Recently, Shanghai Wang Baohe Hotel Co., Ltd. successfully passed the recognition of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and was rated as "Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Project (Crab Feast Cooking Technique) Protection Unit". This long-established brand, which was born in the ninth year of Qianlong, and the Wang Bao and Crab Banquet, known as the "Chinese Famous Banquet", are blooming more dazzling in the leisurely picture of traditional Chinese culture...
The "crab wine culture" has begun to take shape
In the ninth year of Qianlong, "Wang Baohe" opened Wang Baohe Shao Wine House (the predecessor of Shanghai Wang Baohe Hotel Co., Ltd.) in Shanghai's Xiangua Street, specializing in Selling Shaojiu Rice Wine. Subsequently, after relocation and reorganization, "Wang Baohe" successively owned two restaurants in Shanghai, Wang Bao and Shao Wine Stack (total number) and Wang Bao and Shao Wine Stack (old number), which developed into wine making, selling wine and catering. At this time, the boats on the Huangpu River were looking at each other, and the fuzhou road was full of people. Wang Bao and Shao Wine Hotel not only sit on the convenience of water transport lines, but also enjoy the traffic in the downtown area. In the current season, the Yangtze River Sanxian, Yangcheng River crab and other rivers and lakes and seafood flow directly to Shanghai through shipping, providing inexhaustible fresh ingredients for the wine store; the newspaper bookstore, dance hall foreign firms and other business places on the street gathered guests from all walks of life to transport a steady stream of high-end customers for the wine store.
On March 31, 1937, the Times published an opening advertisement for Wang Bao and Shaoxing
In the crab season, Wang Bao and Shao Wine House will place several crab cages at the door, diners who come to dine will order a pot of yellow wine, choose a few side dishes, and then select the favorite hairy crab from the crab cage and hand it over to the restaurant for processing, when the yellow wine is heated and smoked, the hairy crab is also cooked on the table, which constitutes the prototype of Wang Bao and the "crab wine culture".
Perhaps whether it is a diner who squatted in front of the crab cage to pick crabs or a bartender standing at the counter to mix and cook wine, decades later, today's Wang Bao and crab banquets continue to nourish the connotation of the brand in another form, satisfying the taste buds of diners and spreading the culture of crab wine.
In 1981, the shaped Wang Bao and Crab Feast were oriented to the market with a new image. That year, Wang Bao and the restaurant increased their cooperation with travel agencies while deepening their efforts to cultivate the local market, and gradually expanded their brand awareness by providing dining services for tourists in Japan, Hong Kong and other places.
In order to cater to the increasingly discerning diners, chefs not only pay attention to the display of crab dishes in the sense of taste, but also actively explore, the culture and form are constantly integrated, such as the crab dishes developed and improved during this period, such as "chrysanthemum to crab shape" and "crab yellow peony shrimp" and other crab dishes that are not only loved by diners and famous overseas, but also lay the foundation for the gradual sublimation of Wang Bao and Crab Feast into Wang Bao and crab culture.
Inheritance and innovation "intangible cultural heritage skills" Yuru Yucheng
Wine, the origin of "Wang Baohe" in the past, is placed in the wine cellar to conceive and pure and fragrant, marking the historical thickness of the brand; crab, "Wang Baohe" today's origin, lurking in the blue wave nourished and glorious and fat, marking the market height of the brand.
Looking back on the past, whether it is the ingredients themselves or the cooking skills, they have been tempered by the years and the baptism of time and finally yuru Yucheng. Ingredients are growing and going round and round, and the skills are passed down from generation to generation. The food has shifted several degrees of autumn, and today's Wang Bao and Crab Feast cooking skills have been honored as the highest halls of the catering industry. Wang Hao, a young chef who was still playing by the stove, has many titles such as "non-hereditary heir" and "Shanghai craftsman" as he grows up over the years. Wang Bao and Crab Feast have also been selected into many honors such as "China's Top Ten Famous Banquets" and "Provincial Regional Theme Banquets" under his decades of careful cultivation.
Shanghai craftsman - Wang Hao
At the Wang Baohe Hotel restaurant, the aroma of wine is full of wine, the music is around the beams, and new and old diners are enjoying the crab feast dishes. From the past Shanghai locals breaking crab legs during the crab season, Mimi's old wine eating habits to the current Golden Bottle Feast, the Night Talk of the Hearth, enjoying the characteristics and culture of the crab feast "one dish and one grid", the times are changing, and the cooking skills of Wang Bao and the crab feast are also constantly evolving.
It is difficult to succeed in maintaining maintenance, and it is difficult to succeed in creating and developing a business. If you ask about the secret of Wang Bao and the crab feast, "innovation" must be the answer that Wang Hao and all the chefs blurted out. It is precisely because of the source of innovation that the living water continues to penetrate into Wang Bao and various fields, levels and products, in order to promote the brand to maintain youth forever and help the crab feast to continue to be vibrant.
Wang Baohe's kitchen, although it has passed the off-hours, but the chefs still choose to sacrifice their rest time in the kitchen to continue to improve the few innovative dishes just developed.
Wang Bao and the chef are developing innovative dishes
"Whenever I have the idea of slacking off from tiredness at work, I will immediately be full of energy when I look at the cooking smoke on the stove that has lasted for a hundred years."
How much power there is to invest in innovation, how strong the effect of output is. Wang Bao and Crab Feast have developed from more than a dozen crab dishes in the early days of their establishment to dozens of dishes today, which is inseparable from the continuous struggle and innovation of generations of chefs.
The labor model innovation studio named after Wang Hao, the inheritor of crab feast cooking skills and the winner of the "May Day Labor Medal", not only takes the advanced model and excellent pacesetter as the guidance of raising the flag, but also uses the spirit of labor model and the spirit of craftsman to condense the strength of the company's product innovation and research and development.
In the banquet hall of Wang Baohe Hotel, an innovative dish judging meeting brought together Shanghai Hotel, Wang Baohe Hotel, Wang Baohe and all the kitchens of the restaurant is in full swing. The roaring fire on the stove in the kitchen symbolizes the chefs' indomitable fighting spirit to break through themselves, and the aroma of dishes on the table tells the wonderful journey of the chefs in their pursuit of innovation. Innovative dishes are based on the "crab" element, but they are not confined to this, seasonal materials, popular elements, molecular cuisine... With different materials and novel forms, Wang Bao and Crab Feast have been fully inherited in innovation, and further innovated in inheritance.
Innovative Cuisine Judging Conference
The beauty of the soup lies in the difference. An ordinary hairy crab has been continuously explored and innovated by generations of chefs, and by adding various accessories and injecting traceless ingenuity, it has finally become a "generation famous feast".
The years do not live, the seasons are like a stream. A traditional ingredient has been carefully cultivated and carefully passed down by generations of "Wang Baoheren" and has been shaped into the "crab wine culture" of the famous crown market.
True taste, derived from ingenuity, into craftsmanship;
Craftsmanship, self-assiduous, Yuru Yucheng.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Huang Yinlong Text Editor: Cui Jiachen
Source: Author: Zhang Neng