Wen ◆ Liu Zhongcai
In May 1896, the Qing government sent Li Hongzhang to Tsarist Russia to attend the coronation ceremony of Nicholas II and to england, France, Germany, the United States and other countries to contact diplomatic relations.
After arriving in the United States, Li Hongzhang was warmly entertained by the United States. Embarrassed, he decided to hold a Chinese-style banquet in New York to thank people from all walks of life in the United States, and sent people to the Chinese-populated Chinatown liquor store to hold a banquet.
Li Hongzhang, an advocate of the Western affairs movement
As soon as the news was released, it attracted a wide range of attention from the American public. Because Chinatown's liquor stores are mainly dedicated to serving Chinese living in the United States, Americans have rarely visited Chinatown, and it is even more difficult to eat in Chinatown.
Li Hongzhang's move made Chinatown suddenly lively. On the day of the banquet, the unique shape, color and fragrance of the Chinese dishes such as the flow of qushui surprised the foreigners, and the unique Chinese dishes made the foreigners salivate. American politicians were so immersed in delicacies that they refused to leave their seats for hours in a row, which made the ministers in his entourage a little overwhelmed.
Li Hongzhang is in the United States
The qing court chief had no choice but to report to Li Hongzhang to discuss the solution, and Li Hongzhang quietly thought about it for a moment, and asked the general manager to immediately instruct the kitchen to heat the removed leftover dishes again and put them in a large basin and bring them back to the banquet.
Under the arrangement of the manager, a large pot of steaming leftover soup smorgasbord soon appeared in front of everyone. Foreigners scrambled to taste it and praised it: OK! OK！ One of the foreigners also asked Li Hongzhang seriously why Chinese food always puts the best food in the back, and what is the name of this dish? After some questioning, Li Hongzhang cried and laughed, and he couldn't answer for a while, so he had to echo it, delicious and eat more, delicious and more!
Li Hongzhang and his family
Originally it was a casual remark, but the result was crooked, giving the foreigners a perfect explanation, because "delicious and more eating" is exactly similar to the pronunciation of "hotchpotch" in English, and "hotchpotch" means chowder, which can be described as a pun, quite similar.
Since then, many foreigners have gone to Chinatown to taste Chinese food, and each meal must be ordered a smorgasbord of smorgasbord eaten at Li Hongzhang's banquet. The owners of Chinatown liquor stores also took the opportunity to make mistakes and use a variety of seasonal fresh vegetables to make "Li Hongzhang's smorgasbord" to attract the attention of foreigners.
Li Hongzhang and foreigners
Li Hongzhang was originally unintentional, but he achieved a popular cuisine around the world, and set off a whirlwind of "Li Hongzhang's smorgasbord" in the United States at that time. For a time, The catering industry in Chinatown exceeded the quota, with an annual turnover of millions of dollars, and in New York alone, there were three or four hundred smorgasbord restaurants, and it also spread to Boston, Washington, Chicago, Pittsburgh and other places, becoming an important source of income for Chinese living in the United States.
Li Hongzhang and Qing Dynasty ministers
Later, all the restaurants of Chinese in the United States wrote "Li Hongzhang's Smorgasbord", "Li Hongzhang Noodles", Li Hongzhang Rice" and other food lists, and Li Hongzhang's name also became synonymous with many Chinese in the United States to open restaurants.
Today, the simple and ordinary dish of smorgasbord has long ceased to be amazing, but a miraculous work of Li Hongzhang has made the inconspicuous smorgasbord popular, and Li Hongzhang himself has also been praised by the Chinese as a food master, and still occupies a place in the gastronomic world. (Original work)