What did the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty like to eat most during the New Year's Festival?

"Chinese Cuisine: A Map on the Tip of the Tongue", China Map Publishing House, September 2014. The Hong Candle Food Book was translated into Japanese and distributed worldwide by the Japanese Qingtu Society. 【What did the emperors of the Qing Dynasty love to eat?】 I love to eat the atmosphere. Eat pomp and circumstance. So there was a full table of Manhan. Who would the Kangxi Emperor invite to dinner on his birthday or festival? The Kangxi Emperor pioneered the Feast of a Thousand Sorrows and feasted on guests. The Feast of a Thousand Sorrows is quite representative. In the history of Chinese feasts, a record of "the best in the world" was left: "The court feasts held by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty for thousands of elderly people across the country, because the participants were long and presided over by the emperor himself, their scale, high rank, and huge cost were rare in the history of ancient feasts." The participants of the Feast of the Thousand Sorrows were all over the country, and they were personally determined by the emperor, and they sent notices to the relevant yamen to leave in advance according to the distance of the road, and those who were far away even had to stay overnight two months in advance and go to Beijing at the same time. Kangxi wanted to have fun with the people, and in order to show his concern for many "retired old cadres," he held two feasts in three days, and the elderly over the age of sixty-five alone invited nearly three thousand. Nine years later, a thousand more elderly people were set up, and more than a thousand old people were seated in two batches. The sunset is truly infinitely good. As for the New Year's Festival, such as the Chinese New Year's Eve Feast, there are more than 120 dishes on the Qianlong lunch menu. What is like serving a person to eat and drink? 】

The Kangxi Emperor

Eating in the Qing Palace

Flood candles

What did the emperors of the Qing Dynasty love to eat? What about their concubines? Is food and drink a public ritual for them, or a completely relaxing private life? Where is the lavishness of the court feast embodied?

All of this is a problem for me. It is precisely because of the remoteness that it arouses my curiosity even more.

So visiting the Forbidden City, I was looking at the three halls and the like, and I wanted to find two small places: the royal kitchen and toilet, what would it look like? Could it be that it is also finely decorated? I am interested in: how can the emperor remove the aura above his head and restore the instincts of mortals after he descends from the dragon chair where his subjects bow down and the clouds above ten thousand people. Although he claimed to be the True Dragon Heavenly Son, he was not a god after all, and he also wanted to eat and drink. It's no different from ordinary people. He pretended to be majestic and falsely deep, and he could not avoid the closest to the worldly side of his personal life.

The emperor also wants to eat. "Widows" can also be "sick". In the end, it is still the mortal flesh. After thinking about all this, the emperor and even the entire feudal era of China, in your eyes and mine, there is nothing mysterious.

The kitchen of the Qing Palace should be called the Imperial Dining Room. The person who cooks for the emperor is definitely a first-class chef and belongs to the "royal use". There are two professions in the world that are most afraid of being "used by the emperor", one is a literati, and the other is a cook. Court poets can only sing praises and praises, and the cooks at the feet of the Son of Heaven can only change their tricks to please their masters. And it's definitely trembling. Fear that if the salt is put a little more or less (and so on), it will ruin the emperor's appetite and may even invite the disaster of killing. This makes it impossible for them to relax absolutely. Whether it is art or cooking, it must be in a relaxed state to be creative and effective.

The Manchu Han Quanxi, which belongs to the "masterpiece" of Qing Dynasty court cuisine, is said to be "famous for its solemn and formal etiquette, exquisite materials, and a wide variety of dishes, and there is no match on the table of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign feasts." ”

Tan Qian's "Journey to the North Chronicles" records its origins: "Guests, withdraw one seat and enter another seat, and when the king of The British king is present, he will taste the feast of the generals, which can be two hundred seats." Even eat for three days and three nights. It's embarrassing enough for those chefs! They have to dig their heads out and avoid the similarity of dishes. Just like writing a lattice poem, it is necessary to rhyme and rhyme, and the words cannot be repeated. Isn't that making people dance in shackles?

The rest of my life was also late, and I didn't taste the full table of Manhan. But I think that's just the way it is. In the end, both for chefs and diners, I am afraid it will be mechanical. There will be different degrees of "aesthetic fatigue". Cooking, once it becomes a thorough labor, is not much fun. It also needs inspiration and even "the stroke of God". The style of the Manchu Han Dynasty, in my imagination, is equivalent to the decaying Han fu, the kind of crappy, contrived style, in vain with long sentences, gorgeous words, but lack of soul. Too greasy, it will make people disgusted.

It can be seen from the full seat of the Manchu Han Dynasty that the royal family of the Qing Empire, in terms of diet, likes to swing wide, even to the extent of extravagance and waste. It is typical to sit and eat mountain air. The fate of this dynasty is very similar.

Since the Northern Qi dynasty of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the imperial diet has been administered by the Guanglu Temple, under the jurisdiction of the Officials, Cuisine, Qingzhang (Wine) and other departments, the Tang and Song Dynasties until the Ming Dynasty, all followed this system. "In the Qing Dynasty, guanglu temple became a foreign court function, in charge of only the food and drink used for sacrifices, although the institution was still large, due to limited funds, it became a cold office. The Emperor's meals and drinks were the responsibility of the Ministry of internal affairs. The tea rooms, tea rooms, external dining rooms, internal dining rooms, inner food rooms, outer food rooms, wine and vinegar rooms, and vegetable warehouses under the Ministry of Internal Affairs are well organized, with many personnel and a clear division of labor. There are meat bureaus, vegetarian bureaus, dim sum bureaus, meal bureaus, hanging stove bureaus, division rooms and other departments under the inner dining room, equipped with countless departments such as chief chefs (chief chef), deputy chiefs (deputy chefs), cooks (cooks), cooks, sula (miscellaneous services) and so on. This is what Mr. Li Dengnian, who wrote the book "Ancient Chinese Feasts," told me at the natural residence hotel he runs. After listening to it, I sighed: Alas, in order to take care of the emperor's mouth, we must build a huge administrative apparatus The corruption of China's feudal society is evident.

During the Qianlong Period, the "History of the Palace of the State Dynasty": the imperial dining room "specializes in the use of meals by the emperor (emperor), the mouths of each palace, the offerings of various places, the feasts of the festival, and the sitting of the attendants." In terms of "establishment", there are three chief eunuchs, ten chief eunuchs, hundred eunuchs, and thousands of peripheral personnel (kitchen and miscellaneous servants). In addition, the empress dowager, the empress, the noble concubines, etc. also opened their own small stoves, that is, private kitchens.

For example, Cixi's private kitchen is called the Western Dining Room. "The selection of many highly skilled cooks should be poor, and their regulations are even better than those of the imperial dining room. Cixi ate, just holding the meal box of the little eunuch there were hundreds of people, the pomp and circumstance of that year can be imagined. In order to cater to Cixi's lusts, the cooks in the Western Dining Room went out of their way to make a variety of beautiful dishes. According to reports, the kitchen in the Western Dining Room was able to make more than 400 kinds of dim sum and more than 4,000 kinds of dishes, which can be described as a variety of tricks and have everything. When Cixi was happy to eat, she often gave names to some dishes. (Quoted from Lü Yingfan's "Notes on the Anecdotes of Qing People Drinking and Eating") A meal of Cixi was as solemn as a military parade, enough for the eunuchs (honor guards?) Practice for a while.

Consulting the "Archives of the Interior Affairs Office of the Qing Palace", I found a series of food lists of the emperors and empresses, which made people "dizzy". Festive festivals are natural and tasteful, and even the daily breakfast is reluctant to make up.

Take Qianlong's early meal list as an example (it is already the simplest): bird's nest red and white duck south fresh hot pot one product, wine stew stewed tofu one product, steamed duck stew pork deer tail save plate one product, bamboo roll small steamed bun first product, ShuFei, Yingfei, Yufei, Yufei, jincai four products, two products of rao, enamel sunflower box small dishes one product, enamel silver plate small dishes four products, with a noodles, old rice water food one product. In addition, there are four tables of food: four products of yellow bowl dish No. 2, one product of shredded lamb, and eight products of tits, a total of thirteen products and one table; Fifteen products a table; Plate meat eight products a table; Lamb on both sides of a table. This was only the emperor's breakfast (light meal), and the dishes amounted to fifty-three. Dinner, increased to seventy-five.

As for the New Year's Festival, such as the Chinese New Year's Eve Feast, there are more than 120 dishes on the Qianlong lunch menu. What is like serving a person to eat and drink? How big is the emperor's mouth and how big is his belly? It is estimated that many dishes are just a little bit of water like a dragonfly to taste chopsticks. Others were used purely as decorations to "feed" the emperor's eyes.

In recent years, Qing Palace dramas have become popular, and every time the emperor and general are photographed drinking, they can often only symbolically arrange a few pairs of dishes and chopsticks, and the camera flashes by. There's no way to pursue realistic results. On the one hand, it cannot afford to pay that cost, on the other hand, it also shows that contemporary people have little understanding of the imperial court feast, and even cannot imagine it at all. So in the Qing Palace drama, the real food is absent.

Alas, even if you can find the emperor's menu, you can't find a chef who can "write a proposition" accordingly. Some court dishes were thus lost.

The emperor not only pays attention to his own meals, but also likes to feast on guests. The Feast of a Thousand Sorrows is quite representative. In the history of Chinese feasts, a record of "the best in the world" was left: "The court feasts held by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty for thousands of elderly people across the country, because the participants were long and presided over by the emperor himself, their scale, high rank, and huge cost were rare in the history of ancient feasts." The participants of the Feast of the Thousand Sorrows were all over the country, and they were personally determined by the emperor, and they sent notices to the relevant yamen to leave in advance according to the distance of the road, and those who were far away even had to stay overnight two months in advance and go to Beijing at the same time. (Lee Teng-nien)

The initiator of the Thousand Sorrows Feast was Kangxi, who on his sixtieth birthday wanted to have fun with the people, and in order to show concern for many "retired old cadres", he held two feasts in three days, and the elderly over the age of sixty-five alone invited nearly three thousand. Nine years later, a thousand more elderly people were set up, and more than a thousand old people were seated in two batches. The sunset is truly infinitely good.

Kangxi's pioneering deeds were deliberately imitated by Qianlong. In the first month of the fiftieth year of Qianlong, in order to celebrate that he was over seventy years old and happy to have the fifth grandson, he threw a thousand feasts in the Imperial Pole Hall, and in addition to the imperial feast in front of the throne, a total of 800 tables were attended, with 3,000 old people participating. There are two types: first class and second class. The first class is: two hot pots, one pork slice, one lamb slice, one plate of deer tail roasted venison, one plate of lamb black fork, four bowls of meat dishes, one plate of steamed shouyi, one plate of stove food shou food, two small dishes of snail box, two ebony tendons, and shredded meat hot rice. The inferior is slightly inferior.

Old people from all over the world went to Beijing for banquets, eating was secondary, and more important was honor: after all, it was the emperor who invited guests and personally received them. It is a big program in a lifetime, and its mood is a bit like being a mass actor, participating in the contemporary CCTV Spring Festival Gala. After returning home, he cried and bragged to the neighbors. In any case, the Qing Emperor expressed his concern for the elderly with a thousand feasts, which was correct. Even if it is just a show, it is rare. In this regard, the Qing Emperor was generous.

The court banquets of the Qing Dynasty, after the Manchu and Han dynasties, also had the full sheep table, which was the highest-grade feast dedicated to entertaining Islamic guests. "The menu arrangement and order of serving at the whole sheep table are carried out according to the Manchu and Han chinese seats, but the feast hall requires that the characteristics of Islam be highlighted, and the tablecloth is sewn with blue cloth or white cloth with the word "halal.") (Li Dengnian) can use various parts of the sheep's body, brain, ears, nose, tongue, lips, cheeks, eyeballs, eyelids, and even heart, liver, stomach, intestines, waist and tail blood, etc., to cook a series of special dishes with strange names and timeless tastes, which is enough to be skilled.

Empress Dowager Cixi, who spent money like flowing water, pushed the "food culture" of the Qing Palace to the extreme. She likes to watch drama while eating. Changchun Palace, Ningshou Palace, Summer Palace and other places, there are stages set up for it, a total of seven or eight. In addition to the Western dining room, there is also a team dedicated to the acting of Lafayette, which can be described as a one-stop service.

In the 10th year of Guangxu (1884), the 50th birthday of Cixi, during the celebration period, meals were set in the body and hall, and there were more than 100 kinds of daily meals. "Fifty or sixty kinds of staple food, twenty or thirty refreshments, and more than one hundred and twenty dishes." Every day, it consumes 500 catties of pork and mutton and more than 100 chickens and ducks. A day's meal costs sixty taels of silver. In the kitchen alone, she served 450 eunuchs and palace maids, and as many as 180 eunuchs and palace ladies served her every day. "(Zhang Yanan) really offered her up like an ancestor."

Empress Dowager Cixi also often accepted tributes from dignitaries. For example, in the 20th year of Guangxu (1894), on the 60th birthday of Zixi, Kong Lingyi (the seventy-sixth grandson of Confucius) took his wife and mother to Beijing to pay homage, and his mother Peng and his wife Tao each paid a table worth 242 silver to Cixi. You can't appreciate its color, aroma, and taste, so you may wish to read this menu.

Sea bowl dish two products: eight immortal duck, pot roasted carp. Four dishes in the middle bowl: steamed white fungus, gourd daji wings, Shouzi duck soup, yellow braised fish bones. Four large bowl dishes: bird's nest swastika gold and silver duck pieces, bird's nest shou character red and white duck silk, bird's nest wordless three fresh duck silk, bird's nest Xinjiang character mouth mushroom fat chicken. Four dishes in the bowl: fish fillet, braised duck loin, braised shrimp, shredded chicken. Six dishes: osmanthus wings, fried russet, fried leeks, cooked shrimp, honey golden legs, fried cucumber sauce. Two products on a plate: hanging stove pig, hanging furnace duck. Two tables of gram food: four plates of steamed food, four plates of stove food, four plates of pig food, and four plates of sheep food. Four products of rao: Shouzi oil cake, Shouzi muxi cake, Baishou peach, Ruyi roll. Bird's Nest Eight Immortals Soup. Shredded chicken noodles.

It is said that this is just a breakfast. Let people see, even if they don't eat, they still hold up panic.

The food of the Qing Palace, vast, is now only left on paper. We have no luck and no blessings, so we read more than a few surviving court menus, and read the food as a beautiful text, which is also an indirect addiction. This is the "secret history" in the secret history of the Qing Palace.

No matter what the spiritual civilization of the Qing Palace is, the material civilization is obvious to all.

I also found a series of paintings depicting the diet of the Qing Palace, such as "The Small Feast of the Chongju Palace", "The Feast of the Purple Light Pavilion" and so on. The eunuchs in the picture are either setting up the wine table, or like the folk shop Xiao Er, holding cold dishes and stir-frying, shuttling between the carved beams and paintings, in short, they are very busy. Compared with the food list, these paintings are more realistic, and the lively scene that is infinitely far away from us appears vividly. I think it was the handiwork of a court painter. Otherwise, who would dare to "peep" and "secretly photograph" the emperor's eating photos so boldly?

The last emperor Puyi, in "The First Half of My Life", revealed a list of his early meals in March of the sixth year of the Republic of China. At that time, he had abdicated, but he still retained the habit of drinking and eating at the court and the extravagant grade:

Mushroom fat chicken, three fresh duck, five shredded chicken, stewed pork, stewed belly lung, sliced meat stewed cabbage, yellow stewed lamb, lamb stewed spinach tofu, cherry yam stove meat stewed cabbage, lamb slices Sichuan radish, duck strips boiled sea cucumber, duck diced braised Gexian rice, roasted mushrooms, meat slices braised magnolia slices, lamb shredded braised running silk, fried spring rolls, yellow leek stir-fried meat, smoked flower belly, marinated tofu, smoked dried silk, cooking chopped vegetables, pepper oil stir-fried cabbage shreds, five-spiced dried, sacrificial god meat slice soup, white boiled sylla, cooked white meat, cooked white meat,

After losing jiangshan, is he still in the mood to eat and drink? Perhaps, for this embarrassing Emperor Sun, eating is purely a ritual. To show to others, but also to see for yourself. It's a kind of self-consolation: Oh, the "quality of life" has not declined!

The eating of the Qing Palace finally ended here in Puyi.

The emperor's diet, even to the Chinese of the democratic age, still seems like a small myth. There is both condemnation or curiosity, and there is no element of envy. After the abolition of the imperial system, there was a "imitation of food" and it is still in business today, which is a very convincing example in itself. Imitation of food, in fact, in the "clone" of the Qing Palace to eat.