No matter what era it is, you should have a delicious meal to reward yourself after the big test is over and the results are announced. This is more applicable to scholars who passed the imperial examinations and were about to enter the officialdom in ancient times. In , , scholars and officials were promoted to , and they would eat a kind of ", ". What kind of delicacy is it to match the excitement and festiveness of fish leaping on the dragon gate? Opening the Tang people's recipes recorded in historical books, there is a close connection between the dining table thousands of years ago and thousands of years later...
Tang Li Zhaodao (biography) Qujiang picture (partial). Source/Taipei Palace Museum
burning banquet: The last step of fish jumping over the dragon gate
burning trunk, one of the famous ancient banquets, is a celebration banquet used to worship the emperor or entertain relatives and friends. It first appeared during the Tang Taizong period. The origin of the name of "tail burning banquet" is in history. There are three statements in history. The first is that if a tiger wants to transform into a human, its tail cannot be melted, so it must be "burned" to help it succeed in practicing. The second is related to sheep herding skills. In order to make the new sheep fit, it is necessary to burn the sheep's tail; the third statement is more widely accepted, saying that when a fish leaps into a dragon's gate, it must be shaped by a thunder to make the fish's tail also turn into a dragon's tail, completing the last step of transforming into a dragon. Combining the three origins of
, the "tail-burning banquet" is more like a "team building of the king and his subjects" to celebrate the further development of the scholars' career, but the ministers pay for it. Even the "tail-burning banquet" held by the scholars after they passed the imperial examination was organized by the Jinshi, and the emperor and relatives and friends were invited to the banquet. This is different from another "Qujiang Banquet" that is also a new Jinshi. It is a banquet held by the emperor and invites these future court rookies. In addition to the scholars who passed the imperial examination, some officials will also prepare the next "tail-burning banquet" to present to the emperor after they are promoted. If you are promoted but are not prepared for a tail-cooking banquet, you will be ridiculed by your colleagues.
Some of the "burning tail banquet" dishes that people have restored today. Source/Oriental TV's "Cheating Group" clip
When the "tail-burning banquet" was the most popular, there was an official named Su Gui . After being promoted, he did not prepare a "tail-burning banquet" as usual, and was openly ridiculed by his colleague Zong Jinqing. The emperor at that time, , Tang Zhongzong , probably because he did not succeed in having a free meal, so he remained silent and deliberately watched Su Gui's jokes. But Su Gui has his own reason. He explained to the emperor very calmly: "As the prime minister of a country, my duty should be to govern the yin and yang and to govern the people well for Your Majesty. But now the economy is not good, and the food prices are soaring. Even the emperor's guards can't have enough food for three days. How can I be embarrassed to hold a 'tail-burning banquet'?"
Su Gui's words not only meant to help him, but also indirectly satirized the extravagance of the tail-burning banquet in the Tang Dynasty. Because they wanted to invite the emperor to dinner, the officials racked their brains and tried their best to try to keep the banquet in full pomp. On the dining table, Tang officials began to "return inward", and finally formed a "tail-burning banquet" menu that combines the essence of Tang Dynasty food culture. Dong Xuanzong During the Kaiyuan period, the tail-burning banquet caused very serious waste. This kind of banquet that represented the peak of diet in the Tang Dynasty was explicitly prohibited.
However, in just a few decades of existence, because it is dazzling enough, it has begun to fascinate countless future generations.
The palace banquet of the Tang Dynasty in film and television dramas. Source/Screenshot of TV series "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an"
Sauce Banquet Eating Guide: Not only " Cookies "
The real "sauce Banquet" is like?
There has never been a shortage of gourmets who love to eat and study food in our history. Thanks to the persistent records and research of these "foodies", a menu of "burning tail banquet" has gone through a long time and can still appear in front of us.
" Qingyilu " menu.Source/China National Library
Jinglong third year (709) In February, Empress Wei 's clan and minister Wei Juyuan was promoted. He rose from the third-rank Shizhong and the Zhongshuling to the next level, becoming the Zuo Pushe of Shangshu. Since the practice in the early Tang Dynasty was that , Shangshu Province, did not have a Shangshu Order, Wei Juyuan actually became the highest official of this huge administrative agency with six ministries. This is undoubtedly a very important promotion and is also a proof that Wei Juyuan has become the royal confidant. Therefore, Wei Juyuan prepared a high-standard "tail-burning banquet" according to convention to thank the Tang Zhongzong couple who promoted him (mainly Empress Wei) .
Empress Wei and Emperor Zhongzong of Tang in the film and television dramas. Source/Screenshot of TV series "Heroes of Sui and Tang Dynasties: Xue Gang's Rebellion against Tang Dynasty"
In order to ensure the smooth preparation of the banquet, Wei Juyuan's kitchen recorded a "food account", which included the names of various dishes and simple notes on cooking methods. Due to the Tang Dynasty literati's habit of recording daily trivial matters and strange rumors, at the end of the Tang Dynasty, this precious written record was copied into his "Qingyi Lu" by a man named Tao Gu. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, a literati named Tao Zongyi included this recipe in his own " Sayings ". After generations of diners, some of the "Burning Tail Banquet" dishes have been preserved to this day.
Even if it is just an incomplete menu, just looking at the dishes currently retained is enough to be dazzling. There are 58 dishes in this incomplete menu, and there are more than 20 kinds of dim sum alone. CCTV program "National Treasure Conference" compares the baked snacks in this "Take-Burning Banquet" menu to " cookies ", which is not unreasonable. This "First-burning Banquet" menu only leaves words, leaving no physical objects, but some Tang Dynasty funeral pastries that resemble "cookies" were indeed unearthed in the Tang tombs in Xinjiang. Not only does the materials use similar, but the shape is also correct. Through the testing of its ingredients, it can be proved that in the Tang Dynasty, people could make pastries with very fine flour.
Desserts unearthed from the Tang tomb in Xinjiang. Source/Screenshot of CCTV's "National Treasure Conference"
In the "Tail Banquet" menu, there are two types of baked snacks recorded. One is called "Mandala Cookies", which is not only a sandwich biscuit, but also a mandala capsule; the other is called "Golden Bell Roast", which requires butter to be added to the raw materials and then kneaded into the shape of a bell to bake, so that the color is golden. But Tangren is not satisfied with these small biscuits. In addition to roasting, there are various cooking methods such as steaming, frying, and cooking. There are also some considerations about the cooking temperature. For example, a dish of " Crystal Dragon and Phoenix Cake ", is a pastry with glutinous rice as the raw material and jujubes embedded inside. When steaming, make sure that the cake noodles crack and just expose the date filling. If there are few cracks, they will not be able to see the dates, and if there are too many cracks, they will not be able to break the shape. There is also a "jade dew ball", which requires soft and crispy milk puff, which tests the chef's skills. But compared with the "sushi sound part", these are still nothing.
Vegetarian steamed sound part is the most exquisite work of art on this menu. It is a large-scale craft food made of surface molding . It creates a large court dance band composed of 70 people, including various musicians, as well as Kabuki that sings and dances. Although this dish is mostly for viewing and does not need to pursue taste and taste, just imagining 70 characters with different shapes and occupations can make many people lose their word. The chefs of the Tang Dynasty not only completed the picture design, but also expressed them one by one with dough sculpture. The originally bulky dough has become a variety of living beings in the hands of chefs of the Tang Dynasty, and can even fly in the clouds and mist, as light as a fairy in Penglai.
Tang Dynasty music and dance figurines. Source/Luoyang Museum
External tail-cooking banquet: The wisdom of the Tang people "eat"
In fact, the ingenuity that the Tang people gathered in food production was far more than the dozens of dishes in the "cooking banquet".They are scattered in every corner recorded by the Tang people, attracting the taste buds of generations of diners.
is the color first. In order to pursue a richer color of dessert, the Tang people began to use some ingredients as pigments to add them to the food. For example, the "Locky Lotus Leaves" recorded by Zeng Ling Du Fu , which specializes in writing poetry, is a kind of cold noodles that uses locust leaves as dyeing material. The cool surface dyed by locust leaves is green in color, which makes it more visually cool and also stimulates the taste buds of diners during the heat of summer. In addition to locust leaves, chamomile is also a common dyed ingredient.
followed by fragrance. The diet in the Tang Dynasty was greatly influenced by nomadic minorities, and the proportion of beef and mutton increased. However, it was not easy to make the people of the Central Plains accept the smell of mutton. So the chefs of the Tang Dynasty began to season the mutton with seasonings such as chili peppers, fermented black beans and to minimize the mutton's smell. " Tang Yulin " records this kind of mutton cake seasoned with pepper and soybean. Facts have proved that the efforts of chefs in the Tang Dynasty were very effective. This kind of mutton-filled Hu cake was not only not rejected because of the fishy smell, but was quite popular among wealthy families in the Tang Dynasty.
Tang Dynasty Hu Bing in movies and TV series. Source/Screenshot of TV series "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an"
Finally it is flavor. In order to make the taste of the snack richer, Tangren chose to add a variety of fillings to the pastry. In the "Censorate Records" written by Han Wan in the Tang Dynasty, there is a fun story about the Censor Hou Sizhi: As we all know, the pasta sold on the market must be less than , succulent . But this Yushi Hou didn't believe in this evil. Every time he went out to buy pie , he would ask the store to add less onion (shrink onion) and add more meat, trying to "rectify the food market" with his own strength. So his colleagues gave him a nickname - "Civil Censor" very "unethical".
Each has its own pursuit of color, fragrance and taste, and its recipes and styles have their own characteristics. Pasta in the Tang Dynasty was already very developed. According to the difference in pastries, the pasta shops in the Tang Dynasty were divided into Hu cake shops, steamed shops, and cage cake shops. Steamed shops were not the same as baking shops, and cakes and cakes were also sold separately. Each type of shop had its own specialties and was a unique style, but it was dazzling, not only limited to one path. Therefore, the Wei family’s “tail-burning banquet” was indeed just the tip of the iceberg of the prosperous food culture in the Tang Dynasty. In this corner of glory, it is a prosperous Tang Dynasty that integrates all directions and blooms with flowers.
References:
[1] Shi Yuemei. Examination and interpretation of the Tang Dynasty's tail-burning banquet[J]. Journal of Xingtai College, 2018, 33(03):133-134+140.
[2] Liu Dongmei, Wang Yongping . Looking at the development level of diet in the Tang Dynasty from the "stopping tail banquet" [C]//. Research on food culture (Issue 1, 2004)., 2004:26-34.
[3] Wang Liqin , Song Jirong, Dang Gaozhao, Jia Maiming. Preliminary study of pastries unearthed from Tang Tombs in Xinjiang [J]. Journal of , Northwest University (Natural Science Edition), 2000(05):453-454+457.DOI:10.16152 /j.cnki.xdxbzr.2000.05.026.
[4]Wang Liqin, Song Jirong, Dang Gao Cang, Jia Maiming. A preliminary study on pastries unearthed from Tang Tombs in Xinjiang [J]. Journal of Northwest University (Natural Science Edition), 2000(05):453-454+457.DOI:10.16152/j.cnki.xdxbzr.2000.05.026.
[5]Peng Jiaqi. Research on pastry in the Tang and Song Dynasties [D]. Yunnan Normal University , 2021.DOI: 10.27459/d.cnki.gynfc.2021.000759.
Source: National Humanities and History
Author: Xiaoxiang Water Cold
Editor: Deng Ruomeng
[Statement: This account is the official public welfare account of "National Reading Promotion". This article is reproduced for the purpose of conveying more information. If there is any source marking error or suspected of infringing on your legitimate rights and interests, please contact us. We will correct and delete it in time, thank you. 】
