Chapter 30 Qing palace meal

In the past dynasties of China, most of the records of court diet were vague. For example, "Drinking Zhengyao" compiled by Hu Sihui, the "Drinking Imperial Physician" of the Yuan Dynasty, although it is a book on royal diet, it is also the only official one in Chinese diet literature. Book.However, because the Mongols grew up in the boundless desert of Pingsha, their eating habits were limited to the environment, and they mainly used beef, sheep, game, and buttermilk on a daily basis; later, although they inherited the Datong and entered the Central Plains, they still maintained a strong sense of roughness and boldness in terms of diet. style.Every day on the Yuqian menu, the dishes are only beef and mutton, roe roe, fox and rabbit, and even pork, fish and shrimp are rarely used, let alone seasonal vegetables such as spring leeks and autumn cabbage, as well as Dongzi products.

In the Fengtai area near the suburbs of Beiping, there are skilled vegetable farmers who dig cellars in the sun, and sometimes use fire to bake them. In the severe winter, when the ground freezes and drips into ice, they can grow delicate fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers, lentils, and Chinese toon, which are specially used by the imperial court. taste it.At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, people occasionally had this rare food to eat, but the price was astonishingly expensive. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang was born reckless, and his Empress Ma was famous for being thrifty and simple. With such a founding emperor, he was the first to grow up, so the descendants of later generations did not have a thousand kinds of spiritual delicacies, feasts and feasts, and extreme poverty in terms of food and drink. Situation of feasting.In the last few generations of the Ming Dynasty, most of the emperors were arrogant, extravagant, addicted to wine and sex, and believed in the general Taoist magician's trick of refining mercury to seek alchemy. Pigeon, stewed pork loin with five flavors of rehmannia glutinosa, mutton stewed with orange peel and ginger, and squid with wolfberry and Eucommia... Yuan Zicai, an old man in Suiyuan, said: "The diet in the palace of the Ming Dynasty changed from curing hunger to curing diseases. The so-called vegetables can cure diseases. Medicine is not a delicacy." These few words of Suiyuan old man can be said to describe the court diet of the Ming Dynasty in detail.

The court food records of the Qing Dynasty, from Shunzhi to Yongzheng, although they are not detailed, but when Qianlong was in the court, this old man of Shiquan had traveled all over the country, learned a lot, and gradually became a food expert.All the rare foods that have been tasted are recorded and listed in detail, and even the daily meal times, meal names, ingredients, cooking methods, surnames of the cooks, temporarily added meal names, and consumption Whoever Shan Yujun rewarded was also recorded in the book one by one. After Cao Kun was elected president, Cao Yuanshen, a famous Suzhou doctor, was appointed as the official medical officer of the presidential palace.Cao Yuanshen served as a medical officer in the Taiyuan Hospital in the last years of Guangxu. According to him, a copy of the official meal list (including concubines and sub-official elder brothers and princesses) listed in the imperial dining room of upright officials was sent to the Taiyuan Hospital for inspection.This is handled in accordance with the old practice of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, because food generates and restrains each other, and there is a lot of avoidance. If there is something wrong, the Tai Hospital must raise it at any time and make corrections.At the same time, the imperial hospital understands the daily feeding situation of each palace, and when there is a big or small ailment, the imperial physicians can have a reference when they enter the palace to ask for pulse, so that it is convenient to prescribe medicine.

When Cao Yuanshen first arrived at the Imperial Hospital, his job was to review the meal list.He was on duty in the courtyard, and was bored in his free time. He occasionally browsed through the old files of the early Guo Dynasty. It is a specialty of the Northeast, and the regional color is quite obvious.When Emperor Qianlong made his tour of Beijing in the south, the tastes of the palace changed drastically. Shad, perch and abalone among fishes, and water chestnut and water chestnut among vegetables were recommended as delicacies.Daoguang was an unpretentious, unpretentious, law-abiding and pragmatic emperor of the Qing Dynasty. Whenever Tianzuo sacrifices were made in the suburbs, he always stayed alone in the fasting official, withdrew music and reduced meals, and ate no more than eight gui. Food should also be frugal.According to the legend in the palace, it is true that Daoguang eats "chicken soup and fruit" for breakfast every day.

A court lady who once served the Empress Dowager Cixi said that in her later years, Cixi was plump and vigorous, and as much as she wished, a dinner consisted of rare water and land items, as many as 128 items.For upright officials to eat, there are five generous ebony tables with lacquer and gold painting in a row. Each table is filled with cups, plates and bowls. There are always more than twenty kinds of tables. Muzong ascended the throne on the ninth day of October in the first year of Tongzhi, which coincided with Cixi's longevity.At that time, she was already the empress dowager who was the mother of the world and listened to politics behind the curtain.The author has seen the menu of the birthday banquet served in the Hall of Mental Cultivation in the past. The menu stated that the sea house was used to add a birthday banquet table, and the yellow meal list (that is, the yellow napkin tablecloth) was laid out. The second product of the big pot dish: pork Stir-fried spinach with shreds, game sauerkraut; four large bowls of dishes: red and white shredded duck with the word "Shou" in bird's nest, three delicacies fat chicken with "Nian" in bird's nest, eight immortals duck with "Ru" in bird's nest, assorted shredded chicken with "Yi" in bird's nest; Four dishes in a medium bowl: duck strips with bird’s nest, fresh shrimp balls, braised duck waist, braised sea cucumber; six dishes in a plate: stir-fried roasted shredded duck and chicken with bird’s nest, radish in sauce, fried wings with shredded pork, duck in sauce, fried rice stem with pickles, Scrambled eggs with shredded pork.Judging from this birthday banquet, in terms of the number of pieces, there are no more than sixteen items. Except for a little more bird's nest, all the dishes are kept spinning on the chicken and duck. It is only included in the dishes and stir-fried.From this point of view, the so-called Tianfu rich food and delicacies, in all fairness, is completely different from a table of abalone fins in some luxury restaurants in Taipei today, in terms of materials, fancy and delicate.

It is not known whether this birthday feast is a special addition to the daily dishes.As for the fact that there are as many as 128 bowls of dishes for one table, and the fact that five immortals tables are used for meals in Heng Zhu, it may be true. It is expected that most of the cooks in the imperial dining room who work in front of the imperial court do not seek meritorious service, but only seek no fault. All rules follow the old rules and abide by the past rules.In addition, the selection of materials is not wide, so it is natural that there will be no delicacies, and there will be no new dishes with five elements and seven fragrances.

Once upon a time, I heard from an old man who used to work in the imperial dining room that the kitchen in the inner court was originally called the imperial dining room, but it was renamed the longevity dining room after the 60th anniversary of Empress Dowager Cixi.All cups, plates, bowls, spoons, chopsticks, cups and plates, and table napkins and tables for eating and drinking are all re-burned and remade, and all of them are based on the word "shou". It is really beautiful with dragon patterns, phoenix colors, and flowers, and even the porcelain Ou Sassafras box and the golden door and red box are also painted with the pattern of five blessings holding longevity.Originally, you are the son of heaven, rich in the world, and what you hope is to live forever and enjoy life, so the word "shou" is used everywhere, which is auspicious and a sign of a good year.Just like this, I don't know how much state money was spent, and how many commissioners were made to do errands.

Since Qianlong ascended the throne in the Qing Dynasty, there were only custom-made meals for the court. The emperor’s meal was 108 ranks, the empress dowager was also 108 ranks, the queen was 96 ranks, the imperial concubine was 64 ranks, concubines and nobles, adult The elder brother and princess who are divided into officials also have a prescribed number of meals.As for the young princes Gege who have not been divided into palaces, they all eat with relatives, unless they are overqualified and invited to reward them, the imperial dining room does not pass the meal to the whole table. Xuantong entered the Datong at a young age. Although he did not have meals with his imperial mother, the Empress Dowager Longyu, it would be too wasteful to pass on the meals according to the ancestral system of 108 grades, so the power was reduced to 26 grades, and the The regular rewards for each meal of the Empress Dowager Shanglongyu and the four concubines are only forty or fifty items, which can be called a full list.It is said that Xuantong loved to eat the dishes rewarded by the two concubines Duankang and Jingyi the most since he was a child. The daily dishes in the imperial dining room are almost too lazy to move the chopsticks, so every time the meal is passed on, he always puts the additional dishes sent by the officials and puts them away. within arm's reach.

The Imperial Dining Room of the Inner Court is located in the South Third Office in Changxiang, Zunyimen, Danei. It is already far away from the Hall of Mental Cultivation where Xuantong ate, and even further away from the Yonghe Palace where Concubine Duankang lived.It is not too close to Chuxiu Palace of Concubine Jingyi, Yongshou Palace of Concubine Zhuanghe, and Changchun Palace of Concubine Ronghui. It's just lukewarm.Some people say that won't the imperial dining room be moved to a more moderate place?You must know that the defense of Ye Ting has always been extremely strict. Even if the house is cleared and abdicated, and the harem is occupied, the police are also strictly guarded. door step.Before passing on the meal, the imperial dining room prepared all the dishes and put them in a large clay pot with a cover that is not afraid of burning, put them on an extremely thick hot iron plate, and covered the same iron plate on top. The upper and lower sides are baked with charcoal fire, carried into the inner palace by the young eunuch on duty, the food is passed on, the iron plate is removed, and the dishes in the clay pot are poured into fine porcelain vessels. Although the dishes will not be too cold, they are delicious. How, then one can imagine.

When the Palace Museum was just opened for people to visit, the glass cabinet of Yongshou Palace displayed a lunch menu before Xuantong left the palace. Belly and lung, boiled cabbage with sliced ​​meat, braised mutton, stewed spinach and tofu with mutton, yam with cherry meat, stewed cabbage with roasted meat, boiled radish with sliced ​​mutton, fried sea cucumber with duck strips, diced duck with tofu skin, stewed kudzu rice, roasted cabbage , braised magnolia slices with sliced ​​meat, braised lumps with shredded mutton, fried spring rolls, fried shredded pork with chives, smoked elbow flower, small tripe, stewed fried tofu, boiled vegetables, fried shredded cabbage with pepper, shredded five-spice, sacrificial meat soup, boiled matcha Le, boil the white meat."

This menu, not to mention swallow’s fin net abalone, even fish, shrimp and seafood are not included in the dishes. Most people always think that court food must be delicacies mixed with extravagance and exaggeration. Judging from the above menu, it is not only crude and ordinary, but also out of style. In addition to more dishes, in terms of ingredients, it is even worse than Zhongshangjia's food! After Xuantong's wedding, the imperial dining room obeyed the ancestral system. Although he didn't dare to abolish it openly, he couldn't stand Wanrong and Concubine Shu's repeated instigation. First, he hired a partner at Dongxinglou, a famous Shandong restaurant in Beiping, prepared the dishes and sent them to the palace. Later, they changed to eat Western food from Xieyingfan Restaurant, and kept it until Xuantong became an official, and the Imperial Dining Room became a historical term.