Chapter 16 The dean also opened a small restaurant

I have always firmly believed that Mr. Mengchang is a great gourmet.Due to the lack of data, it is impossible to do detailed research and analysis.The reason for making this judgment is very simple. Mr. Meng Chang has "three thousand diners", so many talents eat at his house every day. The quality of the food is directly related to your respect for talents, so you can't be bad. You see, because he hadn't eaten fish for a few days, Feng Chen quit. He picked up his long sword and played it while singing: "The long sword is back! There is no fish for food." The translation is, Feng Chen said to his sword : "Let's go buddy, there's no fish to eat here."

People who are hospitable must know food, and vice versa, but all gourmets are very hospitable. Tan Yankai is good at food and hospitality.There is a super big Eight Immortals table in the living room of his house, which can easily sit fourteen or five people around. The suckling pig and shark's fin banquet is a menu he often uses to entertain KMT politicians. This menu is actually a "three combinations", including Cantonese cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, Hunan cuisine, or four combinations, including his own homemade dishes. In 1987, in Changsha, Hunan Province, it was found that there were more than 200 kinds of Zu'an dishes recorded on red grid paper, including suckling pig and shark's fin menu.

Tan Yankai also specially made chopsticks for this super-large Eight Immortals table. Each pair of chopsticks is more than a foot long, and the cups, plates and bowls are also larger than ordinary ones.These later gradually formed one of the characteristics of Hunan's diet, which is very family-oriented and generous. Tan Yankai was the dean of the Executive Yuan of the National Government at the time. He had a high position and power, and there were many diners at home.But after all, the times have progressed, Tan Yankai did not open the door like Meng Changjun, he can eat when he comes, and people who eat can leave.Old Tan has more business sense: Since so many people like to eat at my house and eat my Zu'an dishes, why not open a restaurant?

After preparations, Dean Tan and He Jian, another fellow from Hunan (who once served as the chairman of the Hunan National Government and was most famous for sending troops to dig Mao Zedong’s ancestral grave) jointly invested and opened a Hunan restaurant, named "Qu garden".Tan personally inscribed the signboard for the restaurant.Let me explain here that Tan Yankai's calligraphy is very good, and together with Yu Youren, Hu Hanmin, and Wu Zhihui, he is called the "Four Calligraphy Treasures" of the Kuomintang veterans.Yu Youren was good at running script, Tan Yankai was good at regular script, Hu Hanmin was good at official script, and Wu Zhihui was good at seal script.Tan Yankai dedicated his life to copying Yan Zhenqing's copybooks, and the images of the characters.

Tan Yankai was famous for his calligraphy for a time, and there is a little story that can illustrate his influence.Once Tan Yankai cut his right hand when he was instructing the chef Cao Si to demonstrate cooking.At that time, there happened to be an official letter that needed to be sent to Hu Hanmin. According to Tan Yankai's habit of "every letter should be written by himself", although he cut his hand, he reluctantly wrote it himself.Hu Hanmin is also a calligrapher. After receiving the letter, his complexion changed, and he stayed behind closed doors. At home, he carefully pondered why the characters in the reply letter were not the same as before, and sent his secretary to find out who's calligraphy Tan Yankai was copying recently. How can there be a kind of lightness and flying in vain?After learning the truth later, Hu Hanmin was so angry that he threw the official letter on the ground and said: "I thought he had learned a new skill and came to demonstrate to me, but it turned out that he cut his hand."

After the opening of Quyuan, Tan Yankai often invited friends and colleagues to taste the dishes, and gave on-the-spot guidance to the cooks. It was a living advertisement, and Quyuan soon became famous.At that time, Huaiyang cuisine, Shanghai cuisine, Shandong cuisine, and Cantonese cuisine were popular in Nanjing. Due to Tan Yankai's influence, Hunan-style dishes represented by Zu'an cuisine were also popular.As a result, Tan Yankai became one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" in the food industry in the Republic of China.The other three are Beijing Tan Zhuanqing from Lu cuisine, Huang Jinglin from Chengdu Guguyan from Sichuan cuisine, and Jiang Kongyin from Guangzhou Taishi Snake Banquet from Cantonese cuisine.

As a person of great status in the political arena of the Republic of China, later generations gave Tan Yankai mixed reviews, mostly negative.Some people think he is a stick eater, while others think he is a prime minister with food.But I think he is the person with the most gourmet spirit, even more than Yuan Shikai, and his attitude towards life is more humorous. He is a very interesting person and very cute. There is a price to be paid for loving food.Due to eating too much meat, Tan Yankai suffered from high blood pressure, and often felt numb in his right hand. He needed warm water baths and electrotherapy once a day.He once said humorously to his friends: "I have eaten delicious food all my life, and now I am steamed once a day and grilled once a day, which is probably the retribution of being greedy." Later, Tan Yankai accidentally fell off his horse and died.A Shanghai newspaper published a couplet at the time: "It's great to be a mess, eat and drink, swagger, life is big, good fortune, big enough to the dean; the ball just rolls, rolls around, rolls in and out, Roll around, roll into a coffin."

After Tan Yankai's death, Cao Si and other chefs left, and Quyuan's business became increasingly bleak.Just when Quyuan was about to close down, a mysterious guest came to the store one day. After sitting down, he ordered a few dishes: spicy tripe shreds, candied lotus root pork, Zu'an tofu, Dong'an chicken, plus a mushroom soup.The waiter replied that no one in the Dong'an chicken shop can make it. He smiled and said, "I will teach you how to make it." Then he entered the kitchen with the waiter and instructed the chef to make Dong'an chicken.This dish brought Quyuan back to life in the future and has become the chief famous dish in Hunan today.This mysterious guest is Army General Tang Shengzhi, and Dong'an chicken is his hometown dish.Dong'an chicken is praised for its delicious taste, beautiful color and tender meat. It is thick but not greasy, fragrant but not turbid, tender but not rotten, crisp but not hard, hot and sour, and it tastes appetizing.

Dong'an chickens are very particular about the selection of raw materials and auxiliary materials. Yellow hens that have grown within seven years and weigh about two catties are used. The yellow chickens produced in Luhong Town, Dong'an County are the best. Fat.The authentic method is: slaughter the chicken, put it in a soup pot and cook for ten minutes, until it is seven mature, take it out and let it cool.Heat up the frying pan, put lard, and cook until it is half-baked, add chicken strips, shredded ginger, and minced dried peppers and stir-fry, then add yellow vinegar, Shaojiu, refined salt, and minced pepper, stir-fry a few times, and add fresh broth, Stew for four to five minutes, until the soup dries up and the oil remains, add scallions, monosodium glutamate, thicken with wet starch, turn the pot over a few times, drizzle with sesame oil, take out of the pot and serve.

Dong'an chicken spread quickly, diners flocked, and Quyuan Restaurant flourished again, becoming a famous restaurant in Nanjing again.Later, the chef improved the cooking of Donganzi chicken. The red peppers used were marinated by themselves, fried in a pot, chopped finely, put in chicken soup as seasoning, and paid more attention to the heat. In particular, Quyuan Restaurant also has a store in Beijing, which is near the China Foreign Affairs University. Those who are hungry can try it. When Tang Shengzhi entertained Kuomintang military officers, he always used Dong'an chicken as the main dish, which made Dong'an chicken widely spread.Guo Moruo once recorded in "Hong Bo Song" that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, General Tang hosted a banquet for him in his mansion in Changsha, and of course the dish of Dong'an chicken was indispensable.Later, chefs from the Tan family also went to the United States to open restaurants, so Dong'an chicken is also well-known abroad.

When China and the United States established diplomatic relations, Mao Zedong entertained US President Nixon who was visiting China with Dong'an chicken, which made Dong'an chicken even more famous in the United States and became a famous Chinese dish.