A long-established brand that has a long history, has products, skills or services that have been passed down from generation to generation, has a distinct traditional cultural background of the Chinese nation and profound cultural heritage, has been widely recognized by society, and has formed a good reputation.
It is understood that in the early days of China's establishment, there were about 10,000 long-established brands, distributed in many industries such as catering, retail, food, brewing, medicine, and resident services, and played an important role in meeting consumer demand, enriching people's lives, advocating honest management, extending service connotation, inheriting and displaying national culture, and has a far-reaching impact on the people of the whole country, overseas Chinese and international friends.
Previously, Beijing launched a project called "Bright Kitchen Bright Stove" for some "long-established brands", which mainly refers to the installation of transparent glass walls and cameras, etc., so that consumers can supervise the back kitchen in real time and eat more assuredly. Speaking of Beijing's "old brand", we have to mention Empress Dowager Cixi. There are rumors that Empress Dowager Cixi once tasted many time-honored delicacies and wrote plaques or hand-picked them as imperial food.
Today, we will talk about a few of them.
The first, HuifengTang: Huifengtang was founded in the Xianfeng period and is one of the "Ten Halls" commonly known in old Beijing. During the reign of the Guangxu Emperor, the owner of the shop was a Shandong man named Zhang Zuyin. He mainly engaged in the flavors of the Shandong region, and Li Lianying's son Li Jiliang was a brother, and the two often had contacts.
One day, Li Lianying returned home with a sad face, and Li Jiliang asked him what had happened. Li Lianying said: "In recent days, Lafayette has lost his temper with the Guangxu Emperor, and he is furious every day and is unwilling to eat. The imperial dining room changed the method of cooking for Lafayette, but she always ate only a few bites and did not eat, and always took the slaves to be angry, and today I was trained by her again. I don't know what to do, it's really tricky. ”
Li Jiliang replied: "This Lafayette is not a matter of hunger strike, if you collapse your body, I am afraid that you will not be able to bear this responsibility." I have a brother who opened a small restaurant in the large fence of the front gate of the palace, where the risotto is very famous, not only the soup is rich and sweet, but also, it is delicious and not greasy, do you want to buy Lafayette a try and let her change the taste? ”
After Li Lianying heard this, she felt that his words were very reasonable, so she asked him to go to Huifeng Hall to buy some meals. That night, Li Lianying returned to the palace with these meals. Perhaps, because she had not eaten well for several days, as soon as Li Lianying opened the lunch box filled with meals, Empress Dowager Cixi was immediately attracted by the aroma of the meal. Although these dishes are not mountain treasures and seafood, they can also be regarded as a different flavor, and the color and flavor are complete.
Empress Dowager Cixi immediately picked up the chopsticks and tasted them, and after tasting a few bites, she couldn't stop eating at all, and praised these meals. Empress Dowager Cixi asked Li Lianying as she ate, "Which imperial cook made these meals?" It's so delicious. Li Lianying poured a glass of wine for her and replied, "Empress Dowager Hui, these are not made by the imperial chef, but by the Front Door Huifeng Hall." ”
It didn't take long for Empress Dowager Cixi to eat nearly half of her meal alone. After eating and drinking enough, Empress Dowager Cixi saw that there were four treasures of the study room on the table, and wrote down the three big characters of "Huifengtang" with a moment of happiness. At the same time, she also decreed: "Give Huifengtang a pair of royal round cage flat burdens embedded with gold hoops, after which the shopkeeper can enter the palace at any time with this pair of flat burdens." ”
A few days later, the three characters inscribed by Empress Dowager Cixi, "HuifengTang", were made into gold plaques and hung on the door of the store. Since then, Huifengtang has been popular all over the country, with prosperous business and financial resources rolling in.
According to the Qing Dynasty, the sauced lamb of The Moon Sheng Zhai can be packed in a small box, and even if it is left for several months, its taste will not change. In addition, because of the special geographical location of Yuesheng zhai, most of the people who help it are some court attendants and officials. In October 1886, empress dowager Cixi celebrated her birthday, and officials scoured for some rare treasures to pay tribute, hoping to win her attention.
One of the ministers thought to himself, "What should I send to Lafayette?" If you send treasures, there are too many in the palace to count. However, if I give some birthday gifts that are too expensive, I can't afford them. How can this be done? How do I choose a birthday gift that is both decent and affordable? So, he thought of the moon feast.
He first went to Yueshengzhai to buy some food, and then prepared a large gift box for packaging, and tied a colorful silk with the words "Wish the Empress Dowager a boundless life" as a gift to Lafayette. Unexpectedly, Empress Dowager Cixi was very happy about this, and after she ate a few bites of sauce meat, she praised it and gave four waist cards to YueShengzhai to facilitate her to enter the palace to send sauce meat. Since then, Yuesheng Zhai will enter the palace every two days to deliver sauce meat.
According to folk rumors, after Empress Dowager Cixi quit politics and lived in the Summer Palace, she would eat some supper every night, and there would be sauce meat, burnt cakes and porridge produced by Yuesheng Zhai in the supper. When Empress Dowager Cixi took a boat to visit Kunming Lake, she always had two small boats full of food tied behind her boat, one for the imperial dining room and the other for the moon.
One winter, the treasurer of Yuesheng Zhai smoked a cigarette in the back mountain, and as a result, a wildfire was triggered. According to the law of the time, he should have been sentenced to death. However, Empress Dowager Cixi spared him the death penalty with a single sentence, saying, "Whoever killed him made me sauce and meat to eat?" In this way, Yueshengzhai became famous in Beijing at once because of the high quality and delicious sauce meat that Empress Dowager Cixi liked and made.
The third, Yuqingfang: Wang Zhihe was a native of Anhui, who entered Beijing in 1669 to take the exam, but failed to make the list. After some ideological struggle, he finally decided to stay in Beijing to make a living. Wang Zhihe, who had learned to make tofu with his father since childhood, found several fellow villagers and borrowed some money from them to rent two rooms near the Anhui Guild Hall as his workshop.
Every day, he would make several drawers of tofu and sell it along the street. In the summer, the weather is hot, sometimes the tofu can not be sold out, Wang Zhihe is afraid of wasting these tofu, but also afraid that they will be moldy. So he cut the tofu into small pieces, then dried them and salted them, and finally, put them in a jar.
After a while, Wang Zhihe opened it to see how the tofu was, but he did not expect a strong odor to come to his nose. Wang Zhihe took out the tofu and looked at it, and the tofu was already blue-gray. With a curious mood, Wang Zhihe tasted the taste, and he found that although this tofu was very smelly, it was secretly mixed with a trace of aroma, which was unique. He took some and tried it on the neighbors around him, and everyone liked to eat it.
After this, Wang Zhihe gradually explored a set of methods for making stinky tofu. In the seventeenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Wang Zhihe opened a new workshop on the west side of the road of Yanshou Temple and named it "Wang Zhihe Nan Sauce Garden". One day during the Tongzhi period, the eunuch An De, who was very favored by Empress Dowager Cixi, was on an errand overseas, and when he passed Wang Zhihe's workshop, he was attracted by a stench. So he went inside to see what smelled and smelled.
I didn't expect it to be tofu, this tofu is not big, a small piece, but also with a little smell. Anderhay felt that this thing was very rare, so he sold a piece to try. Unexpectedly, this attempt hit Anderhai's taste buds in an instant. Andehai suddenly had an idea: Lafayette ate all the mountain treasures and seafood, and I didn't eat this thing, I took some back to let her taste it, maybe there was a reward.
So he bought a small altar and brought it back to the palace. When Empress Dowager Cixi was eating, An Dehai brought out a small plate of stinky tofu. When Empress Dowager Cixi smelled this stench, she immediately covered her nose and asked An Dehai what it was. An Dehai replied, "Back to the Empress Dowager, although this thing smells very smelly, it tastes like a different flavor, why don't you try it?" ”
In the end, An Dehai finally let Empress Dowager Cixi pick up the chopsticks and try it. Empress Dowager Cixi was instantly struck by this smell, and she smacked her lips and said, "Don't you say, the taste of this thing is really quite special, I don't know what its name is?" Anderhay replied, "Stinky tofu." Empress Dowager Cixi shook her head and said that the name was too unequal, and she saw that the tofu was square and appeared blue-gray, so she gave the name "Royal Qingfang".
In addition, Empress Dowager Cixi also ordered that the "Imperial Qingfang" be included in the imperial diet recipe, and meals were eaten from time to time. With Empress Dowager Cixi as the spokesperson, Wang Zhihe's stinky tofu was immediately famous in the capital, and everyone came to buy it.
Fourth, Fuxingju: There are many snacks in Beijing, such as roast duck, fried sauce noodles, etc. Among them, enemas are not only inexpensive, but also very delicious. Originally, enemas were made with casing stuffed with minced meat and starch, but now most are made of starch. When it is steamed, people cut it into slices, fry it in lard until browned, and finally, drizzle with some salted garlic juice to eat.
Because the enema is tender on the outside and tender on the inside, people can use bamboo sticks to poke at it when eating. If you want to ask which of the old enemas in Beijing is the most famous, then it must be Fuxingju in Wanning Bridge.
It is said that there is a fire temple on the north side of the Wanning Bridge, which is a royal Taoist temple, and the emperor will send some officials to this temple every year to worship. One year, Empress Dowager Cixi went to the Fire Temple to worship the gods, and as soon as she passed the Wanning Bridge, she was attracted by an aroma. She asked Li Lianying, who was standing nearby, "What is this taste?" Li Lianying understood Empress Dowager Cixi's thoughts best, and immediately sent someone to Fuxing Juri to prepare food and prepare to meet the Empress Dowager's phoenix.
When the treasurer heard that the empress dowager was coming from her shop, he immediately prepared twenty plates of fine enemas, and asked him to go to the satin shop and buy a nine-foot-long yellow satin to spread on the seat. An hour later, another eunuch came to say that Empress Dowager Cixi did not want to waste time entering the store, and asked the treasurer to send the enema to the fire temple. So the treasurer hurriedly packed up the twenty plates of enemas, held them in both hands, and entered the fire temple accompanied by two eunuchs.
After taking a few bites, Empress Dowager Cixi and the accompanying ministers found it very delicious, so they rewarded the treasurer with ten pieces of silver. A few days later, Empress Dowager Cixi decreed that Fu Xingju be given the "Dragon Hood" and the "Yellow Flag" and that he be regularly offered enemas. Fuxingju became famous and favored by people, and its business was very prosperous, until it declined in the 1940s.
It can be said that the unique products, exquisite skills and business philosophy inherited by these "time-honored brands" have immeasurable brand value, economic value and cultural value. All along, these "old brands" carry the excellent Chinese national culture, which is the core connotation and valuable wealth of carrying out honest business and promoting commercial civilization in the new era, so no matter what, we must also pass it on.
Resources:
【"Old Brands" in Beijing City" and "Rules for the Identification of Famous "Old Brands"】