What did Empress Dowager Cixi eat? Full of han? Of course, it was impossible, and the court of the Qing Dynasty never ate any Manchu han full table.
Speaking of court meals, we must mention a place, that is, the imperial dining room, not all dynasties have imperial dining rooms, in fact, the imperial dining room is only available in the Qing Dynasty, and the previous dynasties, the institutions where the court is in charge of the imperial dining, are not called this name.
In the court of the Qing Dynasty, the imperial dining room was exclusively for the emperor, and the six palaces in the east and west had their own dining rooms, the empress dowager had a shou dining room, and Empress Dowager Cixi listened to the government for many years, and the Chuxiu Palace where she was located naturally also had a dining room, and its scale even exceeded the imperial dining room.
Completely different from the TV series, during the Qing Dynasty, the emperor usually did not eat with the concubines, and there were often places to cook in the six palaces of the East and West, of course, there were concubines of a certain status to have an exclusive small kitchen.
Concubines and concubines above have their own dining rooms, while low-ranking concubines only have "tower rooms" where they can make some refreshments.
Setting up a small kitchen in the palace naturally also costs money, and the concubines who are not high enough do not have enough silver, of course, it is difficult to set up a dining room, and they can only eat the dishes that are traditionally supplied in the palace, and cannot open a small stove.
The concubines of the Qing Dynasty, according to the different grades, have a fixed monthly silver every month, and the court of the Qing Dynasty strictly prohibits the concubines from having too much contact with the mother's family, so even if the mother's family has money, it is difficult to subsidize the concubines.
If you have the ability to arrange your own dining room, of course, you can do whatever you want, and if you can't finish eating, you can directly reward people.
At present, there are not many people who clearly record that they have private dining rooms, only Empress Dowager Cixi, Empress Xiaozheyi, Shushen Emperor Concubines and Concubine Jin, and whether other Qing Dynasty concubines have dining rooms or not, but in theory, there is no accurate record description.
The most famous Western dining room in the Qing Dynasty
After Empress Dowager Cixi became empress, she did not live in Shoukang Palace according to the rules, but still lived in the Chuxiu Palace when she was a concubine of Yi Guifei, and connected the wall to Yikun Palace.
Empress Dowager Cixi was very fond of eating, and of course there was a small kitchen in her palace, which was the famous Western dining room.
In terms of scale and strength, the Western Dining Room can be called the largest dining room in the Qing Dynasty and even in the past, and even exceeded the imperial dining room at that time.
The western dining room has five rounds of meat, vegetarian, rice, dim sum and gluttony, compared to the imperial dining room, there is less hanging stove bureau and more gluttony, and it can also be seen that Empress Dowager Cixi likes to eat desserts very much, of course, the western dining room's gluttonous bureau can also do barbecue and the like.
Galeries Lafayette's daily menu
In many film and television works, Empress Dowager Cixi had to eat hundreds of dishes per meal, which is actually not exaggerated, because the Qing Dynasty court had a specific "meal bottom file" for the specific meals of the emperor and the queen concubine.
However, empress dowager Cixi only ate a few dishes at each meal, and most of the dishes were just posed.
Dishes that were not eaten were not thrown away casually, but were given to foreign ministers or other people in the palace to eat, and this kind of reward was called "reward".
The so-called one dish can not eat more than three bites, is not a fact, but the Qing Dynasty court meals are the same, turning over and over is just a few, because it is really tired of eating, so there are often two bites and do not eat the situation.
On the seventh day of October in the tenth year of Guangxu, Empress Dowager Cixi took the meal list:
Hot pot two products: Eight treasures of milk pig pot, gold and silver duck hot pot
Four large bowl dishes: bird's nest roast duck, bird's nest three fresh fat chicken, bird's nest red and white chicken shredded, bird's nest assorted chicken shredded
Six dishes: bird's nest mixed pot roasted duck shredded, mushroom fish fillet, green shoots to dry meat embryos, meat slices braised magnolia slices, crushed chicken, fried shrimp cake
Four dishes in the bowl: bird's nest white chicken shredded, sea honey ham, three fresh pigeon eggs, large stir-fried meat stewed elm mushroom
Two products on a plate: hanging stove duck, hanging stove roast pig
Four products of gluttony: sugar oil cake, alfalfa cake, Chengsha stuffed peach, jujube mud stuffed longevity peach
Noodles: chicken noodles, grams, steamed food, pork, lamb
A soup dish: bird's nest eight immortals soup
Each meal that Empress Dowager Cixi ate was divided into a main table, and there was also a table of "Tian'an Feast", which added up to about eighty kinds.
Generally speaking, there are also dishes offered by the emperor, empress and other concubines, and when added up, there are at least more than a hundred kinds of dishes, which is also the most basic specification.
In the Qing Dynasty court, Lu cuisine was the mainstream, and there were also a large number of Mongolian and Manchurian dishes.
In addition to a variety of ordinary dishes, Empress Dowager Cixi is very fond of eating snacks and various dairy products, every meal can not be less, and various hot pots in the cold season are also indispensable, which constitute the mainstream diet of Empress Dowager Cixi every day.
Although Empress Dowager Cixi likes to eat, she is also a person who pays great attention to health, she never eats too much when she eats, and she likes all kinds of foods that are beneficial to the body, such as various medicinal foods and dairy products are very popular.
In particular, all kinds of dim sum, Empress Dowager Cixi loved very much, which empress dowager Cixi had to eat every day.
On the way to the west, Empress Dowager Cixi tasted all the hardships of the world, and because of this experience, Empress Dowager Cixi also liked a lot of folk foods, such as Shimen Kan'er's buns, Wang Zhihe's stinky tofu and so on.
As the master of the late Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi can be said to be able to eat whatever she wants, and her desire for tongue and her emphasis on pomp and circumstance have also made the Qing Dynasty, which was already precarious, even weaker, and Empress Dowager Cixi's table was the fate of the Qing Dynasty.