The last time "Dream of Red Mansions" described Jia's mother's dinner, it was the second day of the inspection of the Grand View Garden, and many things happened early in the morning of this day, first Xue Baochai moved out of the Grand View Garden and went home, and then You Shi went to the Xichun Room to deal with the painting, and then You Shi went to Li Kun in Daoxiang Village to re-bathe, eat noodles and tea, and chat about family life, and finally resigned everyone to Jia's mother's upper room to report the illness of Sister Feng Li Kun, wait for lunch and discuss the Mid-Autumn Festival.
This meal revealed a lot of information, on the one hand, it still saw the old days of Jiafu, maintaining the dignity of the century-old Guogong Mansion, and on the other hand, it was Jia's mother's loving care for the younger generations as the head of Jiafu, and it also contained Jia's mother's sadness.
First, the quality of filial piety in each room has decreased significantly
Jiafuli has always had the tradition of giving filial piety dishes to the elders for the main meal, and this meal, the novel will describe this in detail.
One of them is Mrs. Wang's filial piety pepper oil and ulva sauce, which is a small dish made by mashing and pickling it with lettuce, which refers to the minced ginger and garlic used for seasoning, mixed with pepper oil, and served with porridge or as an appetizer. There are many places in the novel that describe Jia's mother's meals, such as the duck porridge recommended by Sister Feng during the Lantern Festival night to supper, all kinds of exquisite snacks in a food box during the two banquets in the Grand View Garden, and the cheese steamed lamb eaten after enjoying the plum blossoms in the snow. It sounds like high-end luxury.
At this time, the daughter-in-law gave her mother-in-law a filial piety dish, and even served a small pickle, to be honest, this kind of dish appeared in Grandma Liu's house. However, in order to save face for Mrs. Wang, Mother Jia said that she was just going to eat this, and it was just right to eat it with porridge.
There are also a few dishes that are filial piety of Jia Yu, one of which is a plate of chicken pith bamboo shoots, Jia Mu tasted it twice and kept it, and the other two plates couldn't see what it was. Chicken pith bamboo shoots are bamboo shoots produced in Tianmu Mountain, which are more suitable for making dried bamboo shoots, and when cooking, they are suitable for cooking with chicken, ham or pork. Those dishes that can't tell what they are are most likely not high-grade dishes, and the dishes that can't be served on the table of Jiafu in the past, because Jia's mother's next practice proves this.
Second, Jia's mother's division of vegetables exposed the clues of the economic collapse of Rongguofu
Jia's mother only ate half a bowl of red rice porridge, so she ordered the remaining half bowl to be given to Sister Feng to eat, Sister Feng has been sick, because Xiaoyue has the disease of redness, has been intermittently not thorough, serious blood deficiency, qi deficiency, red rice porridge is the royal thing, because this rice is rouge, also known as rouge rice, has the effect of blood tonic, it is estimated that Jia's mother suddenly remembered Sister Feng's illness, and she ate and remembered that Sister Feng was suitable for eating such porridge, so she was saved to eat.
On the one hand, it shows that Jia's mother cares about Sister Feng, and it also proves that this bowl of porridge is not redundant at all, otherwise it would be impossible for Jia's mother to be so economical in a bowl of porridge.
Jia's mother sent a bowl of air-dried civet cats and the above-mentioned chicken pith bamboo shoots to Baoyu Daiyu to eat. This kind of dish is likely to be the best dish in Jiafu at the moment, this meal Baoyu Daiyu did not eat with the old lady, seeing these two good dishes, Jia's mother first remembered her two children who hurt the most.
Jia's mother finally sent out a dish, which was a bowl of meat for Jia Lan, this bowl of meat is most likely pork, such as braised pork, steamed meat, buckle meat, etc., the dish for Jia's mother must be soft and rotten, Jia Lan is growing up, it is time to strengthen nutrition, Jia's mother sent her great-grandson a bowl of meat, reflecting the great-grandmother's caring heart.
Each master of each house in Jiafu, including the slaves, has a division of food and clothing, and the food is abundant, and there seems to be no shortage, like Baoyu's birthday, the little maid Fangguan because she doesn't like to eat noodles, and the sister-in-law Liu in the small kitchen of Daguanyuan specially made soup for her, and also made a big bowl of japonica rice, which is no different from the master.
At the moment, Jia's mother ate a meal, and she was reluctant to finish the porridge, and when she saw that there was a decent dish, she wanted to give it to Baoyu Daiyu, and even considered Jia Lan's growth, which can only show one thing, the food level of her children and grandchildren has seriously declined, and it has dropped to the point that she can't eat like before, she can just enjoy the food and not think about anything else.
A bowl of chicken pith bamboo shoots, half a bowl of red rice porridge, these things are still precious and can only be enjoyed by the powerful, reflecting the dignity of the Guogong Mansion, but it is also the sadness of Jia's mother.
Third, the fine rice to protect the master is stretched
Jia's mother's meal was accompanied by Baoqin and Tanchun, the three of them finished eating, Jia's mother asked You to sit down to eat, but the waiting maid brought You Shi the rice that the next person ate, Jia's mother looked at the criticism of the next person and said that the wrong meal, it turned out that it was because Tanchun came temporarily, the old lady's rice was gone, and now there are a few people to cook a few people's meals, there is no leftover, in recent years, Jiafu Grange is either drought or waterlogging, and it is impossible to pay the grain according to the number, and the master eats several kinds of high-grade rice less, so he has to be careful to calculate.
At the beginning, Fang Guan said that there would be a big bowl of japonica rice when he ate it, but now Jia's mother doesn't even have food for one more person in the upper room. The harshness has been carried out to Jiamu, which shows that Jiafu's economy is on the verge of collapse.
After Jia Mu and the others finished eating, they were discussing the question of how to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival, and how to spend it? Naturally, they were admiring the moon and eating wine at the Tubi Villa in the Grand View Garden, and the whole family was reunited.
Here, Jia's mother and everyone planned it, but Sister Feng didn't plan over there, what she was worried about was where the money for the festival would come from? It happened that the little eunuch in the palace came to borrow silver again, so Sister Feng had to take out two pieces of her dowry jewelry and pawn it for four hundred taels of silver, half of which was given to the little eunuch, and the other two hundred taels were handed over to the housekeeper's daughter-in-law to handle the expenses needed for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The author of this article: Pingshan Magenta Mansion
Reference to the original work: Jiazhu Ben, Gengchen Ben "Fat Yan Zhai Re-evaluation of the Stone Record"
Image source: "The Dream of Red Mansions by Sun Wen"