In China's long imperial society of more than two thousand years, the emperor was the supreme ruler of the country, the highest honorific title as the son of heaven, and the symbol and representative of autocratic rule. According to statistics, from 221 BC when The Qin Emperor was proclaimed emperor, to the abdication of the "last emperor" Puyi in 1912, in 2132, there were 422 emperors in China. Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor of China, and the Qin Dynasty was The first imperial dynasty in China.
But for this writer, Zhu Yuanzhang is definitely one of the emperors I admire the most in my life, he has herded cattle, served as a monk, asked for food, and has also eaten, got on horses, and fought. In the end, he could still rely on his meager body and firm will to kill a bloody road for the bitter and cold people, overthrow the tyrannical yuan, abandon the ethnic hierarchy and oppressive policies established by the Mongols, and establish the Three-Hundred-Year-Old Ming Dynasty.
What is less well known, however, is that Zhu Yuanzhang is also a veritable big foodie.
When Zhu Yuanzhang was a child, his parents died of a plague, and he had to become a monk at a young age, however, the disaster was not alone, God did not give him much respite, his hometown was famine at this time, the people themselves could not eat enough, where did they have money to send food to the temple? Forced by life, he had to go door to door to make amends, to put it bluntly, to ask for food and become a beggar.
Of course, how much humiliation he suffered in the process, how many blank eyes he suffered, this is something we can't imagine, and perhaps only he himself can deeply appreciate it! In my opinion, this experience is the driving force for him to persevere and persevere in the struggle against various warlords and Yuan troops to the end. Returning to the truth, although he suffered a lot of blank eyes, his situation not only did not improve in the slightest, but on the contrary, it suffered even more.
For the next three days, he didn't ask for any food and just fainted. God pity, if it were not for a kind grandmother passing by at this time, the most outstanding monarch in history would have died. The old woman fed him a bowl of hot soup mixed with a bowl of leftover white porridge mixed with spinach, a small piece of white tofu in the house.
After drinking the soup, Zhu Yuanzhang felt full of strength and spirit, and in curiosity, he asked his grandmother what he was eating. This grandmother is also a wonderful person, laughing and saying: "That is pearl emerald white jade soup", but no, at least the color and shape are right.
Later, Zhu Yuanzhang finally established the Ming Dynasty after many hardships and thorns, at this time he no longer had to worry about survival, and he had already tasted the world's cuisine and had his own chef. However, one day, because he was sick and had no appetite, he remembered the "pearl emerald white jade soup" made by the old grandmother, so he immediately ordered the chef to make this soup.
This was a terrible thing for the cook, the ghost knew what this thing was, and he had no choice, so he really took pearls, jade, and white jade and boiled a bowl of soup, of course, the difference in taste made Zhu Yuanzhang angry, so he ordered him to be cut and replaced by a more intelligent cook. This time the chef decided to use some common dishes to replace pearls, jade and white jade, and by chance, he actually found two side dishes of tofu and cabbage, and the taste was almost the same as the soup made by the grandmother, Zhu Yuanzhang laughed and rewarded the chef, who went home and passed on the dish.
Of course, as a veteran foodie, he also invented several dishes by himself, and accumulated his original capital to fight the country, it can be said that the dish he made was the starting point of the Ming Dynasty.
This dish related to the fate of the Ming Dynasty is "sour plum soup", according to legend, in the last year of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang was still a small trader who reselled wumei, plagues occurred frequently throughout the country, because of the long-term appearance in places with a lot of traffic, resulting in Zhu Yuanzhang himself was unfortunate to suffer from the plague, for several days in a row were dizzy, mentally weak, accidentally, he found that the taste of wumei can bring him a cool feeling, even with a lot of brain wake-up.
Later, in line with the principle of the dead horse as a live horse doctor, he put the ume, licorice, and hawthorn together to cook, and after taking the soup for several days, he was miraculously cured. Talented and intelligent, he decisively seized this business opportunity to start selling sour plum soup, which also accumulated strong capital for him to resist the rule of the tyrannical yuan. Later, after he became emperor, sour plum soup also became an indispensable part of his life, and the folk also sold sour plum soup as a health care product, and to this day we can still see Zhu Yuanzhang's portrait in many famous sour plum soup stores.
In addition, the Beijing Quanjude roast duck, which is now popular all over the country, is also inextricably linked to Zhu Yuanzhang. According to historical records, he said that the emperor set the capital in present-day Nanjing, which is also the place where the roast duck began. As a senior foodie, of course, steamed, braised and other ways to eat again, but no matter how delicious things are, when they eat too much, there will be times when they are tired, and ordinary duck meat can no longer bring him happiness, and he is also sullen and unhappy. No one can understand the sadness of foodies, but there must always be someone to solve the problems for the emperor and be anxious about the emperor's anxieties.
Therefore, the court chefs came up with a new method, roasting the duck on a charcoal fire, that is, the "fruit wood charcoal roast duck" that we eat today, so that the duck meat is fat and not greasy, the aroma can be spread three miles away, and the meat quality is even more delicious. After Zhu Yuanzhang ate it, he praised it, so he named it "roast duck", and this dish was also popular all over the country and has been passed down to this day.
As we all know, today's Chinese nation is definitely a foodie nation that is directly superior to the first class, however, the food culture that stands at the top of the world is not made by Zhu Yuanzhang or one other person, but the result of the joint efforts of countless foodie predecessors of the Chinese nation.
Resources:
【Chronology of Emperors", "Pearl Emerald White Jade Soup"】