autumn Period, "Bamboo Book Annals", also records: "In the thirty-seventh year of King Zhou Mu's attack on Chu, he raised nine divisions. As for Jiujiang, they were even more powerful than turtles."

Therefore, what the audience said is actually right. The ancients would not just randomly put an unseen creature into the zodiac.

But with the development of history and the breakthrough of ancient people's imagination, the image of dragon has gradually evolved, and gradually turned into what we know. "