煲汤煎药本同源

Making Soup and Decocting Medicine

伊尹曾辅佐汤建立商朝，被后人尊奉为中国历史上第一位“贤相”，不过他治国的灵感却是来源于烹调之中。

Yi Yin, who assisted Tang in establishing the Shang Dynasty, was honored with “the first wise prime minister” in Chinese history by later generations. However, his inspiration for governing the country came from cooking.

伊尹年轻时地位卑微，只是一个陪嫁奴隶，在汤的厨房专职烹调。

Yi Yin used to be a humble dowry slave working in the kitchen for the imperial court.

不过，伊尹却精于调和，擅长将各种食材共同煲制成美味的汤羹，而这也因此赢得汤的赏识，被封为御厨。

However, unlike many other common cooks, Yi Yin was good at blending delicious soup by mixing various ingredients, so he won the favor of Tang and earned himself the title of chef.

不仅在烹饪上造诣不凡，伊尹在治国之术上也十分有见地。常借上菜的机会与汤王会面，劝其讨伐夏桀，拯救人民。

Yi Yin had talent not only for cooking, but also for administering the country. Taking his opportunity of food serving for the Emperor Tang, he many a time suggested the emperor save the people by crusading against Emperor Jie of the Xia Dynasty.

伊尹的才华也逐渐得到了汤的认可。此后，汤常向伊尹询问天下事，伊尹擅长烹饪，便常以做菜比喻引申治国之道。

Yi Yin’s talent had gradually been recognized by Tang. Since then, Tang often asked Yi Yin for advice. As he was good at cooking, Yi Yin often used cooking metaphors to explain the management of state affairs.

而在当时，医生的处方多是单味草药，对一些复杂的病情往往药力不够，也常产生毒性反应，药效总是不佳。

At that time, most of the doctors’ prescriptions contained only one single herb, which were often ineffective and even toxic to some complicated diseases, so the efficacy was always poor.

伊尹从汤羹中得到启发，在汤羹的基础上，发明了中药汤剂，使中药从生药变成熟药，并使用陶器煎煮草药为人治病，至此中药药效得到了大幅度提高。相传，伊尹还曾撰写《汤液经法》，奠定了中药方剂学的基础。

Inspired by the soup cooking, Yi Yin invented the traditional Chinese medicine decoction on the basis of the soup, which changed the traditional Chinese medicine from crude drug to processed medicine, and the pottery-cooked decoction greatly improved the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine. According to record, Yi Yin also wrote Decoction Method, thus laying the foundation for the traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions.

虽然如今做汤的方式相较过往已大不相同，但伊尹制汤之法却在中药汤剂的煎煮中得以保留和延续，并在介于汤和汤剂之间的老火靓汤中得以再现。

The way of making soup today is quite different from that in the past, but Yi Yin’s method has been preserved and developed in the process of decoction making. Moreover, it is re-adopted in cooking “Canton soup”, the old fire soup between common soup and decoction.