Ms. Cha Peizhi
Text: Liu Shouhua
On New Year's Day 2020, the "Mark of the Times" column of the old story channel of the Central Radio and Television Corporation broadcast an interview with ms. Sha Peizhi by the famous host Dong Qian, "Gu Su Tastes Wumen Style".
The narrator says: "A person loves his hometown, whether he remembers its history or inherits its culture." Sha Peizhi, she chose to inherit. Born in Suzhou, she has made it her career to inherit the gastronomic culture of the ancient city of Suzhou after retirement. ”
Ms. Sha Peizhi is enthusiastic and capable, and she has the same surname as Grandma Sha in the model play "Sha Jiabang", and her friends gave her the nickname of "Grandma Sha", and she herself liked it, so she took this as her screen name. Grandma Sha's WeChat avatar is the shadow of her riding a bicycle in the Forbidden City. Even if you can ride freely in the palace, who is Grandma Sha? Needless to say, Grandma Sha's name is indeed "not small", and there are more "official titles": the secretary general of the Food Culture Research Association of suzhou folklore society, the chairman of Suzhou Wumen Renjia Food Culture Co., Ltd., and the director of the food cultural heritage center.
"Wumen People's Home" is a Suzhou cuisine restaurant founded by Grandma Sha, but here is not the general meaning of eating and drinking, Grandma Sha is doing Suzhou food culture, is the rescue and inheritance of Suzhou cuisine, and has been doing it for nearly 20 years. As a result, the restaurant hung a plaque of "Tianzhen Haiwei" inscribed by the world-famous architect I.M. Pei, and the Suzhou official palace cuisine, the Qing Palace Su feast, and the "canonization banquet" that had been lost for many years were restored here, and the Suzhou cuisine in the historical classics was also excavated... Food culture has built a bridge for Grandma Sha to enter the Forbidden City, into the academic circles, and even out of the country. But Ganbi knew that when he founded the "Wumen People's Family", Grandma Sha was more than half a hundred years old, from a bowl of sugar porridge to now becoming a representative of Suzhou's top dishes, and what Grandma Sha experienced and endured over the years was not known to outsiders.
A bowl of sugar porridge starts
In the winter of 2012, when I went on a business trip to Suzhou, a local friend took me through an alley near the Humble Administrator's Garden to the front of an imposing mansion with a plaque reading "Wumen Renjia" hanging high under the eaves. Friends said that when the Suzhou Folk Customs Museum was established in 1986, it created an experiential display, and this Wang Yuyizhuang that was left behind was the exhibition hall used by the Suzhou Folk Museum to display and study Suzhou's food culture. However, it is a pity that the delicious food can only be seen and not eaten, especially later according to the relevant regulations, it is necessary to use folk forces to do this, so that in 2003, Grandma Sha was invited to set up the "Wumen Renjia" restaurant here.
At this time, Grandma Sha was already greeting us at the door. Tall, round face, a pair of gold wire glasses, not like the boss, but like a teacher. She led us through the flower hall and up the cloister to the second-floor private seat. Mahogany tables and chairs, push the window to see the small view of Taihu Lake in the courtyard. The dining environment is so exquisite and quaint, it is rare in Gusu City. The delicacies of that day are not mentioned here, let's use a bowl of sugar porridge with "red clouds covered with snow" as the beginning of the story.
Sugar porridge is a common snack in Suzhou, a bowl of snow-white glutinous rice porridge, covered with a layer of brown-red delicate red bean paste, slowly stirred with a spoon and tasted, each spoon has a sweet rice fragrance and bean fragrance, as well as a seemingly absent osmanthus fragrance, addictive, endless aftertaste. Grandma Sha said that when I make meals, I start with a bowl of sugar porridge.
In 2000, Grandma Sha retired. Previously, she worked as a young intellectual, a worker, and then was admitted to the Television University to study industrial accounting, and did accounting work in the enterprise for a long time, all of which were "out of bounds" with catering. But she is a woman who can't stay idle, not willing to start idle in middle age, always want to find something interesting and valuable to do.
At that time, the TV series "Kangxi Micro Service Private Visit" was very popular, and one of the episodes, "Eight Treasures porridge", told the story of Suzhou. This reminds Grandma Sha of the era of material scarcity, when she was still young, and the landlord gave her a bowl of eight treasure porridge that she drank, and the sweet and delicate taste is still unforgettable. When she grew up, she knew that this bowl of eight treasure porridge is a tonic recipe, and the nutritional value of several kinds of porridge in "Dream of the Red Chamber" is not as good as this bowl of eight treasure porridge. Therefore, she began to be interested in Suzhou food culture, paying attention to collecting Suzhou porridge recipes, there are more than 300 kinds. Soon, Grandma Sha opened a Babao Porridge Shop in the lively Guanqian Street, restoring the sugar porridge sold by camels selling snacks along the streets of Suzhou, and also excavating traditional snacks such as Suzhou's traditional famous eyebrow puff pastry and puff pastry radish silk cake, which won the praise of diners. "Sugar porridge over three bowls, Suzhou is not white", traditional snacks are actually popular with the people, Grandma Sha thus realized a truth: people taste not only a bowl of sugar porridge, but in the taste of childhood, seeking a light and elegant, moist and sweet Wudi traditional style, and this is the materialized food traditional culture.
The success of Grandma Sha has also attracted the attention of suzhou cultural system leaders and some scholars and experts. They have always hoped to rescue and protect Suzhou's top cooking skills, suzhou weaving official cooking, but they are struggling to find a suitable candidate. To this end, they mobilized and encouraged Grandma Sha to enter the Suzhou Folk Museum and preside over the Food Culture Exhibition Hall. The old director of the Folklore Museum said to her: "We have been looking for a young and capable person like you for more than ten years, and we have taken a fancy to you, let it go, and we will support you in the back." ”
At that time, Grandma Sha felt a certain degree of difficulty and did not dare to take over the matter. Once, when I met Mr. Gu Duhuan, the old man said to her in a serious tone, "You go!" Many good things in Suzhou are lost, and it is a pity that they have been lost. It makes sense for you to do it. "Grandma Sha didn't understand what was the point of making the dishes well, and she couldn't understand how the dishes she had to eat every day would still be lost? But she firmly believed that these respectable old gentlemen would not deceive themselves, and that what they encouraged themselves to do would certainly be valuable. Therefore, she promised to try, and she also set a goal for herself, since she took over this matter, she had an unshirkable responsibility, we must do things well, and we must also clarify the true meaning of doing this thing well.
In 2003, "Wumen Renjia" was opened. Soon, the "Suzhou Folklore Society Food Culture Research Society" with Grandma Sha as the secretary general was also established. As a result, "Wumen Renjia" has become a special enterprise that combines the operation of catering with the study of food culture "production and research", and assumes the responsibility of rescuing Suzhou cuisine and displaying Suzhou food culture. Grandma Sha is even more obsessed with Suzhou food culture and is determined to use hands-on practice to justify Suzhou cuisine.
Suzhou food culture has a deep cultural heritage. However, although Suzhou cuisine has a long history and is famous, compared with gusu special products such as gardening, embroidery and kunqu opera, it has always been a "short board" in excavating and inheriting, especially the loss of cooking skills, which has drowned many classic Suzhou dishes in the long river of history.
Shi Junsheng, the inheritor of suzhou weaving official government cuisine making skills
Awakening Suzhou cuisine, the chef is the most important. Chef Shi Junsheng, hired by Grandma Sha, has been practicing in the Suzhou culinary industry for 50 or 60 years, has studied under many famous teachers, and has more than 20 years of experience as a cooking school teacher, and is currently the master of many chefs in the Suzhou culinary industry. In addition, Master Shi is also the first generation of key talents cultivated by the Suzhou government and serves as the general consultant of the Suzhou Celebrity Chef Alliance. With this top master of Suzhou cuisine in charge of the kitchen, "Wumen Renjia" has stood at a high pattern starting point since its opening.
The opening of the restaurant naturally requires the purchase of various condiments, and Grandma Sha asked Chef Shi what brand of MSG and chicken essence to buy, but Master Shi said, "I don't understand these condiments." In the past, if we didn't have these things, wouldn't we cook vegetables? "Grandma Sha is right to think about it, and listening to Master Shi, it is definitely not wrong."
Grandma Sha runs the "Wumen Renjia" according to Master Shi's most traditional cooking concept, and asks Master Shi to tell the staff a dish every day, from the selection of raw materials to the characteristics of raw materials; from cooking methods to how to present the best results, each dish strictly follows the ancient method. The dishes are well done and the fame is getting bigger and bigger.
One year, the Suzhou government hired Mr. Pei to design the Suzhou Museum. Mr. Pei is originally from Suzhou, after the negotiation, he came to the old place of the Lion Forest in the Bei Family Garden to revisit, and the Suzhou government hosted a banquet for Mr. Pei at the Suzhou Folk Museum located next to the Lion Forest, and Master Shi Junsheng and his apprentice Zhu Longxiang took the spoon together. Mr. Pei proposed to eat what he had eaten when he was a child but could not eat but could not eat, and the two masters cooked a table of ordinary Suzhou home-cooked dishes: pickled and fresh, meat in a sauce that melted in the mouth, chicken head rice soup... Mr. Pei was very happy, saying that this meal was the happiest meal he had ever eaten back in Suzhou, and gladly inscribed "Tianzhen Seafood". In 2017, when Mr. Pei was 100 years old, Grandma Sha sent a "Hundred Life Map" to celebrate his birthday. Mr. Pei specially asked his son, who had returned to China to attend the meeting, to visit Grandma Sha at the "Wumen Family". Grandma Sha was very touched to tell the author: "I did not have such qualifications, let Mr. Pei still worry about me, invite my son to come to see me, mainly because I did the meaningful thing of rescuing Suzhou cuisine." This is something I am very happy about, far more meaningful than I am making money. ”
Suzhou Weaving Official's Cuisine and "Qing Palace Su Feast"
While doing the rescue and inheritance of Suzhou cuisine, Grandma Sha is also wondering what the value of Suzhou cuisine is, why so many leaders and experts and scholars hope that she will do this deep and well.
At the beginning of 2007, Professor Yuan Hongqi, who studied court food at the Palace Museum, came to the "Wumen People's Home". Professor Yuan, a student of Zhu Jiajin, an expert in Qing history, found that in addition to manchu food archives in the palace diet archives, there are also a large number of Suzhou cuisine archives, such as "SuZao (stove) bottom file", "Su Yan" file, Suzhou chef file, etc. She heard that the "Wumen family" had done a lot of work in rescuing, inheriting and protecting the official cuisine of Suzhou weaving, so she came here to look for the remains of Zhang Dongguan, a Suzhou chef who had entered the Qing Palace, in Gusu City. She found that the "Wumen people's family" cooking concept was very consistent with the concept of court cuisine, and was very interested, encouraging Grandma Sha to say: "If the palace master is gone, these court dishes will be lost, and if you study the palace diet one day earlier, you can reduce the loss one day earlier." What we rescued was a national treasure. When Grandma Sha learned from Professor Yuan that the Palace Museum had a Suzhou cuisine archive, she was also very excited. Since then, Grandma Sha has visited Professor Yuan as a teacher, and has visited the Palace Museum many times to check the archives, and visited many Suzhou scholars to study the historical origin of Suzhou cuisine and palace cuisine.
According to expert research, Chinese court cuisine sprouted in the Xia and Shang dynasties, and by the time of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the imperial court dining system was basically established, which not only brought together the flavors of all parts of the country, but also had strict grades for the diets of emperors, princes, and scholars at all levels. Relying on the high-quality special ingredients offered by various places, the court cuisine of the past generations has used the most advanced cooking technology at that time to create unparalleled exquisite cuisine, which can be called the peak of Chinese food culture based on the principles of pleasing the eye, blessing mouth, yi shen, showing respect, fitness and longevity.
Located in the water town of Jiangnan, Suzhou is rich in products and prosperous in economy, and naturally became the first choice for the court of tribute in successive dynasties. Suzhou court cuisine mainly includes: the court cuisine of King Wu in the Spring and Autumn Period, the "tribute dish" of the Tribute Court of Suzhou in the past, the palace dish of the Kangxi and Qianlong Second Emperors when they toured Suzhou in the south, and the "Qing Palace Su Feast" prepared by Suzhou chefs in the Qing Palace.
"Wu uniforms and Hua", "Wu makes utensils and is beautiful", "Su people think that those who are elegant, then the four sides are elegant; the laymen, they are also vulgar." "During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Suzhou was called the national fashion leader, and "Su Zao", "Su Zuo" and "Su Yan" entered the court one after another. The two emperors of Kangxi and Qianlong were even more fond of Suzhou food, and when they toured the south and south of the river, they all went to Suzhou many times to taste famous dishes and praised Suzhou dishes, and the Qianlong Emperor also brought Wu di famous chefs back to the court as imperial cooks. These chefs fused Suzhou cuisine with court cuisine to form a special court banquet with a unique style, "Qing Palace Su Banquet".
In fact, Suzhou cuisine has entered the court since the Ming Dynasty, and there are also "Su Zaopu" and Su Yan chefs in the Qing Dynasty imperial dining room. In the Archives of the Qing Dynasty's "Imperial Tea Room", the Suzhou chefs who were ordered to enter the palace and had their exact names recorded were Song Yuan, Zhang Cheng, Zhang Dongguan, Shen Erguan, Zhu Erguan and many others, of which Zhang Dongguan was the most famous. Zhang Dongguan was originally a chef in the Suzhou Weaving House, and when Qianlong went down to Jiangnan, he was brought back to Beijing to work as a royal chef for 19 years. In the Qianlong Emperor's daily meal list, the first dish must be signed by Zhang Dongguan. Even if the Qianlong Emperor went to the Yuanmingyuan or chengde summer resort, the "preparation of meals" was mainly Zhang Dongguan. In the "Imperial Meal of the Qing Palace", there are often records of "appreciating Zhang Dongguan, a chef in Suzhou" or "passing on Zhang Dongguan to cook with the camp". It can be seen that he is the most appreciated imperial chef of the Qianlong Emperor.
With the increase of Suzhou cooking in the Qing Palace, the Suzhou cuisine system of the imperial court has also been further improved, not only for the series of daily dishes for the emperor to eat, but also for the palace festivals and the imperial concubines, noble concubines birthdays and other auspicious days when the emperor ordered to open the "Qing Palace Su Feast".
According to records, the "Qing Palace Su Banquet" was developed on the basis of Suzhou weaving official cuisine. Suzhou has always been "to pay attention to food and drink, where the middle class or above, the meals and snacks are all exquisite." "They will eat, they will eat, they will eat well, they will eat carefully. In the official court, it is even more important to pay attention to catering, and the various yamen have searched for culinary masters from the society, carefully created, and exchanged ideas with each other, forming a unique style of Suzhou official cuisine.
The Suzhou Weaving House was an institution established in Suzhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties, serving the court, not only undertaking the heavy responsibility of purchasing fabrics for the imperial family, but also often used as a temporary residence for the Qing Emperor during his southern tour. Therefore, compared with ordinary official cuisine, Suzhou weaves official cuisine, the selection of materials is more exquisite, and the production is more sophisticated. In particular, when the Qianlong and Kangxi Emperors arrived in Suzhou, in order to "welcome the driver", the Suzhou weaving officials tried their best to find the best chefs to "prepare meals". Local officials and squires at all levels in Suzhou also catered to the emperor's favor and went around seeking Suzhou cuisine for offerings.
Suzhou weaving official cuisine is known for its fineness, duck alone has more than 100 methods, exquisite selection of ingredients, excellent cooking, and under the premise of delicious taste, it contains the way of health. Its cooking skills all reflect the craftsmanship spirit of Su Gong, Su Zuo, Su Gong and Su Gong pursuing perfection and pursuing the ultimate.
Suzhou Weaving Official's Cuisine has strict regulations on the variety, place of origin, season, hour, freshness, size, location and method of picking and slaughtering of raw materials, and the seasoning is traditional, and the broth is varied. "Singing opera depends on the cavity, burning vegetables rely on soup", Suzhou weaving official cuisine attaches special importance to the original soup crude oil, paying attention to one dish and one oil, one dish and one soup, highlighting the original taste, which is not only the cooking art of Suzhou weaving official cuisine, but also the cooking art of Suzhou cuisine that entered the court.
In addition, in order to meet the needs of official communication and reception of the supreme ruler, Suzhou weaving official cuisine also has aesthetic pursuits in terms of color, aroma, taste, shape and utensils of dishes.
According to the "Imperial Dining Archives" on the "Qing Palace Su Banquet", "The Qing Palace Su Banquet" was eaten in the imperial palace for three days, and on the first day the emperor feasted on the emperor's relatives and relatives; on the second day, the emperor feasted on the concubines; and on the third day, it was set up in the "Zhengda Guangming" Hall to feast on state guests and ministers. In general, a rosewood Su banquet table is required, seven pins (lantern flowers on the green and white jade bowl), a pair of vases on both sides, thirty-two pins on both sides of the green and white jade bowl, four roads, eight pins per way, four wet and dry snacks on both sides, one pin of tits, one pin of Ao Er Buha, and four pins of small dishes on both sides of the green and white jade plate. The four sides of Su's banquet table are arranged with old pickles and eight treasure dishes. Appetizers such as clear sauce and southern side dishes in the east. The tableware used is a medium spoon, tendons, forks, handcloths, chopstick sets, etc.
Seeing these precious imperial meal archives, Grandma Sha was very pleased. She finally saw the historical and cultural value of Suzhou cuisine. Seeing Mr. Gu Duhuan again, Grandma Sha said to him: "I can't get off your boat, I have worked hard for so many years, I originally only wanted to do something for Suzhou, but I didn't expect that this was also a thing for the country!" Mr. Gu smiled and said, "This is a good thing for all mankind." ”
Since then, "Wumen Renjia" has focused more on the research and inheritance of Suzhou weaving official cuisine, and has restored a variety of dishes under the leadership of Master Shi Junsheng. In 2009, the suzhou weaving official government cuisine production technology was rated as the intangible cultural heritage project of Suzhou City, and Master Shi Junsheng was the inheritor of the project. In April 2009, the "Wumen People's Family" held a commemoration and banquet activity at the Palace Museum to commemorate and feast on the "245th Anniversary of Suzhou Weaving Chef Zhang Dongguan's Entry into the Palace". In 2011, Suzhou Weaving Official's Cuisine Making Technique was rated as an intangible cultural heritage project of Jiangsu Province. At the "Palace and Jiangnan" academic seminar, experts gave full affirmation and enthusiastic comments on the suzhou weaving official cuisine that has been restored and developed. On July 16, 2016, the "High-level Forum of the Imperial Court Su Banquet" was held in the "Wumen People's Home", and the Palace Museum sent four experts to participate.
"Wumen people's home" inherits the tradition, fine materials, fine craftsmanship, color beauty, pure taste, by its inheritance, rescued from the Suzhou weaving official cuisine cooking, is an outstanding representative of Chinese cuisine, the top cooking in Suzhou cuisine, but also into the court of imperial cooking. In the second issue of Forbidden City magazine in 2015, the article "Suzhou Cuisine and the Imperial Meal of the Qing Palace" written by Sha Peizhi was published, and pictures of the dishes of "Wumen Renjia" were distributed. At present, the cooking skills of Suzhou Weaving Official Palace have been recognized by experts from the Palace Museum as the only imperial cooking art in China. This also makes the reputation of "entering the Wumen people's home and enjoying the blessings of the emperor".
"Canonization Feast"
In June 2012, Ms. Wu Yanghua from Shanghai came to the "Wumen People's House" and handed Grandma Sha a mysterious Chinese menu. Ms. Wu said that this was the menu at the banquet of the Kangxi Emperor's canonized king of the Ryukyu Kingdom 300 years ago, and she was entrusted by a Japanese friend to find someone in China to copy the "canonization banquet" menu. There are five sets of court dishes and various sauce dishes and court snacks on the menu, each set of four dishes and one soup, one person and one table. However, the menu only has the name and ingredients, and there is no specific cooking method.
At this time, Grandma Sha had been studying Suzhou weaving official dishes and "Qing Palace Su Feast" for many years, but it was the first time she had heard of the "Sealed Banquet". By looking up information and consulting experts, Grandma Sha gained an in-depth understanding of the "Canonization Feast".
"Canonization" is a ceremony held by the ancient Chinese emperor to confer knighthood. According to tradition, the envoys sent by the emperor to be canonized were to read the imperial edict at the canonization ceremony, and also to reward the food on behalf of the emperor and set up a banquet to celebrate, which is the origin of the "canonization banquet".
This menu is on the Ryukyu Kingdom's "Canonization Banquet". In the fifth year of Ming Hongwu (1372), the Ryukyu Kingdom accepted Chinese edicts and became a vassal state of China, and each change of king was canonized by the Chinese envoys. In the fifth year of the Qing Dynasty (1879), the Ryukyu Kingdom was forcibly incorporated into its territory by Japan and renamed "Okinawa".
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, China sent envoys to crown the king of the Ryukyu Kingdom 23 times. In the fifty-eighth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1719), the Kangxi Emperor appointed Haibao as an envoy and Xu Baoguang as a deputy envoy, and sent an envoy to the Ryukyu Kingdom, and crowned Shang Jing, king of Ryukyu. After the completion of the canonization ceremony, a canonization banquet was held, and this "canonization banquet" menu was left over from that year. Xu Baoguang is a suzhou native of Tanhua, when he crossed the ocean, he brought 4 chefs and 1 pastry chef, which made this "canonization banquet" have a strong "Su-style flavor".
When Xu Baoguang crossed the Ryukyu islands in the east, he was bent on clarifying the route of the eastern crossing and the geography, history, and national conditions of the Ryukyu Islands. After several months of research, he left behind a "encyclopedia" of Ryukyu society at that time, the Nakayama Chronicles.
Nowadays, in Naha, Okinawa, Japan, people will reproduce the ceremonies and utensils at the canonization ceremony 300 years ago according to Xu Baoguang's "Zhongshan Transmission Letter" every year, although they are also doing the "canonization banquet" every year, but they want to see how Xu Baoguang's hometown Suzhou copied the "canonization banquet", so they asked their Chinese friend Wu Yanghua to help find it.
By consulting experts, Grandma Sha learned that on the map of the Ryukyu Kingdom attached to the "Zhongshan Transmission", the southwest of the territory of the Ryukyu Kingdom is only to the Yae Mountains, and does not include Diaoyutai Island, Huangwei Island and Akao Island, and the two are just separated by Okinawa boat-like sea troughs. This proves that the Diaoyu Islands have not belonged to the Ryukyu Kingdom since ancient times, and certainly will not belong to Japan, which later annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom. Therefore, the study of this "canonized banquet" menu is not only a pursuit of food culture, but also confirms the fact that the Diaoyu Islands have belonged to China since ancient times from another angle, and is China's declaration of sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and a symbol of national sovereignty.
Grandma Sha felt that it was of great significance to copy the "canonization banquet", but she did not dare to easily agree. She spent more than half a year looking for imperial meal materials at the Palace Museum, and then studied with the teachers of the Palace Museum, and gathered some of the best chefs under her command to start copying experiments.
According to Grandma Sha, the dishes of the "Sealed Banquet" are basically suzhou woven official dishes, and there are strict grade regulations, workmanship requirements, the number of dishes and the order of dishes, the menu is a total of five sets of dishes, dishes are extremely exquisite, such as deer hoof tendons, hairy crab bird's nest, river eels, etc. are the top products of the banquet.
In addition, the "canonization banquet" is a banquet with very exquisite etiquette, if according to Chinese etiquette, use a high table with a table; if you follow Japanese etiquette, use a low table. The color of the table, the number of people at each table to eat, and the utensils placed on the table are also very strict regulations.
Fortunately, Grandma Sha found the color picture of the "canonization banquet" at that time, the original high table was purple-red, and the utensils placed on the table included incense burners, pens and inks in front of the table, tea bowls, sauces and a pair of chopsticks at the table, which proved that the "canonization banquet" was one person and one seat. The results found by Grandma Sha were approved by Professor Yuan Hongqi, because the color of the table at the scholar-level level was purple-red, and when the banquet was held, it was indeed one person and one seat.
Etiquette is clear, how can these dishes be restored? Grandma Sha and the team's masters studied it repeatedly. Master Shi Junsheng said: "Although there are only dish names on the menu, the names of each dish are like the questions given by the emperor when the exam is taken, we are like the candidates, we must not only hold the questions, but also make beautiful, beautiful and delicious!" ”
After several deliberations, everyone determined the principle of reproduction: First of all, the "canonization banquet" is a ceremonial banquet, so the ornamentation must be strong. Secondly, this is a state banquet representing the country, so the restoration should be in accordance with the standard of the state banquet, and the atmosphere should be atmospheric. And the state banquet can not have food with bones, if there are bones, must be removed. Third, at the ceremonial feast, it should be eaten in a gentle manner, and there should be no dishes that have any trouble eating.
After the principle is determined, everything must be carefully crafted. For example, steamed fish, you must first remove the fish meat, make a fish velvet and paste it on the fish keel, and then paste the scales made of egg yolk on both sides, and a golden steamed fish is completed. Make hairy crab bird's nest, because the hairy crab has a hard shell, it is very troublesome to eat, the masters will take the crab shell as a mold, first fill the shrimp mushroom into it to make a "crab shell", and then fill the crab meat with the "crab shell" made of shrimp mushrooms, which is both delicious and beautiful...
After nearly half a year of repeated experiments, on the basis of respecting the original historical records, the Sha Grandma team finally launched the "Canonization Banquet" at the 7th Suzhou Food Festival, which opened in October 2012. Grandma Sha also spent 3 days, using more than ten winter melons, to engrave the story of Xu Baoguang's long-distance crossing the ocean and the introduction of the Diaoyu Islands on the skin of the winter melon, she said: "There is culture and history in the food, which is what we want to tell everyone most." ”
According to the five sets of dishes on the "Sealed Feast" menu, the "Wumen People's Family" combined them into a large feast: including 5 small dishes: sauce Tianmendong, sauce melon, vinegar, sauce turnip, sauce radish; 16 kinds of snacks: orange cake, rock sugar, peanut kernels, melon seeds, lychees, bananas, silver fish, grapes, longan, horseshoe, conch, lotus, dried shrimp, preserves, grilled chicken, grilled meat; cold dishes (dried scallops, ham, agar, lettuce, red jade, chicken, pine vegetables, mustard, shrimp, etc.); hot dishes: hairy crab bird's nest, steamed quail, deer hoof tendons, river eels, water turtles , Stir-fried pork feet, steamed fish, soup: small clam loofah soup, dim sum: yellow rice cake, dumplings.
Canonization: A Declaration of Sovereignty 300 Years Ago
According to Grandma Sha, the current "canonization banquet" basically maintains the original dish, although there are also improvements in the later period, but the dishes are still extremely exquisite, taking deer hoof tendons as an example, the whole dish needs to be dried deer tendons four or two, which takes three days to boil. Five fresh eggs, half a pound of golden needle vegetables, one or two hams, one or two small shrimp, and the hanging soup to enhance the taste. In addition, it is cooked with ginkgo biloba, cauliflower and pigeon eggs. Each dish is very complicated to make, and it is extremely challenging for the chef's knife skills, mastery of the heat, and the skill of matching food ingredients. It took Grandma Sha's team nearly 20 days to complete the 13-course meal on the 5-course menu.
As soon as the "canonization banquet" was unveiled, it received widespread attention from all walks of life at home and abroad, and the media at home and abroad rushed to report it, and experts and scholars in the catering industry also applauded. In November 2012, people from naha City, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, who was once a Ryukyu territory, made a special trip to the "Wumen People's House" to shoot the restored "Canonized Feast" TV film. The "Wumen people" took out the "deer tendons" in the "canonization banquet" to entertain the guests, because the "deer tendons" represented the emperor's highest reward, which was once given to the Suzhou Weaving House, and the "canonization banquet" in the Ryukyu kingdom also had "deer tendons", indicating that it was also rewarded by the emperor. Before returning to China, Japanese friends issued an invitation, hoping that General Manager Sha and other experts from the restoration of the "canonization banquet" would visit Naha City.
In February 2013, Grandma Sha and her party flew to Okinawa with the "Canonization Banquet", and during the visit, just in time for the third Ryukyu Food Festival, Grandma Sha's team held a promotion event in the local area, inviting some diners to come and taste the "Canonization Banquet" carefully copied by the chefs of the "Wumen Family", which was praised by the locals as "the Manchu and Han of Ryukyu". Grandma Sha said with emotion: "I feel like Xu Baoguang went to Ryukyu 300 years ago, and I am particularly proud." The relevant departments also printed personalized stamps of the "Wumen Family Registered Feast" as a souvenir.
Grandma Sha's love for the culture of her hometown Suzhou chose to express it with food. With unimaginable enthusiasm and persistence, she has spared no effort for 20 years to excavate, rescue, inherit and protect Suzhou's traditional food culture and traditional production techniques. She used the economic strength accumulated by running the "Wumen family" to support her academic research, which was not only tough but also confident. She hopes to establish a Suzhou Food Culture Museum in the future to show the audience the delicious and mellow historical and cultural heritage of Suzhou.
At present, the "Wumen People's Family" has inherited more than 60 traditional dishes in Suzhou, but Grandma Sha is still not satisfied. They have joined hands with Suzhou Xiangcheng Middle School to establish the "Suzhou Weaving Official Cuisine Research experimental base", and have joined hands with the Institute of Chinese Studies of Soochow University to compile "Suzhou Cuisine in Historical Classics", aiming to return a total of more than 500 traditional Suzhou dishes to the people's tables one by one.