This isn’t your typical China-was-the-first-to-invent-life’s-most-important-things thing – remember in school when your lessons would say China invented the ink, the compass, and whatnot? – since there are detailed historical records that say food delivery existed in Imperial China almost 1,000 years ago! RSF has all the details.
Imperial China loooves ordering food for delivery
Let’s set the scene by painting a picture of the things today. In China, you’ve got food delivery apps like Ele.me and Meituan. These apps take the cue from food delivery apps in the West, such as DoorDash and Uber Eats.
But, there’s actually a book that RSF stumbled across, titled “Dongjing Meng Hua Lu” or “A Dream of Splendor in the Eastern Capital” memoir that offered a revelation saying that most residents in the Chinese city of Kaifeng, then the imperial capital, did not cook at home, but ate out, or ordered for delivery.
The authorities also supported this habit, as in 965 AD, the Song Dynasty issued an edict that lifted the rule of imposing a night curfew, something that had been implemented in Chinese cities for a thousand years.
So, before this, every big Chinese city shut down at dusk. During the Tang Dynasty, drums were played to signal that the gates must be closed by nightfall. Anybody caught on the streets after dark was flogged, so literally China is dead at night.
After the lifting of this rule, those around a million of people in the imperial capital were active at night. The birth of the graveyard shift? Also probably, but this was also the start of the today-famous night markets, the book shared.
Ode to Paris, the ‘app’s name’ then, costs
So, how did the food delivery cost during that time? Before that, China respected and took cue from how it was in Paris, the place that gave birth to the modern restaurant in the mid-1700s.
But four centuries earlier, Kaifeng had over 70 officially registered restaurants and thousands of smaller establishments. They were, of course, different from the inns and taverns, since from those restaurants, people ordered from the menu, according to the prices, and the food were cooked for you.
In the memoir, it is being claimed that the name of the delivery – present-day equivalent of the food delivery apps – was “Suohuan,” which means “call and demand.” Kaifeng is the earliest city with this systematic, on-demand meal delivery and a structured three-meals-a-day eating-out culture.
Amazing and wonderful! How did the food for delivery cost? Well, here’s the illustration:
- Cup of tea: 1 coin or around $0.30 today
- Bowl of soup: 10 coins or around $3 today
- Night market dish: 15 coins or around $5 today
- Jug of tasty wine: 77 coins or around $25 today
It’s amazing? It is amazing, and beautiful at that. Should you want to share your thoughts, open your account here on RSF, and you could also share this story online! This, is RSF.