"The people eat for heaven"! Every Chinese New Year's Eve Spring Festival, every household's dinner table will be filled with a variety of exquisite dishes. According to the different diets and cultural habits of each region, since the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Han people have a total of eight major cuisines, namely Lu, Sichuan, Guangdong, Su, Min, Zhejiang, Xiang, Hui, and the cooking techniques are also subdivided into stir-frying, slipping, frying, cooking, boiling, frying, stewing, etc.
Speaking of this, I believe many people will be curious: since the Chinese New Year's Eve meals of ordinary people's families are so rich, what exquisite dishes will be served at the state banquet for foreign guests? Which cuisine is the main dish for the state banquet?
On October 1, 1949, the founding ceremony was solemnly held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. In the evening, the first state banquet of New China was held at the Beijing Hotel, and a total of more than 600 people participated in the state banquet, and 60 tables were set. These include relevant leaders, senior generals of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, democratic parties and non-party democrats, workers, peasants, and representatives of the People's Liberation Army.
This banquet was later also known as the "First Banquet of the Founding of the People's Republic of China". Before making the state banquet, after some careful consideration, the central government selected Huaiyang cuisine as the main dish of the "first banquet of the founding of the country".
Before making the state banquet, the relevant leaders personally instructed: "Do not be extravagant and wasteful, do not use expensive ingredients such as bird's nest shark fin soup, mainly to let the participants eat enough, eat well, but also to take care of nutrition and taste." ”
In order to adapt to the tastes of guests from all over the world, 9 Huaiyang cuisine masters were specially invited from the Huaiyang Restaurant Yuhuatai in the capital. In June 1949, 9 masters were officially transferred to the Beijing Hotel to prepare for the state banquet, that is to say, the preparation of the state banquet began 3 months in advance, and the banquet for more than 600 people required 9 masters to complete independently.
The "First Feast of the Founding of the People's Republic" consists of four cold dishes, eight hot dishes and four kinds of dim sum.
The hot dishes are braised shark fin, roasted four treasures, dried braised prawns, stewed chicken, fresh mushroom hearts, red grilled autumn duck, braised carp, Yangzhou lion's head; cold dishes are spiced fish, oil-dried chicken, braised cucumber, crystal pork; the dim sum is pickled meat roasted wheat, spring rolls, bean paste buns, and mille-feuille oil cake.
More than 600 guests gave a high evaluation to the "First Banquet of the Founding of the People's Republic of China", and since then, Huaiyang cuisine has always been the main cuisine of the state banquet.
Many people wonder why other cuisines are not the main cuisine of the state banquet. Is it because Sichuan cuisine, Lu cuisine, Cantonese cuisine and other cuisines cannot be put on the table, so that they cannot enter the state banquet?
In fact, this is not the case, the relevant party history materials have clearly recorded that the reason why Huaiyang cuisine can become the main cuisine of the state banquet is because of its taste and characteristics.
Huaiyang cuisine is different from other cuisines, which are good at using ordinary ingredients to make high-end standards. Among them, the salty and fresh mouth in Huaiyang cuisine is suitable for both north and south, and the whole cuisine is nutritious, simple and elegant, and the taste is peaceful, which can meet the majority of CPPCC and democratic party figures attending the state banquet.
Friends who can cook should know that Sichuan cuisine has a rich taste, not only hemp, spicy, and dozens of other flavors. However, the salty and fresh mouth of Huaiyang vegetables is particularly difficult to adjust, and the seasoning will be salty when it is put too much, and it will be tasteless when it is put less. Salty and fresh taste seems simple, but it is suitable for both north and south.
If Sichuan cuisine or Lu cuisine becomes the main cuisine of the state banquet, Lu cuisine is heavy in oil, salty, and has a heavy taste, and often uses ingredients such as green onions and garlic. For example, the famous nine-turn large intestine, roasted sea cucumber with green onion, and braised prawns in oil in Lu cuisine are really delicious and taste enough.
But these foods are greasy and unhealthy for the elderly who attend state banquets.
Sichuan cuisine thirteen flavors, traditional Sichuan cuisine is not only spicy, spicy. For example, Sichuan cuisine is very delicious and not too spicy. Another example is boiling water cabbage and hibiscus chicken slices, which have a light taste and are nutritious.
When we mention Sichuan cuisine, the first impression is that it is spicy and spicy, including hot pot and the like. Therefore, the first impression of Sichuan cuisine is that it is hot and spicy, and it is destined that Sichuan cuisine is not a mainstream cuisine suitable for all ages.
In addition to Sichuan cuisine and Lu cuisine, which are not suitable for the main dishes of the state banquet, it is also impossible to look at light Cantonese and Su cuisines.
Cantonese cuisine uses many seafood products, and considering the large number of people attending the state banquet, I am worried that some people will have allergies. In addition, cantonese food is more expensive to make, which is time-consuming and laborious.
Su cuisine is similar to Huaiyang cuisine in all aspects, but Su cuisine has many soups and waters, and the taste is sweet, suitable for southern friends. Su cuisine and Zhejiang cuisine are exquisite in selection of ingredients, exquisitely laid out, and the form is greater than the practical value, so it is excluded.
Huaiyang cuisine does not have so many restrictions. We said before that the taste of Huaiyang cuisine is peaceful, and even foreign friends can easily accept it.
In terms of ingredients, shrimp has always been the protagonist of the state banquet, coupled with Huaiyang cuisine with low sugar and low salt, less oil and less spicy, excluding allergies, vegans, halal and other major problems, Huaiyang cuisine is indeed very suitable for state banquets.
Of course, the state banquet is mainly Based on Huaiyang cuisine, and there are other dishes that have been on the table of the state banquet, and the boiling water cabbage in Sichuan cuisine is deeply loved by Grandpa Deng. Shanxi specialty Fenjiu, instead of Maotai with a strong sauce, was placed on the table of the state banquet.
Therefore, The eight major cuisines in China have their own good taste, Sichuan cuisine tastes a bit heavy, and people who do not like to eat spicy are not used to eating at all. After all, the state banquet still has to consider the public, otherwise it is easy to cause discomfort to the tastes of others.
And everyone has thought about it, the seemingly ordinary state banquet, which contains many political components. Before the "First Banquet of the Founding of the People's Republic of China" began, the leader deliberately came to the venue, wiped the chopsticks with a clean white handkerchief, and found that there were several yellow marks on the handkerchief.
It was such a simple and small thing, but the leader was a little angry, and hurriedly called Zhong Ling, the director of the Zhongnanhai Club, and asked him to quickly send someone to wash the tablecloth and chopsticks again.
This is not a deliberate provocation by the leader, if there are foreign friends at the state banquet who have a bad stomach because the tableware is not clean, there is a political component in this kind of small matter. What's more, it is a dish that is eaten directly into the mouth.
The most important thing for the state banquet is fine craftsmanship, Huaiyang cuisine is mainly salty, light and delicious, soft and tender, which can meet the taste needs of most guests at home and abroad.
More importantly, Huaiyang cuisine is good at using ordinary ingredients to make high-end standards, simple and elegant, in line with the national initiative of frugality and state banquets.
After years of protocol reform, the state banquet has also been continuously simplified. After all, the state banquet eats "politics" rather than "pomp and circumstance", eats "culture" instead of "delicacies", and the secrets in the state banquet are hidden in the wisdom between drinking and pecking.