There is a Chinese word called "eating chaff and throat vegetables", bran is rice, wheat grain skin, the kind specially fed poultry, the dish is not the water spirit we usually eat, but the wild vegetable dug in the ground, this look is a very "bitter" word, but it is a true portrayal of the lives of many ordinary people living at the bottom of society.
Of course, with the founding of New China and the spring breeze of reform and opening up, people's lives are getting better and better, and the bitter days of eating chaff vegetables have become a thing of the past, and many young people have never even seen these foods used to save their lives in the era of poverty. But in the Qing Dynasty hundreds of years ago, the period of the nearest feudal dynasty, there were still many people who did not have enough to eat, did not cover their bodies, and ate a nest of heads was already a luxury.
Kangxi everyone knows that it created the last prosperous era in Chinese history, the prosperous era of Kangqian. Among the three emperors of the Kangqian dynasty, the most economical was the Yongzheng Emperor, the most prosperous was the Qianlong Emperor, and the most capable was the Kangxi Emperor. When Kangxi ascended the throne, the Shenzhou mainland was basically stable, so it was divorced from the relatively frugal life of the original period of fighting the world.
If you look at the Manchu Qing court banquets recorded in the Manchu Old Files in 1644 before the Qing army entered the customs, the banquets recorded in the Manchu Old Files were very simple, mainly meat, what roast lamb and beef. Pork and so on; but since Kangxi ascended the throne in 1661, the cuisine of this imperial dining room has been increasing, absorbing many Han Chinese specialties, which can be said to be more and more exquisite.
Here is a very simple example, Puyi everyone knows it, the late Qing Emperor, when he abdicated, he was still a small bean ding, or the treasure seal covered by Empress Longyu. However, due to the status of the emperor at the end of the Qing Dynasty, he was able to continue to live in the Forbidden City, although it was not as beautiful as the Ancestral God King, but it also maintained a certain royal dignity.
In Puyi's personal autobiography "The First Half of My Life", we can see that even if the Qing Dynasty falls, the royal family's food is also not to be underestimated, each meal must be carried by 6 tables, twenty or thirty to start dishes, and these Puyi will not eat, he also has the small kitchen of the concubines to add meals, each time is also more than ten or twenty dishes.
The emperor, sitting within the high wall, usually eats the taste of the mountains and the sea, how can he feel the suffering of the people? However, Kangxi, as an emperor of thousands of years, although "living in the height of the temple", but the good villain can still consider the people a little, he once ate lunch with the courtiers, it is very "close to the people" to ask, what do the ministers usually eat for lunch?
Although we all know that these ministers are usually delicious and delicious, they can't stand that there is such a person who wants to show his incorruptibility, so he replied: "The ministers usually eat some congee and small dishes, and then pair them with two nests, and a few copper plates can be done at a meal." "
Kangxi listened, felt that the Qing Dynasty had only stabilized not long ago, indeed he was not very good at being so extravagant and wasteful, plus he was really tired of eating mountain treasures and seafood, and eating some congee and small dishes also had a different flavor, so he told the Ministry of Internal Affairs that after his lunch would be served in the nest, which would definitely save the national treasury a large amount of expenditure.
Kangxi found that this nest tasted quite good, and thought that if the people were eating this kind of food, the food would be good, so he ate it for 7 days in a row. 7 days later, Kangxi called out to the personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on a whim to inquire, wanting to see how much money had been saved in the past few days, who knew that after seeing the bill, the Kangxi Emperor was furious, how could he not save at all?
Although Kangxi is indeed also a nest head to eat, but with our ordinary people to eat this is not the same, his nest head is selected, whether it is the use of materials, or production process, including the fire of firewood and kneading water, is not the general kind, eat the taste of natural extraordinary, the price is naturally high, for example, boiling water cabbage is not cabbage? But isn't it also expensive?
The Kangxi Emperor, who understood the reason, laughed and never mentioned that he wanted to save money by relying on wo wotou.