"Manchu Han Full Table" is considered by many to be a collection of the essence of various cuisines in China, representing the highest level of Chinese cuisine. As the most famous classical banquet in China, the "Manchu Han Full Table" is renowned at home and abroad for its exquisite national ceremony, exquisite dishes, and exquisite skills. Legend has it that it was first produced in the court of the Qing Dynasty, when it appeared as a symbol of power, to reflect the royal style, and then in the pursuit of royal food culture experience and exaggeration of the psychology of popularity driven by the folk.
The emperor can serve rice in his belly
"The prime minister can hold a boat in his belly", this is a well-known saying. However, the emperor can serve rice in his belly, and everyone may not know the details. Emperors of the Qing Dynasty ate only two meals a day, called "breakfast" and "dinner". "Breakfast" is generally at six or seven o'clock in the morning after the right day. The "dinner" is served from about 12:00 to 14:00 (2:00 p.m.) at noon or two o'clock.
How much food did the emperor of the Qing Dynasty eat at each meal? According to the History of the Qing Dynasty, Zhao's "Miscellaneous Records of the Xiaoting Pavilion" recorded that the Qianlong Emperor took it upon himself to be frugal and deeply cherished his material resources,...... The imperial dining room used fifty gold per day, and the emperor repeatedly added and subtracted, and only more than 20,000 gold was used at the end of the year, and the close attendants were bitter due to lack of funds, but the emperor ignored it. Another wild history, "Chunshui Room Wild Ride", says that the Qianlong Emperor once summoned his subordinate Wang Youdun and asked, "Qing Mingshuang (at dawn) is moving toward the dynasty, and has he ever used dim sum at home?" Wang said: "The courtiers are poor, and every morning meal is only four chickens (that is, eggs). The emperor was stunned: "A chicken needs ten gold, and four pieces is forty gold, Lian Still does not dare to indulge in such indulgence, Qing is saying that he is poor?" Wang did not dare to question, so he used the subterfuge to say: "The chickens sold in the outside world are all broken, and those who are not in the upper offerings can be worth it with cheapness, and each piece is only a few words." "If these two stories were true, the Qianlong Emperor could only eat 5 eggs a day, and it would be good not to starve to death."
This is certainly not the case. According to the "Living Record" (the words and deeds of the emperor recorded in the ancient court of our country), the imperial dining room prepared the following dishes for the Qianlong Emperor every day: 22 kilograms of plate meat, 5 kilograms of soup meat, 1 kilogram of lard, 2 sheep, 5 chickens, 3 ducks, cabbage, spinach, coriander, celery, leeks, etc., a total of 10 kilograms, 1 kilogram each of melons and winter melons, 6 kilograms of green onions, 4 two yuquan wine, 12 cans of jade spring water, and 75 bags of tea leaves. There are also bird's nest, shark fin, duck shredded, pigeon eggs, carp, rice, noodles, oil, salt, mountain treasures, seafood, mountain fruits, dried vegetables, many raw materials are tributes from all over the country, and the number is considerable.
The bird's nest that the Qianlong Emperor liked to eat
After all, the Qianlong Emperor was an adult when he was in power, and the last emperor Puyi was only six years old when he abdicated, so what did he eat? According to historical records, in the month of September in the second year of Xuan reunification (1910), the dishes given to the little emperor by the imperial dining room and the empress dowager were 3,960 catties of meat alone and 388 chickens and ducks. Together with several empress dowagers, the Qing Palace royal family of six, a total of 3,960 pounds of meat and 388 chickens and ducks a month. Counting down, a five-year-old child has to eat meat, chicken and duck a month for a total of two thousand pounds. According to the calculation of two meals per day in the palace, the emperor had to eat more than thirty pounds of meat per meal. I am afraid that even the flower monk Lu Zhishen, who can eat an elbow at a meal in the "Water Margin" novel, will be ashamed of himself. Puyi, who was "eating" in Dongnuan Pavilion, when he was devouring mountain treasures and seafood, if he occasionally looked up and saw the four words "Festival with Love for the People" written by Guangxu hanging on the wall, I don't know how he would feel.
What exactly is eaten at the Imperial Diet
Judging from the historical data, the imperial food raw materials of the Emperors of the Qing Dynasty were mainly pork and mutton, vegetables, and chicken and duck meat. As a rule, beef is not allowed, because the old ancestor Emperor Taiji (Qing Taizong), who loved Shin Kyora, had already had an edict saying, "Cows and donkeys are for loads,
Sheep and livestock are fed. For example, on the first day of the first lunar month in the sixtieth year of Qianlong (1795), Qianlong's dinner meal included a hot pot of deer intestine deer belly, a hot pot of duck stewed with Yanshan medicinal wine, a hot pot of fat chicken crown meat, a hot pot of yam onion and pepper chicken soup, a product of soup chicken soup, a product of lamb tripe slices, a product of bird's nest duck, a product of steamed Kanto duck deer tail saving plate, a product of roasted fat meat, a product of elephant eye small steamed buns, a product of white sugar oil cake, a product of annual cake, five small dishes, a dish of salted meat, and a product of dried japonica rice. Judging from the dishes, although it is hearty, there is no "eight treasures" such as the so-called "hump, bear paw, monkey brain, orangutan lip, elephant trunk, leopard fetus, rhinoceros tail, and deer tendon".
The bear paw in the movie "Full Of Han" "One Palm Qiankun"
After the Qianlong Dynasty, the national power of the Qing Dynasty declined, but the imperial meals of the Qing Palace became more and more luxurious. Rumors spread to the extreme that the Daoguang Emperor was actually not aggrieved by his stomach at all, and after the Opium War, the Daoguang Emperor enjoyed the evening dinner on the sixth day of the first month of October in the twenty-third year of the Daoguang War (1843), and the Daoguang Emperor enjoyed: one product of the bird's nest eight immortals pot and one product of the three fresh Su stew pots; two large bowls: bird's nest ruyi roll fat chicken, wannian Qingshou character wine meat; four middle bowls: sea cucumber swastika, deer tendon wine stewed lamb, duck fire lavender cabbage, eight treasures stewed elbows; two products of the Huai Bowl: three fresh balls, mushroom chicken slices; small sale of four products: chicken silk shark fin, stir-fried wood chestnut meat, Braised palm letter, fresh mushroom stewed chicken; bird's nest eight immortal soup, bird's nest eight immortal noodles; dim sum two products: duck stuffed peach, steamed food; Shouyi box one product, fried food two products, stove pig one product, furnace duck one product. Whether it was quality or quantity, it was not known how high it was higher than his grandfather, the Qianlong Emperor.
In the Tongzhi and Guangxu dynasties ruled by Empress Dowager Cixi, the imperial dining of the Qing Palace was luxurious to the extreme. For a dinner in Cixi, there were "mushroom fat chicken, three fresh ducks, fat chicken shredded fungus, elbows, stewed hanging seeds, meat slices stewed cabbage, followed by large stir-fried meat, chicken soup cabbage, flavored lamb cucumber, bean straw silver fish, fresh shrimp balls, meat slices stewed radish cabbage, pork ribs, sauce bun (when it is the word "fried") meat, dumplings (with "feed"),winter melon, smoked chicken shreds, spinal cord, tenderloin cubes, pork slices braised cloud bean, winter shoots stir-fried meat, three kinds of buns, fried alfalfa meat, fried sauce, fried meat with scallions, mushroom luohan gluten, cooking vegetables, Suzaku five-spiced meat, Pork soup, fat and oil square white bee cake, tofu soup, old rice meal, creek meal, dry rice japonica rice porridge, sweet pulp porridge, boiled rice porridge, millet porridge, two bowls of old rice food, one bowl of japonica rice porridge." The cuisine has increased compared to the Daoguang Emperor period, but the gap between the "Manchu and Han full seats" that has been circulated in the market is still not allowed to be counted in the Daoli.
Chicken soup cabbage
Fat chicken with mushrooms
Moreover, when the last emperor Puyi was in the Forbidden City, although the imperial eunuch (the eunuch who served closely) commanded a "passing meal", the imperial dining room was quickly prepared, and dozens of eunuchs carried seven large and small dining tables, holding dozens of vermilion lacquer boxes painted with golden dragons, and went straight to the Yangxin Hall and set them up in the Dongnuan Pavilion. In fact, after these dishes are placed, they have no other use than to indicate the emperor's pomp and circumstance. Puyi often does not even move for these things that have long passed the fire. The emperor ate dishes sent by Empress Longyu, who were sent by four concubines after the empress's death. Because the empress dowager and the princess each have their own dining rooms, using high-level chefs, the dishes are delicious and delicious, and there are twenty or thirty dishes at each meal, and the dim sum is better. By the time Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City by Feng Yuxiang and lived in Tianjin, he had only five or six dishes per meal, and no more than eight dishes at most. Even after the second ascension to the throne in The new capital (Changchun) of the puppet state of Manchukuo and becoming the son emperor of the Japanese, there were not many dishes per meal, usually six or seven. The staple food of each meal is rice, millet and sorghum rice; each meal is basically vegetarian: tofu, bean sprouts, roasted cabbage, fried eggs or stalled eggs; peanut oil is generally used when stir-frying. Such a "royal meal" standard is really difficult to recall the "Full Han Table" known for its luxury.
Puyi likes to eat fried eggs
Where did the phrase "full of Han" come from?
So, where did the "Full Han Dynasty" come from? In the "Yangzhou Painting Record" written by Li Dou in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there is a saying of "Manchu and Han Seats", in order to "go to the trading street before and after the temple is a large kitchen, in preparation for the food of the six divisions and hundreds of officials", this menu does have bird's nest chicken soup, crucian carp tongue bear paw, pork belly fake Jiang Yao duck tongue soup and other dishes, but in fact, this paragraph of the record is about the Qianlong Emperor's southern tour of the Palace of Tianning Temple in Yangzhou, the local officials prepared a reception feast for the officials accompanying the emperor. As for the imperial meal that Qianlong Ye enjoyed when he went down to Jiangnan, it was still "one product of bird's nest fat chicken shredded hot pot, one product of fire-smoked Dongpo duck, one product of deer tendon wine stewed chicken crown meat, one product of mutton slices, one product of fried Su egg, one product of spring shoots stir-fried meat, one product of steamed fat chicken and sheep black fork, one product of elephant eye small bread, one product of white noodle silk cake, and one product of two dishes entered by Huai Yanzheng, two products of An dining table; two products of rao, and one product of an dining table." One small dish in the silver sunflower box, four small dishes in silver, and one product of dried rice with japonica rice. Six tables of food: six pieces of gluttony and six pieces of milk, a total of one table; eight plates of inner tube stove food, one table; two tables of meat dishes, eight plates per table; four square lamb, two tables". In any case, these are far from the records of the Yangzhou Painting Record.
East Slope Duck
Unexpectedly, the first appearance of the term "Manchu Han Quanxi" was actually in the "Tale of the Flowers on the Sea" in the late Qing Dynasty. This is a novel written by Han Bangqing, a Songjiang (now part of Shanghai), in the Suzhou dialect, in the Shanghai Beach Wind and Moon Field, which was first published in the eighteenth year of Guangxu (1892), in the eighteenth time of the book, it appears that "Lunch eats big dishes, and the night meal is full of Han". "Big dish" in the Wu language at that time refers to Western food, which was already a fashionable meal at that time, and the night meal should also be matched with a sumptuous "Full Han Table", which may only emphasize the hearty, and there is no specific recipe. In fact, people with a little common sense can understand that for a rich person who has full enjoyment of various types of food, it is impossible to fall into greasy, hearty, and gorgeous food three times a day. Outsiders say that the luxury of the royal meal is really the same as the story of the "emperor's golden flat burden", which is an opaque imagination.
The Legend of the Flowers on the Sea
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, especially in 1924, the Qing Emperor was expelled from the Forbidden City, and the cooks in the dining room of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were dismissed from the palace, and in order to make a living, some of them naturally flowed to the restaurant and restaurant and returned to their old business. Under the joint action of some people's yearning and curiosity about the royal court culture and the psychology of exaggeration, the "Manchu Han Full Seat", which had never appeared in the Qing Palace, came out of nowhere. For example, the 108 dishes of the Manchu Han whole table that were popular in the Beijing-Tianjin area in the early years of the Republic of China usually take two days and four meals to eat. After the founding of New China and until before the reform and opening up, the mainland had neither operations nor any written reference to the "Manchu and Han Dynasties".
However, in the 1960s, with the development of commerce and service industries in Hong Kong, some foreign tourists, out of admiration for China's traditional food culture, began to appear to experience the Manchu han full seat with the style of Chinese royal food culture, thus setting off a climax of recreating the "Manchu Han full seat".
The movie "Full Seat of Man Han" imagines the scene of "Full Seat of Man Han" in the Qing Palace
In 1965, at the request of the Japanese tour group, Hong Kong Golden Dragon Restaurant took the lead in trying to hold the "Manchu Han Full Table" in the traditional way, when there were 72 dishes, and since then the Manchu Han Full Seat has become popular again, and has always been promoted as the "Qing Dynasty Court Diet"; in the competition of the major restaurants to flaunt "authenticity" and Zhang Da's reputation, there are more and more meals, more and more exquisite ingredients, and more and more luxurious table noodles... And consumers only regard the Manchu Han full seat as a symbol of court food culture and Chinese food culture, just to pursue an experience or satisfy the psychology of boasting wealth, as to what the authentic Manchu full seat is, it does not matter. For example, in March 1970, The Hong Kong Datong Restaurant hosted a full table of Man Han for the Japan Fuji International Tour Group, which had a total of 71 dishes, divided into four meals in two days, except for the hanging oven duck, the big red suckling pig, the red roasted civet, the Beijing grilled bear paw, and the Halba several full of dishes, the rest is almost the same Cantonese flavor. In addition, in accordance with the Chinese tradition of worshiping gods, they offered the Three Treasures of Pink Sculpture, the Eight Immortals and the Xiangrui Beast, and lit sandalwood with bronze dading and played the "Eight Tones" music to set off the elegant atmosphere, but it was also ironic. In the 1990s, the movie "Man Han Full Seat" (also known as "Golden Jade Man Tang") starring Zhang Guorong and Yuan Yongyi once again presented a visual feast of "Man Han Full Seat" to the audience. Therefore, although the contemporary Manchu and Han chinese seats are actually far from the historical Qing Palace imperial meals, it does not prevent it from becoming the supreme symbol of Chinese food culture in the hearts of the general public.
"Rich Elephant Trunk" in the movie "Full Of Han"
Roast duck in the hanging oven
bibliography:
Zhao Rongguang: "Examination of the Origin of the Manchu Han Dynasty", Kunlun Publishing House, 2003
Li Tiantian, "On the Origin, Status Quo and Characteristics of the Manchu and Han Dynasties", Journal of Northwest Second Nationalities College, No. 1, 2003