"I invite you to eat: steamed lamb, steamed bear paw, roasted deer tail, roasted duck, roasted chicks, roasted goose..." With the articulate laying out of the cross-talk actor, we seem to really see a table full of Han Chinese, legend has it that this is the highest standard banquet in the Qing Dynasty, only the emperor is eligible to put chopsticks, in fact, in the Yuan Dynasty, there was a saying of "Meng Bazhen", but most of them are now far away from the table, why is this? Let me reveal the secrets to you.
"The people take food as the sky, and the country takes the grain as the foundation." The sons and daughters of China, who originated from agricultural civilization, were born with a special affection for grain. From filling the stomach at the beginning to eating abundantly today, in the long history of 5,000 years, Chinese rich food culture has been bred. The same is a few bites of food, people in different regions have different practices, the biggest gap comes from the north and south, in general, the northerners are salty, the southerners are sweet, so the south is more sweet bean flowers, the north must be poured brine on the "tofu brain".
There is also a feature of food culture that is, whether rich or poor, in ancient times, rich people want to eat, ordinary people also have to eat, rich people eat that is "the geese in the clouds in the mountains, the land cattle and sheep under the sea fresh", ordinary people a whole bowl of fried sauce noodles, or a bowl of fried liver, there are also different flavors, living in the present, we are very happy, because we enjoy a lot of dishes from different regions, but during the Yuan Dynasty, Meng bazhen is a very rare dish, and now gradually disappeared, why is this?
We may wish to move our attention to northern China, because the Yuan Dynasty was dominated by the Mongols, many of their delicacies naturally spread throughout China, the most honorable of which is the "Meng Bazhen", which consists of: Daigo, Elk, Wild Camel's Hoof, Deer's Lips, Camel's Milk, Elk Meat, Swan Burning, Yuan Jade Pulp (Purple Jade Pulp). Meng Bazhen is different from the Manchu Han Quan Table, it is a pure Mongolian dish, and most of the ingredients used are unique at that time.
The first dish is called Daigo, it belongs to the finest cheese, as the temperature rises, the cheese upper layer will condense into a crisp, and then the crisp upper layer will appear a layer of grease, which is Daigo, it tastes luscious, the nutritional value is very high. The mastiff is the cub of the roe deer, the meat of which is the best commodity of the Mongolian steppe, and its young lamb is particularly delicious. Wild camel hooves are camel hooves, which can be as famous as bear paws, and deer lips are the lips of large calves, which not only taste excellent, but also rich in nutrients. Camel milk is a health supplement and a good medicine. The elk meat is delicious. Swan scorching is roasted swan meat, and yuan jade pulp is horse milk wine.
Although it is only eight dishes, there is a lot of attention behind this. At that time, chefs who were not at the level of state banquets did not deserve to touch these ingredients, but these delicious dishes were gradually drifting away from us, was it because we did not pay attention to food culture? In fact, this is not the case, because the times are developing, and nothing is immutable. For example, roe deer, wild camels, swans, etc. have become precious protected animals, and if you want to make them a dish, you have to think about it, compared to the appetite, the taste of jail is not good.
A few "hard dishes" can't be eaten, but what about other desserts? Yuanyu pulp is also known as horse milk, which is a dairy product exclusive to grassland nomads, and other areas are dependent on farming for their livelihood, in these areas, horses are rare labor resources, and they will not use it for milk at all. And we now have milk and goat milk, milk is a breed that everyone is happy to accept, it itself is also rich in calcium, phosphorus and vitamins and other nutrients, goat milk although the taste is large, but it fat particles are smaller, easier to absorb, with these two kinds of dairy products, basically meet everyone's needs of life.
And Daigo is actually milk skin, in the manufacturing industry is so developed at the moment, want to eat this can be said to be hand to hand, and even the West has also introduced butter, in fact, the gap between the two is not large, but but the butter is more convenient to eat. From historical novels, we are often "hungry" by ancient cuisine, as if the ancient emperors ate all the food that we can hardly imagine, of course, this is not the case, with the development of the times, the rapid improvement of productivity, today's diet can be said to be "arbitrary", of course, the legal gap is insurmountable, so it is not a pity that some dishes have disappeared, after all, the good life of all things is the most important!
Wenlan Hairun Studio Editor-in-Chief Wen Xiucai, this article is written by: Special History Writer: Jin Xiaozhou
Source: 1. "Eat All Over Inner Mongolia" by Tian Hongli; published by Inner Mongolia People's Publishing House