Meat was from pigs, dogs, chickens, sheep, goats, cattle, horses water buffaloes. Fish and all sorts of turtle were also eaten too.

• Interesting Facts

The last ruler of the Shang Dynasty—Zhou Wang spent most of his time in the “lake of beer and forest of beef”. It was actually a tub of wine surrounded with meat strips hanging around.

Soyabeans  became popular

Cast iron was invented while farming was revolutionized

Here is a list of what they eat at that time:

Grains:

• broom corn/panic millet
• barley and wheat (mai)
• rice (tao)

Vegetables:

• hemp (ma), a kind of fiber plant which seeds could be eaten.
• Chinese cabbages (feng)
• Chinese chives
• Chinese celery (ch’in)
• daylily
• bottle gourd (hu), considered as industrial plant or as food.
• melon (kua)
• lotus (ho)
• soya bean
• water fern
• bamboo shoots

Fruits:

• peach (tao)
• plum (li)
• Chinese jujube (tsao)
• Chinese date (chi)
• Oriental/ Japanese apricot (mei)

Nuts:

• hazelnut (chen)
• oak (li)
• pine (sung)

Since the economy became unstable, food was the central concern for the citizens while it was only enjoyment to the elite.

Other tribes at or near the boarder of China were usually called barbarians. They ate uncooked food instead and they had no grain staples.

There was also a book “Book of Changes” (I Ching) suggested the Five Tastes which were: sour, bitter, sweet, piquant (hot and spicy), salt.