Inscription: In 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, and Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor fled. Originally, people were on the road and should be at peace with the encounter, but the empress dowager was the empress dowager after all! In the 53 days of fleeing to the west, she spent a lot of money, ate and drank heavily, tasted the local characteristics of Shanxi, and tasted the taste of Shanxi cuisine. From the corn stalks in the fields of the common people to the millet porridge in the hungry nests; from the home-cooked dishes of ordinary farmers to the special snacks of local flavors; from the high-end banquets of the dignitaries and nobles to the luxurious Manchu and Han full table, she deeply felt the highest realm of a super foodie and deeply experienced the taste of local cuisine in various parts of Shanxi. In the two days she spent in Wenxi County, Shanxi Province, she actually spent 200,000 taels of silver, which is equivalent to the sum of the county's three years of money, grain and taxes. It can really be described as "daily gold fighting"! Such extravagance cannot but make people stunned.
First, people are on the way, filling their hunger with corn paste and mung bean noodles.
In 1900, when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor fled in a hurry, dressed as an old village woman, with only some scattered silver, mixed with displaced people and escaped from the Forbidden City. Half a month before entering the territory of Shanxi, it can be described as a turbulent displacement, and even Cixi herself said, "I have completely become a grandmother of Yixiang." A bowl of millet porridge, half a nest, is enough to satisfy the empress dowager who has been dressed all day.
Eating, satisfying the needs of survival, the great desire of life, the fundamental needs. When survival is threatened, everything is a floating cloud, and filling the stomach is the most important thing. On the way west, the empress, known as Lafayette, spent her first days running to meet basic needs.
On August 30, 1900, three cars arrived in Tianzhen County, Datong Province, and the Luan driver at that time was just that. Tianzhen is located at the junction of the three provinces of Jin, Hebei and Mongolia, and is also the only way for Hebei to enter Shanxi. Cixi and his party rested for one night at a temple called Ciyun Temple, and the food and drink prepared for Cixi at that time were very sloppy, and it is said that they only drank a bowl of vegetarian porridge such as corn paste.
On September 1, Cixi arrived at Jule Fort in Yanggao County, Datong, and stayed in a deep mansion compound north of the village east road, the Wang Guantun Li family. At this time, millet porridge and nest head have been difficult to account for this Lafayette. The Li family prepared mung bean noodles for Cixi, a local specialty, and also served with brine made of wild vegetables such as mountain mushrooms, fungus, vanilla, and yellow flowers. But the bowl of noodles had not yet been imported, and someone outside the door had come to make trouble. A few local descendants broke their legs when they went up the mountain to pick wild vegetables to ask for medical expenses. It turned out that in order to curry favor with Cixi, the eunuch secretly ordered the local camp and forced the villagers to go up the mountain to collect. Cixi beheaded the eunuch in anger. Early the next morning, Cixi did not dare to stay long, and ordered her to leave immediately. It is estimated that due to the disturbance, the bowl of mung bean noodles did not eat any taste, so the mung bean noodles could not be praised by the empress, and did not gain any popularity.
Second, avoid the taboo to change the name of Shanxi's famous dish "Fengbaowo" to "Golden Phoenix Lying Snow".
Phoenix nest
The next day, Cixi Guangxu and his party arrived at Datong Province, where the preparations were sufficient and the supply of goods was relatively abundant. At that time, the famous restaurant in Datong Province was the well-known Fenglin Pavilion in the Ming Dynasty, and local officials found the famous chef of Fenglinge to make the most famous dishes in Datong for Cixi and Guangxu to enjoy, one of which was called "Fengbaowo", which was the signature dish of this restaurant. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, it began to circulate in the folk, the practice is to cook a chicken in a large dish, then put some fried dried noodles below, next to 10 fried boiled eggs and fried tofu. After Cixi ate this dish, she asked the waiters around her for the name of the dish.
The attendants immediately went outside the door to inquire about the officials who were waiting, and the officials wondered, Empress Dowager Cixi's trip was called Xi Hunting, but in fact, was it not an escape? The three words "Phoenix Lying Nest" were afraid that they would invite the disaster of killing themselves, so they racked their brains and came up with a name of "Golden Phoenix Lying Snow" to make a dish name with a meaning of frustration become elegant. This dish has since been named "Golden Phoenix Lying Snow". The chefs of Fenglinge also specially made 9 cages of "Hundred Flowers Roasted Wheat", transparent and shiny thin skin, wrapped in chicken, duck, fish, shrimp, crab, cow, sheep, pig, rabbit 9 kinds of meat filling, roasted wheat on the top end made of peony, lotus, rose, peony, magnolia, moon season, autumn chrysanthemum, rhododendron, plum blossom 9 kinds of flower shapes, such a delicate "Hundred Flowers Roasted Wheat" has also been appreciated by Cixi.
Up to this moment, the lives of Cixi and her court officials and retinues along the way had improved markedly. After getting rid of the dilemma of corn paste and food, Cixi's stomach has begun to pick up.
3. Enjoy the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival in Xinzhou, and taste 24 Shanxi delicacies in one meal.
Cixi continued to move forward, and after hearing the news from various places along the way, they sent people to send grain and grass and gifts, and flocked to the crowd. Cixi's westward escape coincided with the eighth month of the lunar calendar, and she had planned to rush to Taiyuan for the Mid-Autumn Festival, but it was difficult to travel in the rainy season, so she could only walk in Xinzhou for the festival.
Although it is on the way to escape, the royal festival cannot but be exquisite. Soon after Empress Dowager Cixi dismounted from the car in Xinzhou, she lived in the Xinzhou Gongyuan. The courtyard is large and bright, the four corners are swept clean, the melons and fruits in the courtyard are fragrant, the gongs and drums are noisy, and it is full of festive atmosphere. Cixi's personal maid recalled: "In the past month or so, I sometimes ate well, and sometimes I ate poorly. For this meal, the big and small officials ate the most sumptuous meal along the way: four cold meat pressing tables, four stir-fries, four small bowls, four medium bowls, four seas, four large plates, and a large bowl of public soup at the end, this table dish is called 'four four to the end'. "Empress Dowager Cixi was served by the emperor and the empress in a golden and splendid seat, and she ate more advanced than this.
After dinner, according to the custom in the palace, the empress went to sacrifice the "Taiyin Jun". In the southeast corner of the temple, a table is set up and incense is inserted. Four plates of fruit and four plates of mooncakes were laid on the table, and the mooncakes were stacked half a foot high. In addition, there is a large wooden plate in the middle with a one-foot diameter full moon cake, which is specially made for rabbit sacrifices. There are also two new edamame carobs and four bowls of clear tea. Empress Dowager Cixi and her party were even more superstitious because they were fleeing, but they were afraid that the etiquette would not be good, and they would offend the gods and ghosts and bring disaster to themselves. This is especially true during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Therefore, as soon as there is an opportunity to kowtow to the gods and ghosts, they compete to participate. They prayed to the moon and asked God for mercy.
Although Cixi only rested for one day in Xinzhou, among the tributes offered by local officials, there was still a place where famous food stood out. At that time, the governor Xu Handu paid homage to the tile crisp made by Master Wang Fenglong of Mahui Town, and Cixi gave him the name "Dragon And Phoenix Tile Cake" after eating. The tile puff pastry in Xinzhou was thus associated with the royal family, and since then it has become increasingly famous and has become a famous food.
Dragon phoenix tile crisp
Fourth, the Taiyuan small shop was sharp, and it cost tens of thousands of silver in two hours.
On September 10, the seventeenth day of August in the lunar calendar, Cixi finally arrived in Taiyuan. In Taiyuan, the Inspector Yamen arranged the palaces of Cixi and Guangxu, and the furnishings used were all prepared for the emperor to patrol Wutai Mountain during the Jiaqing period, and they did not come in handy that year, and this time they were just used to entertain Cixi. Her personal palace maid said that in Taiyuan everyone felt like they were in the palace.
Empress Dowager Cixi's dietary extravagance is famous, and DeLing, a female official who had served around Cixi, in her book "Records of imperial incense", had the following comments about Cixi: "The life of the empress dowager can be said to be born for 'eating'..." In Taiyuan, Cixi's dietary standards have been greatly improved. After more than half a month, Cixi and her party continued to move forward, once resting in a small shop in Taiyuan, spending tens of thousands of silver in more than two hours, so the cost of the empress's stay for one night was even more expensive: according to records, on a night in Xugou, the local expenditure of silver was fifty thousand taels.
On October 2, Cixi and her party entered Qi County in Jinzhong and received a grand reception, and the Qiao family even brought out delicious food. According to liu Dapeng of the Qing Dynasty, the standard of food inside the Jin shang merchants at that time was quite high: "The business here is too luxurious, and all the merchants, known as the light meal, in fact, the mountains and treasures are wrong, the giant turtle fresh fish, and the delicacies are also delicious." Customary, there is no such thing as wrongdoing." The standard of the staff canteen of Jinshang was close to luxury, and in the face of the arrival of the supreme ruler at that time, it was a rare opportunity, and naturally he would find ways to make a big fuss about the empress's diet, and the high standard was nothing, the key was to pay more attention to the degree of refinement.
In the leap month of August, when Cixi arrived in Qi County, around the second Mid-Autumn Festival, the Qiao family presented Cixi with a moon cake called "Snow Lotus Crisp". This mooncake was baked by the famous long-established pastry shop "Shi sheng lou" in Qi County at that time. The pastries made by this shop are delicious and exquisite, and the "snow lotus crisp" is specially provided for the Qiao family, and the average person cannot enjoy it. In addition to the amazing taste, this pastry is as its name suggests, it is called a snowy skin, and it is smooth and creamy. No need to eat, just looking at it makes people feel good. Cixi, a foodie who is very picky about eating, can't help but praise it. After Empress Dowager Cixi arrived in Xi'an, she also specially ordered people to go to Qiao's house to take "snow lotus crisp" for her to taste, and gave it to the ministers, princes, and Gege who accompanied her to taste it. After that, every Mid-Autumn Festival, the Qiao family sent people to Beijing to deliver "snow lotus crisp".
Snow lotus crisp
Fifth, Hou Ma welcomed the full seat of Han, and Wen Xi spent 200,000 taels of silver in two days.
When Cixi and her party arrived in Houma, the Houma magistrate had begun preparations a month earlier, and 80 cooks had been recruited locally. Operated day and night, carefully configured, full of 108 dishes, all guaranteed supply. Quwo, Wenxi and other places also followed suit. Wen Xi spent 200,000 taels of silver in two days, equivalent to the county's three years of money and grain taxes combined.
According to the Qing Dynasty system, the standard of food and accommodation for officials at all levels must be implemented according to the level of position. Not to mention the standards of the empress dowager and the emperor, only the princes and ministers must supply a seat of "upper eighty-eight" every day, including eight plates of eight bowls of chicken, duck, fish and meat and mountain treasures and seafood; middle and lower-level officials have a daily seat of "middle eighty-eight", the number of dishes is unchanged, the quality is slightly inferior to "upper eighty-eight"; even the attaché guards can not be lower than the "lower six-six" standard, chicken, duck and vegetables are indispensable.
In more than a month, Cixi and her party have developed from eating nest heads and grass to completely making the Jinnan region of Shanxi a standard imperial dining room. Nowadays, Houma also has local famous dishes of "Fishing moon on the seabed" and "Jiaolong Offering Treasure", which were passed down to the people by the chefs of the Imperial Dining Room, and can also be regarded as a contribution made by Cixi's westward journey to shanxi's local famous dishes. Cixi's trip coincided with the drought in Shanxi, and the huge reception cost was undoubtedly worse for shanxi's local economy. However, in terms of food, it was successfully completed a close exchange between the royal family and the people. The imperial chefs in the Forbidden City learned to make nest heads and valley bases, and the royal Manchu and Han full-table methods and dishes were also lost to the people, enriching the Three Jin cuisines.