(The Woman Who Told History – Issue 1101)
China has always been a foodie's paradise, food culture has a long history, "steamed lamb, steamed bear paw, steamed deer tail, roasted duck, roasted chicken, roast goose, brine pig, brine duck, sauce chicken, bacon, pine flower belly, dried meat, sausage...", this cross-talk "Newspaper Dish Name" not only seriously stimulates people's taste buds, salivating over the Manchu and Han dynasty at the same time, but also the Manchu Qing royal family's extravagant and unrestrained erosion life, but is this really the case?
Before entering the customs, the Qing court banquet was very simple, basically maintaining the living habits of the nomads, laying out animal skins in the open air, everyone sat around, supported the hot pot, casually ate some sauerkraut stewed white meat, and shabu pork, beef and mutton.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty's capital Beijing, the imperial family formulated a strict banquet system and food standards for the purpose of frugality, and the state banquet was divided into five grades, and the highest standard was not more than eight or two tattoos of silver per table, such as
New Year's Day, Longevity, Winter Solstice three major feasts, the emperor's big wedding, the triumph of the army, the princess or the county lord marriage and other feasts are listed as "four class seats", each table price silver is also a whole zero "four two four money three points"
According to the purchasing power of one or two silver in the early Qing Dynasty, it is about 450 yuan or so today, and the full price of a table of emperors' birthday banquets does not exceed today's 2,000 yuan.
However, in the Cixi era, the situation was very different, this Western Empress did not play cards according to the ancestral system at all, extremely extravagant and extravagant to the point of no return, Guangxu twenty years of October on the first ten days of Cixi's sixtieth birthday, two years in advance to the world, the feast was eaten a month in advance, the whole birthday feast
Nearly 10 million taels of silver were spent
Only in Jingdezhen firing a variety of glazed tableware painted with the words "longevity without boundaries" and auspicious and festive patterns, there are as many as 29,170 pieces, and it is also blamed on the ignorance of the ancestor Kangxi Grandpa Qianlong and other springs, otherwise they will be angry and jump out of the coffin, and a meal of bricks will beat the mouth of this loser's wife.
Cixi's birthday feast ate half of the Beiyang Water Division, and the usual three meals a day are also very exquisite,
A must-have for every meal
108 dishes
, the standard of food exceeds 1
00
Two grains of silver, enough for 1
5000
A commoner ate a small meal of rice. The imperial dining room is also full of famous chefs from the north and south1
28
bit
The cooking team is so large,
Enough to supply 1
The Eight Flags Warriors had a full meal
。
Cixi is another foodie, how can 108 kinds of dishes be eaten? Most of them are just full of eyes, except for ordering a few dishes according to their preferences, most of the rest are left untouched, which is really a tyrannical thing.
However, among these 108 dishes, there is a small dish that is an indispensable dish on Cixi's table, which completely subverts the hard indicator of "color and aroma" of traditional Chinese cuisine, and the taste is strange and unacceptable to ordinary people. However, the chef who made this dish was not the imperial chef of the imperial dining room, but a "notorious" little person Wang Zhihe, so how did the stinky tofu of Tofu Lang Wang Zhihe become a must-eat dish for Empress Dowager Cixi at every meal? This is explained in detail.
(1) The tofu smith sells himself and boasts, and an advertising poem achieves people
It is said that in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, there was a family surnamed Wang in Xihewu Village, Wuqing County, Zhili Province, who opened a tofu factory as a business, a plague, the male and female owners both died, and the 16-year-old son
Wang Zhihe
I had to give up my studies and take up the family's tofu shop.
One summer, Wang Zhihe was about to go out to sell the tofu burden after sorting out the tofu, when a relative from a neighboring village burst in with rage, saying that he wanted to marry his daughter-in-law and ask him to help for a few days.
A few days after leaving home, Wang Zhihe went home, pushed open the door of the house and smelled a foul smell, and when he opened the tofu package, the original snow-white tofu had already grown a layer of green hair. Wang Zhihe was very frugal and reluctant to throw it away, so he grabbed a piece of tofu and sent it to his mouth, and after chewing several times, he tasted a special fragrance. At first, Wang Zhihe did not take it seriously, so he scraped off the green hairs on the tofu, cut the tofu into small pieces, and marinated it in a small jar with salt, pepper and other condiments, planning to eat it in the next few days. But after a long time, I forgot about this matter cleanly.
In the autumn, the rain continued, the road was muddy, Wang Zhihe was too lazy to go out to sell, simply rested at home for a few days, for a while there was no dish with rice, suddenly remembered the small vat of pickled tofu for a long time, opened to smell, a smell came to the nose, fixed his eyes, the tofu has turned blue-black. Wang Zhihe was already frugal, and it was a pity to throw it away, so he had the courage to taste it, who expected this thing to smell smelly, and it had a special flavor in his mouth. At this moment, just a few neighbors came to sell tofu, Wang Zhihe let everyone taste, and the result was all surprising.
Since then, Wang Zhihe's tofu has added new varieties
"Stinky Tofu"
Since then, stinky tofu has gradually become famous in Jinnan Weibei, and has also become a good food on the people's dinner table. Wang Zhihe is quite economically minded, although the trade of stinky tofu is getting bigger and bigger in the local area, Wang Zhihe is not satisfied, thinking about opening up a larger market, at that time there was no advertising, Wang Zhihe waited for the opportunity,
Waiting for the opportunity to make him "infamous" in the country
In the eighth year of Guangxu, the opportunity came. Wang Zhihe has been witty and intelligent since childhood, likes to read, especially likes poetry, and has learned Xiaocheng in middle age, and is praised by the villagers, recommended by the villagers, Wang Zhihe took the exam in Shuntianfu, and the test question is "Knowing the taste and getting off the car". Wang Zhihe made a clever move, chanted a poem, and made a living soft advertisement for himself, praising the stinky tofu he invented:
Plainly speaking stinky tofu, the name is just the same. Since ancient times, there is no reputation, and there is no disguise today.
The nose is strangely smelly and the entrance is strangely fragrant. The aftertaste is mellow and the black odor is fragrant.
Treasure the rich and interesting, wild game poor light. It can not only be eaten, but also served with wine syrup.
If the food is with you, the feast and drink are also unmatched, saving money and getting more affordable, and enjoying the heart.
Wang Zhihe thought he was proud of himself, but unexpectedly, the chief examiner was furious after seeing it, saying that Wang Zhihe dared to defile the examination hall "with stink" and should be punished. If it were not for Zhang Zhidong, who was the inspector of Shanxi at the time, interceded from it and said to the chief examiner, "Knowing the taste of getting off the car", the examinees would have talked about 'wine' in the same way, wouldn't it be boring? Only Wang Sheng's stinky tofu is a poem that is unique and poetic and open-minded, so it should be re-ruled as yes. Wang Zhihe was saved in danger, and was the 107th person to be raised to tieling county, and later promoted to the prefect of Weihui.
Wang Zhihe, a mediocre tofu smith who actually became an official with a poem that boasted of himself, also created a precedent in the mainland advertising industry.
(2) Resigning from the government and doing business, notoriety, a plate of small dishes, Cixi's favorite
Later, Wang Zhihe resigned and opened a "Wang Zhihe Nan Sauce Garden" in Yanshou Street, Beijing, which specializes in stinky tofu, and its gate couplet is:
Comparable to pine flowers, dare to compete with shrimp paste. Horizontal batch: Notorious
。 ”
Soon "Wang Zhi and stinky tofu" became a household name in Beijing, and soon it was introduced to the imperial dining room of the palace, and empress Dowager Cixi, who was accustomed to eating delicious food, felt rare, and stinky tofu became a small dish that she had to eat at every meal, for this reason, Wang Zhi and stinky tofu were worth more doubled, and the sales channel soon expanded to North China, Northeast China and Northwest China. Empress Dowager Cixi felt that the name of stinky tofu was indecent, and gave it a name."
Green Square
And Yi ordered the three plaques in front of the "Wang Zhi and Nan Sauce Garden" to add a painted dragon head, symbolizing"
Ouchi on the use
Meaning, this may be the biggest praise for Wang Zhi and this foreign imperial cook by this violent Empress Xi.
There is another theory that Wang Zhihe was born in Anhui and was born during the Kangxi Dynasty, but the author believes that this transmission is wrong, because from the Kangxi to the Guangxu years are far away, if the stinky tofu has been popular for more than 200 years, even if Cixi is in the inner courtyard of the palace, it is impossible to treat stinky tofu as a rarity. Therefore, the author believes that Wang Zhihe could not have been a person in the Kangxi period, and was born in the Daoguang or Guangxu years.
References: "Beijing Century-old Brand", "Wuqing County Chronicle", etc.