The Manchu Han Dynasty arose in the Kangqian Dynasty, one of the three great prosperities in China, and was not only famous for its luxurious and grand, exquisite etiquette, extensive materials, exquisite workmanship, variety of dishes, and rich tastes, but also because it used the spoon as a jade curtain, drew a ditch to make a smooth road, and became China's first feast. Some say that it originated from Yangzhou, some said that it originated from some kind of feast at the imperial court, some said that it was gradually combined with folk cuisine, and some said that it was official cuisine. But it began to be popular in various places after the Qianlong Southern Tour. This "full table" with "Chinese cuisine" as the main thing is the word "full", so that the dominance of a "Great Qing" must be maintained at the dinner table. However, the development of the "Manchu Han Full Seat" to this day is no longer the mighty dignity of the Qing Dynasty, but its symbol of wealth that "enjoys the supremacy of the spirit of all things". The Manchu Han banquet was divided into six banquets, all named after the famous banquet of the Qing Palace. Gather many famous dishes of the Manchu Han Dynasty, pick up fresh seafood, and search for rare and exotic animals in the mountains. There are 196 hot and cold meat dishes, 124 desserts of tea and 320 dishes. Combined with a full set of pastel longevity tableware, with silverware, rich and gorgeous, the dining environment is quaint and solemn. During the banquet, famous teachers were invited to play ancient music to accompany the banquet, along the elegant legacy, the etiquette was rigorous and solemn, and the meal was served during the week of the court of the respecting school.
The "Manchu Han Full Seat" that prevailed in the Court of the Qing Dynasty has a strong Manchu characteristic. Before entering the customs, the Manchus multiplied and lived among the "white mountains and black waters" in northeast China, and their diet was not very exquisite. At the banquet, only large pieces of meat are boiled, and the participants sit on the floor and eat with their knives unsheathed. The staple food is mainly rice noodle dim sum. If a sacrifice ceremony is held, a whole pig, a whole sheep, a whole chicken, and a whole duck are served. This custom continues to be maintained after entering the customs.
After the Qing Dynasty set the capital in Beijing, manchus and Han people mixed, and food culture was subtly exchanged. In their interactions with Han officials, Manchu dignitaries absorbed the preparation methods and banquet procedures of Han dishes and transformed them, thus gradually forming a pattern of "Manchu and Han full seats". However, the folk story is more legendary: "The Full Seat of the Manchu Han Dynasty" was created by Zhang Dongguan, a commoner in Suzhou City, who also rose from a cloth and grass people to the imperial kitchen of the imperial palace and became a generation of culinary masters. Zhang Dongguan originally had general cooking skills. But he hides two unique skills, the same in his hands: he can play acrobatic chopping kung fu with one hand; the same is in his mouth: he has a tongue that can taste the ingredients of the hundred flavors, and he is clever and eloquent, and can recite large sections of dish names.
After the Kangxi Emperor captured Aobai and Ping San Fan, the country was stable, the people lived in peace, and the Qing Dynasty entered the Taiping Dynasty. Kangxi was well aware of "the people who won the hearts and minds of the people", and he decided to tour jiangnan and visit the great sages of the former dynasty to eliminate the Manchu han domain, but was opposed by the Manchu magnate Prince Yan and others in the middle of the country. Kangxi decided to use the "appetite for food" as a breakthrough to go to Jiangnan to find food. During this period, Zhang Dongguan was named "the first chef in Jiangnan" by the Kangxi Emperor with his clever tongue and eloquence, and was selected into the imperial dining room of the imperial palace. Thus began his founding of the Four-Part Life Of Man Han Dynasty.
Zhang Dongguan, who did not understand the rules and could not cook, was in danger in the court, and Zhang Dongguan was forced to flee from the palace and embark on the road of learning cooking skills in the process of escaping from the pursuit. He has learned from the strengths of all the families, and with his superhuman talent, he has "stewed" the essence of cuisine from all over the Chinese nation in a furnace and become a generation of culinary masters.
After being recalled to the imperial palace, Zhang Dongguan became the head chef of the "Thousand Sorrows Banquet", and at this famous banquet, Zhang Dongguan compiled a set of one hundred and eight feast recipes and created the Manchu Han Full Table. After the "Feast of a Thousand Sorrows", Zhang Dongguan resigned as the head of the imperial dining room and opened one of the largest restaurants in the capital to "cook for the people of the world". The Kangxi Imperial Pen gave the "Man Han Lou" signboard. The guests of the Manhan Building are in the door, and the "Full Table of Manhan" has spread to the people and gradually become the first banquet in the world.
The Manchu and Han full table is a large-scale banquet with strong national characteristics in China. There are not only the characteristics of court cuisine, but also the essence of local flavors, exquisite dishes, exquisite etiquette, forming their own unique style. The whole table is made of a wide range of materials, fine materials, and all kinds of mountain treasures and seafood. Barbecue, hot pot, shabu-shabu are almost indispensable dishes; at the same time, it also shows the characteristics of Han cooking, grilling, frying, stir-frying, boiling, roasting and so on. The Manchurian seat is mainly divided into the following six types:
【Mongolian Pro-Pan Feast】
This banquet was a royal banquet set up by the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty to entertain the Mongolian nobles who were married to the imperial family. A feast was held in the Zhengda Guangming Hall, accompanied by Manchu ministers Yi and Erpin. Successive emperors of the Qing Dynasty attached great importance to this banquet and held it every year. The Mongol relatives who were invited to the banquet also regarded the feast as a great blessing and cherished the food that the emperor rewarded in the feast. The "Qing Barnyard Banknotes" records: "When the Mongol princes enter beijing in the early years, they are rewarded with food, and they must go, and they will return home with blessings." If there is no vessel, then the outer coat pocket, flat gold embroidered python, often soaked in the soup, dripping, no regrets. ”
【Court Banquet】
This banquet is held on the sixteenth day of the first month of each year, and is attended by the emperor himself, and the meritorious people among the nine secretaries attend, and the guxing banquet is honored. The banquet is set up in the Hall of the Three Selflesss, and the feast is followed by the ceremony of the sect's room. They all use high chairs and poetry drinking, and are held every year. Mongol princes and others participated. The emperor used this grace to attract his subjects, and at the same time it was a symbolic form of the courtiers' merits.
【Longevity Banquet】
The Longevity Banquet is the birthday banquet of the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, and it is also one of the great banquets of the court. The queen concubines and princes, civil and military officials, were all proud of the birthday gifts. The number of famous dishes in the banquet is innumerable. If you encounter a big birthday, the celebration is more grand and grand. Clothing and jewelry, decoration, music, dance and drink are all available. On the 10th day of the 10th month of October in the 20th year of Guangxu, the 60th birthday was celebrated, and the edict was promulgated in the 18th year of Guangxu, and the feast began more than a month before the birthday. More than 29,170 pieces of glazed bowls, plates, plates and other porcelains painted with the words "Longevity Boundless" and auspicious and festive patterns were fired in Jiangxi beforehand. The entire celebration cost nearly 10 million taels of silver, which is extremely luxurious, unprecedented in Chinese history.
【Feast of a Thousand Sorrows】
The Feast of a Thousand Sorrows, as the name suggests, is a court feast attended by the elderly. According to the historical records of the Qing Dynasty, the Kangxi and Qianlong dynasties held four thousand feasts: the first thousand feasts were held in March of the fifty-second year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1713). In the first month of the 60th year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1721 AD), the second Feast of the Thousand Sorrows was held in the Yangchun Garden of the Qing Palace. The Kangxi Emperor composed a poem of the Seven Laws on the table, called "Thousand Sorrows Banquet Poems", and the minister of the Han Dynasty also composed poems to remember its grandeur, hence the name of the Thousand Sorrows Feast. In the fifty years of Qianlong, a banquet of a thousand monks was held in the Ganqing Palace, and three thousand people were feasted, and the hundred sentences were selected in the form of Bai Liang. In the first month of the first year of Jiaqing, a thousand feasts were held in the Imperial Pole Hall of Ningshou Palace, with 3,056 people and more than 3,000 poems on the spot. Later generations called the Feast of the Thousand Sorrows "Enlong Liqia, an unprecedented act in eternity".
【Nine White Feast】
The Nine White Feasts began during the Kangxi Dynasty. When the Kangxi Dynasty first designated the Four Tribes of The Mongol Outer Sacks, these tribes, in order to show their loyalty, paid tribute to nine whites every year, that is, one white camel and eight white horses. Take this as a letter. After the Tribute of the Mongol Tribes, the Emperor Gao Yu entertained the envoys, known as the Nine White Feasts. Every year, it is routine. Later, the Daoguang Emperor wrote poems for this purpose: four even silver flowers and one jade camel, and the Western Qiang Dynasty dedicated emperor Jingluo.
【Seasonal Feast】
Seasonal banquet refers to the feast set up by the inner court of the Qing Palace according to a fixed annual season. Such as: Yuan Day banquet, Yuanhui banquet, spring ploughing banquet, Dragon Boat Feast, Mid-Autumn Festival banquet, Chongyang feast, winter solstice feast, Chinese New Year's Eve feast, etc., are all in accordance with the rules of the festival, follow the rules. Although the Manchus have their own food customs, after entering the Central Plains, under the fusion of Manchu and Han cultures, they have accepted a large number of Han food customs. And because of the special status of the court, the food customs were detailed. Laba porridge, Lantern, Zongzi, ice bowl, Xionghuang wine, Chongyang cake, beggar cake, moon cake and other instruments are readily available in the Qing Palace.
The Manchu Han dynasty included six banquets, each of which depleted a large amount of the state's savings, taking the Thousand Sorrows Feast as an example: on the eve of the First Thousand Sorrows Banquet, it was the time of the Kangxi 60th Birthday Celebration, and at this moment the Qing Dynasty was peaceful and prosperous. People everywhere felt the grace of Kangxi, and even some elderly people spontaneously came to celebrate their birthdays from Gyeonggi, hundreds of miles away, or thousands of miles away. As the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Kangxi saw this situation and deeply felt the sincerity of the people. In order not to let the people who came from afar return empty-handed. Therefore, one day before the longevity celebration, a special edict was issued to feast on the people in changchun garden in the western suburbs of Beijing. These people are all over the age of 65 and there are more than 2,800 people.
In order to successfully hold this feast, the Kangxi Emperor issued several edicts in the months before the feast, ordering the officials and craftsmen of the various gates of the court to make many preparations. The palace gate where the old monks were going to enter was re-decorated, and the temple rooms around the feast were decorated with brilliance. Cooking utensils, tableware, drinking utensils, tables, and cushions were added to the imperial dining room, and 156 men were employed only for the husbands who delivered meals to the old men. The pergola used for the court feast, various main and sideline foods and wine in the banquet are all available.
On the day of the feast, a thousand feast tables are placed first. The banquet table is set up according to the level of the old taste of the banquet, and there is also a clear difference between the feast and the feast. The banquet table arrangement is as follows: the emperor's banquet table is placed in the middle of the floor of the Ganqing Palace, and the two corridors outside the palace are placed under the prince and the first, the second product minister, the foreign envoy one and other tables. The second-class table is placed below the Danqi Yong Road and the Danqi, which are banquet tables for officials from three to nine pins, Mongolian Taiji, Dingdai, Lingxu, and soldiers. After all the banquet tables are laid out, cover them with a banquet curtain to maintain the hygiene of the food for drinking and feasting.
After setting up the banquet table, the minister of the foreign dining room led the officials, foreign envoys, and the congregations attending the banquet in an organized and batched manner, and then waited for the emperor to arrive. In the concerted music of Shao Le and the sound of drum music, the eight-person warm palanquin on which the emperor was riding slowly emerged from the Yangxin Hall. After landing on the palanquin to the Qianqing Palace, the emperor stepped out of the warm palanquin and ascended to the throne. Then the Dan Majesty Great Music was played, and the Minister of Banqueting led officials at all levels inside and outside the Ganqing Palace and under the east and west corridors, mongolian princes, etc. from both sides of the Ganqing Palace to the middle, and the Hongqi Temple's praise officer praised three kneels and nine prostrations, accompanied by music and music of thousands of elderly ministers bowing to the emperor. After standing up, the music stopped. The Minister of The Feast then led the Prince's Minister into the palace and entered the table, and after performing another prostration ceremony with the feasting crowd, he entered the seat.
After everyone bowed to the emperor, the minister of the tea room gave the emperor a bowl of red milk tea. After the emperor finished drinking, the ministers and guards distributed tea to the princes and ministers in the palace and under the east and west corridors, and the tea bowls were rewarded after drinking. At the same time, the officials of the banquet inside the DanQi were rewarded by the guards at the gate holding a box of tea. The princes and ministers who were rewarded with tea all sat down after receiving the tea, and performed a prostration ceremony to the emperor's seat in the Ganqing Palace to thank them for the grace of tea.
After entering the tea, the chief eunuch of the tea room immediately sent a fruit feast such as yellow plate steamed food, stove food, rice noodles and milk to the Golden Dragon Dinner Table. The general manager of Shang Shan led people to the imperial banquet. After that, two silver-wrapped rosewood tables were placed on both sides of the Danqi, and each table was placed with one piece of silver folding cup, one gold spoon and one silver spoon, and 20 pieces of jade wine cup. The inner steward and the imperial guard filled the jade wine cup with wine and placed it on the dining table in front of the emperor. Then, the emperor summoned the ministers of Yipin and those over 90 years old to kneel before the throne and personally offered wine. At the same time, he ordered the crown prince and grandson to drink wine for the princes and ministers in the palace and distribute food. The congregation thanked the Kangxi Emperor for another feast. The Minister of the Interior and others served meals in the food box and distributed meat and soup to each feast table. The crowd of courtiers began to eat. The sound of The Music of Zhonghe Shao stopped, and the Qing Palace opera class entered the Qing Palace to sing and dance. After the song and dance, the feast of the Thousand Sorrows ended. As the salutatorian sang aloud, the congregation performed another kneeling and three prostrations to the Kangxi Emperor to express a thank-you feast.
After the resurgence of Zhonghe Shaole, the Kangxi Emperor drove back to the palace. According to the rewards that have been prepared, the ministers of the official banquet reward the people with gifts such as poems, ruyi, shou canes, silks, mink skins, and literary plays. After the congregation knelt down to receive the reward, they thanked God again. The whole feast presented a scene of one Pai Enwei and Shenglong. The Kangxi Emperor, the master of the feast, frequently gave grace, rewards, and feasts; the princes, ministers, envoys, and elderly people prostrated their heads in thanksgiving.
Extravagant delicacies:
The Manchu and Han banquets are not only cumbersome etiquette, but its cuisine is also a variety of them, which is breathtaking. Taking the recipe of the Feast of the Thousand Sorrows as an example, the variety of its cuisines is so numerous and costly that it is tongue-crushing.
Beauty Offering: Junshan Silver Needle
Four dried fruits: strange walnuts, crystal fudge, spiced cashews, peanut sticky
Four products of candied fruit: candied oranges, candied begonias, candied bananas, candied plums
Four products of gluttony: flower cup longan, Ai Wo Wo, jam golden cake, two-color horseshoe cake
Four pickles: court radish, spicy cucumber with honey sauce, osmanthus kohlrabi, and peach kernel
Seven appetizers: Erlong juju beads, tangerine rabbit meat, strange chicken strips, tianxiang abalone, three loofah rolls, shrimp seeds and winter shoots, pepper oil white
Soup: canned braised fish lips
Five pieces of imperial cuisine: sand boat tacui, pipa prawn, dragon and phoenix tenderness, sesame oil eel paste, meat cubes cucumber sauce
Two kinds of dumplings: mille-feuille steamed cake, assorted flower basket
Five pieces of imperial cuisine: dragon boat mandarin fish, slippery shellfish balls, sauce braised quail, oyster sauce beef fillet, Sichuan sauce duck paw
Two products of gluttony: anchovy roasted for sale, multicolored copying
Five pieces of imperial cuisine: one-pin tofu, three immortal balls, enoki mushrooms, slippery chicken breasts, and fragrant venison cakes
Two products of gluttony: jade rabbit cabbage, four xi dumplings
Grilled two products: imperial grilled chicken, grilled fish fan
Game hot pot: Twelve items on a plate
Game: Venison slices, dragon breast, roe deer ridge, pheasant slices, wild boar meat, wild duck breast, squid rolls, fresh fish meat, spiny dragon teeth, large-leaf parsley, eleuthero, fresh bean sprouts
Porridge: Lotus leaf porridge
Fruit One Product: A fruit platter at the right time
Farewell to fragrant tea: Yanghe Spring Green
The main and sideline foods consumed in these dishes include: 750 kg of white noodles 12 two, white sugar 36 kg 2 two, Chengsha 30 kg 5 two, sesame oil 10 kg 2 two, eggs 100 kg, sweet sauce 10 kg, white salt 5 kg, mung bean powder 3 kg 2 two, jiang rice 4 bucket 2 he, yam 25 kg, walnut kernel 6 kg 12 two, sun-dried dates 10 kg 2 two, mushroom 5 two, pork 1700 kg, vegetable duck 850, rookie chicken 850, elbow 1700 pieces. Each table of the banquet is 8 pairs of Yuquan wine, and 800 seats share 400 catties of Yuquan wine. In order to hold a feast for a thousand people, the Meat Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also burned 3848 kilograms of firewood, 412 kilograms of charcoal, and 300 kilograms of coal. It can be seen from this that the supreme emperor and the strict feudal hierarchy expended enormous financial, material and manpower when they were officially embodied through the activities of drinking and feasting.
Serving in front of the full-table menu of Man Han Tribute Tea: Milk Tea, Pingshan Tribute Spring.
Six refreshments: kidney bean rolls, Qinyou Dong sugar, pea yellow, wowotou, Huai'an tea steamed buns, saqi horses.
Six dried fruits: amber peach, open ginkgo biloba, candied green fruit, almond bergamot, crispy broad beans, Xing'an hazelnuts.
Four Immortal Fruits: Guiyuan, Grape, Plum, Peach.
Food Art Appreciation: Queen Mother Peach, Crane Deer Tongshou, Qilin Xianrui.
Eight plates of cold dishes: anchovy prawns, egg double yellow, rose beef, money mushrooms, delicious cucumbers, coral snow Zheng, peony stinging, crystal elbow flower.
Seasoning side dishes: Pagoda dish, Manchu mustard greens, fragrant curd milk, marinated shrimp cowpea.
Treasures of the Sea Mistake: Golden Silk Guan Yan, Crab Powder Steak Fin, Moon Palace Fish Belly, Money Purple Abalone.
Red and White BBQ: Roast suckling pig, duck silk roll, rich double flavor, chrysanthemum mandarin fish.
North and South Mountain Treasures: Pear slice civet, yellow braised flying dragon.
Man han hot stir-fry: sika deer baby, jade belt shrimp.
Mountain wild vegetables: chicken longitudinal (homophonic) treasures, scalloped asparagus.
Manhan delicacies: Qianlong Royal Cake, One Mouth Fragrant, Loquat Crisp, Emerald Dumplings, Bamboo Steamed Buns, Eight Treasure Cakes.
Dessert: Date clams
