Master Luo Guorong's family portrait
Master Luo Guorong (1911~1969), born in 1911 in The Garden Farm of Xinjin County, Sichuan Province, was one of the first batch of national special cooking technicians in New China. Master Luo Guorong, together with Wang Lan, Chen Sheng and Fan Junkang, was once called "China's Four Famous Chefs" by Chairman Mao, the founder of the veteran "Yi Shi" Sichuan Restaurant, and the high-ranking disciples trained were Huang Ziyun, Yu Cun, Li Shikuan and others.
Chen Sheng, Fan Junkang, Luo Guorong and Wang Lan, who are known by Chairman Mao as the four famous chefs (from left)
It is worth mentioning that as a chef, because of the opportunity of history, China is at the juncture of great changes, using food as the medium, intersecting with the top leaders of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and the experience of Master Luo Guorong cannot but be said to be rare.
Later, in 1954, after being ordered by Chairman Mao, he entered the Beijing Hotel to prepare and establish Sichuan cuisine, and together with him entered the Beijing Hotel were his eldest disciple Huang Ziyun and Fan Junkang, a famous chef of Sichuan cuisine recommended by Yu Xinqing, then director of the Ceremony Bureau of the State Council, as well as chefs Zhang Zhiguo and Chen Shulin. Coincidentally, Fan Junkang and Master Luo Guorong were still brothers in the same disciple, but they were recommended by different people to enter the Beijing Hotel.
Front of Beijing Hotel
Master Luo Guorong and Master Fan Junkang studied art in the "Fuhua Garden" in Chengdu in their early years. Master Luo Guorong's culinary attainments are very profound, and he is different in the preparation methods of many dishes, which can be said to be a combination of Sichuan cuisine and Manchu and Han cuisine and court cuisine. Mr. Guo Moruo, a great literary hero, once called him "the number one in the southwest". As long as you have a little understanding of Master Luo Guorong's artistic path and several famous teachers who have pointed out him, you will feel that Guo Moruo's words are for a reason.
Master Luo Guorong's initial master was Wang Haiquan of the "Sanhe Garden", and the later master was Huang Shaoqing of the "Fuhua Garden". Both of them are Chengdu's premier Sichuan chefs. Through their cultivation, Master Luo Guorong laid a good technical foundation. After he left the school, he began to help Huang Jinlin of the "Aunt Feast", which was his third master.
On July 7, 1959, the Beijing Evening News reported to Master Luo Guorong
Here I have to say that Huang Jinlin, born in the late Qing Dynasty, gave Food to Empress Dowager Cixi in the Imperial Dining Room of the Qing Palace. In order to please "Lafayette", many delicious dishes have been created with ingenuity. The famous "Fragrant Flower Chicken Slice" is one example. That year was in full bloom, and Empress Dowager Cixi went to the Summer Palace to escape the summer. Huang Jinlin looked at the jasmine flowers blooming in the garden and the aroma was striking, and when he had a momentary inspiration, he immediately whimsically opened up, and a timeless delicacy was brewed successfully. He asked the chef to slice the chicken breast into very thin slices, syrup the egg whites, and then put the jasmine flowers under the pot to take its flavor. The roasted chicken slices are like hibiscus out of the water. At the table, he also cleverly buckled a string of fragrant jasmine necklaces worn with fine copper wire on the plate for Empress Dowager Cixi to wear. Empress Dowager Cixi was indeed overjoyed and immediately rewarded Huang Jinlin with many things.
Huang Jinlin was later sent out to Sichuan to serve as the zhi county of three counties, but due to various reasons, he resigned from the government and was idle at home, and in order to make a living, he had to open an "aunt feast" restaurant in Chengdu.
Although Huang Jinlin was knowledgeable, knowledgeable, quick-witted, and quite inspired, the fly in the ointment was that he could not do the kung fu at hand, and everything had to rely on Luo Guorong, so that Luo Guorong's vision was suddenly opened and his kung fu was advancing day by day. Therefore, Luo Guorong is experienced and skilled, one is from the door of the two masters, and the other is to get the guidance of Huang Jinlin, who is both the boss and the master, to fuse the essence of Sichuan cuisine and palace cuisine into one furnace, and the blue is better than the blue.
Beijing Evening News reported to Master Luo Guorong on January 20, 1960
In 1937, Luo Guorong left the "Aunt Feast" and was introduced to the home of Ding Cihe, a large banker in Chongqing Xiaoyuan. Ding Cihe returned from staying in Britain, taking care of finances for Liu Wenhui, the great warlord of Sichuan, who pays attention to food by nature and loves to invite guests and make friends. When Luo Guorong went to his house, the Anti-Japanese War broke out, and the top level of the Kuomintang and celebrities gathered in Chongqing, and the political, military, and cultural circles all became Ding Cihe's guests. Luo Guorong's good dishes soon became famous in the small garden, and the guests called him "Roosevelt", which was in harmony with "Master Luo".
Later, after the death of Huang Jinlin, Master Luo Guorong invited some friends to open a "Yi Shi" Chinese restaurant to specially undertake high-end banquets, and its technical level not only exceeded the old restaurant "Shou ErKang" at that time, that is, the well-known restaurants of the time such as Aunt Feast, Rising Autumn, Jing ChengYuan, and Duo Yi, which were all more than enough at the time of the Yi. In particular, it is possible to innovate the old, find another way, and not fall into the old ways of the predecessors. Chicken bean blossoms, steamed duck, sauerkraut sea cucumber, clear soup loin block, bombing Tokyo (Nabe sea cucumber), butterfly sea cucumber, etc., the flavor is very different from other restaurants; braised bear paw, abalone, steamed shark fin and other high-end cuisine, meticulous operation, meticulous craftsmanship, known as the best restaurant in Rongcheng. In the white case, Master Luo Guorong made a bean sprout bun with a lot of filling, thin skin and extremely delicious taste, which has the fragrance of bean sprouts but does not see bean sprouts, and the food is fresh and refreshing. By chance, Deng Xihou's wife Deng Wangshi tasted chicken bean blossoms and bean sprout buns, and after Eating them, Deng Wangshi praised them greatly, believing that Yishi's skills were indeed worthy of the name, and therefore introduced the business of 60 tables of high-end banquets to Yishi. Once Deng Xihou invited the provincial chairman Zhang Qun to the Yishi restaurant, Zhang Qun was full of praise after eating the steamed duck that was tender and boneless and the soup was very delicious, and often sent people to buy it, and then asked Master Luo Guorong to send Master Wang Yuequan, who could make steamed duck, to him as a private cook.
Chengdu yi time
In 1940, when the fame of yi was getting bigger and bigger, the business was very prosperous, and a semicolon was opened in Chongqing. At that time, Chongqing had become the "wartime capital of the Republic of China", and Chongqing's "Yishi" had also become a place for many high-level banquets. Master Luo Guorong himself flew back and forth between Chengdu and Chongqing to take care of it until his fame became famous. It is said that Kong Xiangxi booked a table at the "time of the Yi" in Chongqing, 60 oceans and a table, and was very happy after eating, and booked two tables for Chiang Kai-shek. Jiang himself could not eat it, and then gave one of the tables to Lin Sen, the chairman of the Nationalist government at the time. Lin Sen was also very satisfied after eating, and wrote a plaque of "Sichuan Cuisine Sacred Hand" to give to Luo Guorong.
In August 1945, during negotiations between the Kuomintang and the Communists, Chairman Mao flew to Chongqing and lived for more than 40 days. The two parties and democrats exchanged views with each other, and many banquets were held by Luo Guorong. It was at these banquets that Luo Guorong also left a deep impression on the leaders of the Communist Party.
On the third day of the liberation of Chengdu in 1950, Marshal He Long invited the rebellious Kuomintang generals Liu Wenhui, Deng Xihou, Pan Wenhua and others to feast on the rebellious Kuomintang generals at the "Time of the Yi", praising the dishes made by Master Luo Guorong, and later recommended him to come to the Beijing Hotel to build a Sichuan cuisine restaurant, so that not only laid a good foundation for the Sichuan cuisine department of the Beijing Hotel, but also brought Master Luo Guorong's cooking skills into full play. One thing is enough to peek into, on October 6, 1959, Master Luo Guorong, who had just finished the 5,000-person banquet on the 10th anniversary of the National Day, coincided with the first National Games on October 6, and Master Luo Guorong was ordered to lead Huang Ziyun, Li Zhiquan, Huang Run, Yu Cun, Li Shikuan, Wei Jinting and other apprentices to cooperate with a large number of chinese and Western cuisine masters to complete the task of hosting the "10,000-person cold meal party". That is also the year (1959), the "Beijing Hotel" selected 4 special chefs, Luo Guorong and his disciple Fan Junkang were listed among them, as well as 1 Cantonese chef and 1 Tan family chef. At that time, the special chef was treated according to the chief, and Premier Zhou Enlai specially instructed: "In the future, foreign guests at the prime minister or deputy prime minister level will come, and only then will they be served with special chefs." Wherever the special chef goes, he is to be treated as the chief. Later, Master Luo Guorong followed the leaders on many overseas visits, including the famous Bandung Conference, and became a famous national chef.
Master Luo Guorong's state banquet past
Chicken bean blossom is not only a famous dish at the time of the Yi Dynasty, but also a traditional dish with sichuan characteristics, which has a history of more than 100 years. The finished dish is quite distinctive, one of the representative dishes of Sichuan Zhong's light and mellow, and it can best reflect the technical skills of a Sichuan chef and the height of understanding of the magic of cooking. It is a very delicate craft dish, in the Sichuan Daofo Temple, Xiangji Kitchen has the cooking skills of "eating chicken is like chicken" and "eating meat is like meat", that is, vegetarian ingredients are made into meat-flavored dishes, that is, the so-called "suto meat". The chicken bean flower does the opposite, to a "eat chicken without seeing chicken", "eating meat without seeing meat", the meat is made into a vegetarian shape, that is, people call "meat toso vegetarian". Chicken bean blossom is the representative dish of meat and vegetables. It is recorded in the 1909 Chengdu General Survey and the Excerpts from the Four Seasons Recipes of the Late Qing Dynasty. It can be seen that the chicken bean flower is extraordinary.
On September 10, 2018, "Chinese Cuisine" was officially released, and "Chicken Bean Flower" was rated as one of the top ten classic dishes of "Chinese Cuisine" in Sichuan.