"Steamed lamb, steamed bear paw, steamed deer tail, roasted duck, roasted chicken, roast goose, marinated pig, marinated duck, sauced chicken, bacon, pine flowers, small belly, dried meat, sausage, assorted su pan, smoked chicken white belly, steamed eight treasure pig, jiang rice stuffed duck..."
When it comes to "full of Han People", the first thing that comes to mind for many people is this gorgeous cross-talk.
The well-known "Manchu Han Full Seat" in China, the legend originally arose in the Qing Dynasty court, representing the highest level of Chinese cuisine, but in the bottom file that records the qing palace's diet in great detail, the four words "Full Seat of The Manchu Han" cannot be found.
Flipping through the historical records, one may be disappointed to find that the royal banquet of the Qing Dynasty was about equal to hot pot. Before entering the Customs, the Qing Dynasty lived in the cold area of the northeast, and the main appeal of eating was to eat enough and warm, so the Manchus all loved to eat hot pot, and the general banquet was open-air shabu-shabu. Spreading animal skins, everyone sat around, set up pots and pans to make a fire and eat on the ground, and ate cattle, sheep, pork and meat of wild animals from hunting.
▲ "Qianlong Emperor Hunting dinner map" Lang Shining
On the first night of the first lunar month in the sixtieth year of Qianlong (1795), the Qianlong Emperor set up a banquet to celebrate the Spring Festival, inviting princes and nobles and important courtiers to feast together, and the menu read like this:
"One hot pot of deer intestine deer belly, one product of duck stew with yan yam wine, one hot pot of fat chicken crown meat, one product of yam shallot and pepper chicken soup hot pot, one product of chicken soup, one product of lamb tripe slices, one product of bird's nest duck, one product of steamed Kanto duck deer tail, one product of roasted fat meat, one product of elephant eye small steamed buns, one product of sugar oil cake, one product of rice cake, five small dishes, one dish of salted meat, one product of japonica rice."
Such a grand occasion, at first glance, is also a shabu-shabu, although it can also be considered sumptuous, but it is really too far away from imagining the taste of Zhongshan's precious seafood and luxurious and pompous Manchu han full table. Moreover, the banquet of the Qing Dynasty has always been a Manchu and Han banquet, even if it is the "Feast of a Thousand Sorrows" that is celebrated by the whole world, it is also a Full Han sitting and eating, let alone a "full seat".
"Manchu Han Quanxi" appeared as a noun, first seen in the late Qing Dynasty's "Tale of the Flowers on the Sea", which is a novel written by Han Bangqing, a songjiang (now part of Shanghai), in the Suzhou dialect, describing the luxurious life of the wind and moon field on the beach in the late Qing Dynasty.
"Big dish" in the Wu language at that time is the meaning of Western food, is the fashionable meal at that time, lunch to eat foreign Western food, then dinner should also use a rich "Manchu Han full table" to correspond to it, it is conceivable that the word is only to say its rich, but there is no specific menu.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the chefs of the imperial dining room were dismissed and transferred to the folk restaurants. The former royal palace nobles missed the mountain treasures and seafood eaten at the banquet, and the eight halls of Beijing took the lead in imitating the Qing Palace cuisine and setting up a grand banquet, and the "Manchu Han Full Seat" that never appeared in the Qing Palace turned out to be a success, so the "Manchu Han Full Seat" as a kind of banquet actually began in the Republic of China.
Flowing with the glory of the royal family, the "Full Han Dynasty" dishes are all 108 products, and a whole set of banquets usually takes two days and four meals to eat, which is popular in the Beijing-Tianjin region in the early years of the Republic of China, but it is only brilliant for a short time.
After the founding of New China until before the reform and opening up, the "Manchu han full seat" disappeared, and the mainland had neither operated nor had any written records.
Wang Xifu, the founder of Fuhua Zhai Rao Shop, comes from a family of imperial chefs, is committed to inheriting the Manchu Han full table, almost a lifetime of energy, just training will be a full Table chef, it took decades, and finally in this autumn, let the 108 dishes of the "Full Han Seat" debut collective debut.
China Banquet · Fushou Kangning walked into the Jude Building and recorded this historic banquet, so that he could get a glimpse of the true appearance of those legendary court dishes.
One of the most memorable is this soup soup yellow fish, from the process of "doing" to the experience of "eating", which can be called a kind of performance art of the Republic of China court style.
More than two pounds of yellow fish are poked in from the mouth of the fish, the fish bones are removed, and the skin of the fish cannot be leaked, which is a test of the chef's technique.
The treated yellow croaker should also be filled with water first, test the tightness, and not a drop can leak to meet the standard of selection.
Insert the green onion and marinate for a night (heartache yellow fish for a second).
The next day, the billet is "blown" and the fish skin is blanched in hot oil to improve toughness before it can be steamed.
The processed yellow croaker is carefully filled with precious fillings simmered a week in advance – abalone, ginseng, shark fin, bird's nest, skirt, dried scallops. This is another link that challenges the psychological quality, and with a shake of the hand, the market price of seven or eight hundred and one kilograms of ecological yellow fish may be invalidated.
A dish is already so time-consuming and labor-intensive, it is conceivable that the feast of 108 dishes needs to be completed with the efforts of many people and work together.
In order to restore a real Manchu full table, Wang Xifu's ronghua fugui class, after three months of intensive preparations, from perfecting the decoration of the restaurant in accordance with the Ming and Qing styles, to customizing the special ceramic tableware for the Manchu Han full table, to preparing vegetables and preparing ingredients... In the middle of summer, we were busy until the golden autumn, and finally created the first "combination" of 108 dishes in the Manchu and Han Chinese, which took 4 hours to serve alone.
▲The restaurant was renovated according to the Ming and Qing styles
▲Specially customized tableware for the Golden Autumn Feast of the Manchu Han Dynasty
▲ Training waiters in dining etiquette
In Wang Xifu's view, a "Manchu full table" is like a complete opera, in addition to the restoration of dishes, it also includes restaurant decoration, tableware use, dining etiquette, tangshu dishes, etc., far more than 108 dishes so simple, but a comprehensive cultural activity, but also tells the world that "Manhan full seat" is no longer a legend of the rivers and lakes, but a practical and perceptible Chinese cuisine.