Chapter 50 Man Han Banquet

The Manchu Banquet reminds me of the Qing Dynasty, the dynasty that went from rich to decadent.It is said that before the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, it was also very simple. The so-called palace banquets were extremely civilian, but animal skins were spread in the open air, and everyone sat cross-legged around a hot pot of stewed meat, similar to today's picnic. "Manchu Old Documents" records: "The Baylors don't set up tables when they hold banquets, but sit on the floor." However, when they settled down, they became more and more ostentatious—in terms of food, they formed a full banquet of Manchu and Han.At first, when the Qing court entertained ministers of civil and military affairs, the banquets for Man and Han were separated.Emperor Kangxi held many times the "Thousands of Seniors Banquet" where thousands of people gathered, and each table of the first-class seats was worth eight taels of silver.During the Qianlong period, the Manchu and Han banquets were introduced from the court to the people, and became popular in China for a while.

In the Manchu and Han banquets in the Qing Dynasty, Yangzhou seems to be the most important (as the official dish in the south of the Yangtze River), which is recorded in detail in Li Dou's "Yangzhou Painting Boat Record".I also looked up the Sichuan-style, Cantonese-style, and Hubei-style Manchu-Han banquet menus, and found that the dishes vary greatly due to different tastes in different places, but almost all of them focus on delicacies from mountains and seas.Although I didn't come to the scene in person, I was dazzled by just the recipes in this text.The ancients, the ancients, why did they have such a high enthusiasm for eating and so many creations?

Manchu banquets have the custom of eating one seat and withdrawing another seat, which has the greatest impact on the Manchu and Han banquets, making it no longer a one-meal meal, an overnight meal, which needs to be divided into the whole day (morning, noon, and evening), or divided into two. It can be eaten in one day or even three days - it can be seen that there are many varieties of dishes.Manhan Banquet is famous for this kind of multi-meal or even multi-day dinner party.Eating from sunrise to sunset, from today to tomorrow, in such an environment, people seem to become eating machines, and eating has become a mechanical behavior.This way of eating and drinking and eating all day long is too extravagant even in the eyes of today's extremely developed material civilization.Don't those who eat it feel distressed?Isn't it empty?

Man-Han banquets are mostly popular in the palace and officialdom, so it can be seen that it is similar to eating and drinking with public funds later?If you eat it for many years, don't you eat up the country?Made the common people suffer?The prosperous Qing Dynasty must have decayed from the dinner table first.It fails first at the dinner table and then on the battlefield.When the Qing Dynasty cooked slowly and enjoyed the full banquet of the Manchu and Han Dynasties, the salivating Western powers were busy building strong ships and guns.There is no permanent banquet in the world, and the extravagant and wasteful banquet of the Manchu and Han Dynasties, just like the history of the Qing Dynasty, can only last for a few hundred years at most.A once invincible and magnificent dynasty left nothing behind, leaving only a deserted table of leftovers—just like the broken walls and pillars of the Old Summer Palace, for future generations to admire and sigh.The so-called Opium War was a sign of the Qing Dynasty's twilight—this was its last supper!