In the past few days, I have been reading a book "Collections from the Qing Palace - A Profile of the Life of the Emperors of the Qing Dynasty". This book was published five years ago. It contains 112 Qing Dynasty cultural relics from the Beijing Art Museum. They are all full-col

Original: Jin Zui

[Beiyang Tales] is Mozhou's historical non-fiction column

Lao Jin tells real stories about modern China, or interesting topics

to achieve the purpose of entertainment and insight

Hello everyone, I am Jin drunk.

I have been reading a book these days, "Collections from the Qing Palace - An Exhibition of Profiles in the Life of the Emperors of the Qing Dynasty". This book was published five years ago. It contains 112 Qing Dynasty cultural relics from the Beijing Art Museum. They are all full-color pictures and exquisitely printed.

was flipping through the book and discovered a very interesting thing: the emperors of the Qing Dynasty were really thinner than the others. The founding generations of monarchs still retained some of the rugged style of the horse people, but by the end of the Qing Dynasty, those few had become weak scholars.

The top row is a collection of portraits of the five emperors of the late Qing Dynasty. From left to right, they are Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi, Guangxu, Puyi. They are all very thin and do not look like foodies at all. Compared with the four emperors Shenzong, Guangzong, Xizong, and Sizong in the late Ming Dynasty below, the difference in body shape is too obvious.

Wanted to find out the reason, and looked for some books such as memoirs of the Qing Dynasty.

After reading it, I found that it makes sense for the emperor in the late Qing Dynasty to be thin - the food was not good. People generally think that being an emperor does not mean eating delicacies from the mountains and seas every day. You can eat whatever you want.

In fact, it was just the opposite. The emperor in the late Qing Dynasty did not even have enough to eat when he was a child, and he was often hungry. The source is the Qing Dynasty's bizarre royal parenting philosophy: "If you want your children to be safe, you must be hungry and cold."

According to the rules of the palace, the emperor had a total of 48 dishes including vegetables and staple food for each meal, which was called a full portion. Tongzhi ascended the throne at the age of 6 and ate full portions of vegetables at every meal. But when the food was served, he was not allowed to see it and a eunuch was found to eat it for him.

The little emperors were so helpless that they ran to the eunuch's room to rummage through things. He found something, ran wildly with it, and chased a few eunuchs to snatch the food from their mouths.

This is a photo taken in Prince Chun's Mansion when Puyi was three years old.

In this year, Puyi was carried into the palace from the palace of Prince Chun, and became the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty in ignorance.

The last emperor Puyi had a tragic memory.

When he was 6 years old, he once ate too many chestnuts and was so full that the Queen Mother Longyu only allowed him to drink rice porridge. I drank for more than a month and complained that I was hungry every day, but no one cared about me. One day while traveling to Zhongnanhai, the Queen Mother asked someone to bring him a dry steamed bun to feed the fish.

Because he was very hungry, Puyi subconsciously stuffed the steamed buns into his mouth.

When Longyu saw it, he didn't reflect on why he starved his children like this, and even controlled them more strictly.

One day later, Puyi saw the procession of tributes from various princes to the Queen Mother parked on West Chang'an Street. He immediately ran over and opened a food box, which was full of sauced elbows. He grabbed one and bit it. The accompanying eunuch couldn't help but rush to grab it.

Puyi resisted with all his strength. The child was small, not full, and had little strength. The eunuch snatched away the elbow that reached his mouth.

In his autobiography "The First Half of My Life", Puyi mentioned the stolen elbow with a melancholy tone, "It smells so good."

When Puyi grew up and could eat many dishes at each meal, he found that the emperor's professional meal was just one word - unpalatable.

The royal cuisine in the palace has not changed for hundreds of years, from the raw materials, recipes, seasonings to cooking techniques. A dish of roasted duck in a bird's nest pot tasted the same to his great-grandfather Daoguang Emperor.

This is a consistent rule in the palace. No matter when and where, the taste of all the dishes eaten by the emperor must not change.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs will also send out written inspections, and every process in the Royal Kitchenroom must be registered during the handover. When the emperor eats the food, whether it is a reward or a punishment, one will know who is responsible for it.

In this way, the imperial dining room is not allowed to innovate, and it does not dare to innovate. It just wants to avoid making mistakes and does not care about the improvement of the dishes.

The imperial meal was unpalatable, and it was also because the process of passing it on was too long. It took a long time to prepare it and place it in front of the emperor. Except for the hot pot in winter, most of the dishes have been cooked for a long time and are lukewarm, lacking the heat.

For Chinese dishes, it particularly affects the taste.Cantonese stir-fry is very particular about the "huò" gas, which uses strong fire and high temperature to quickly ripen the ingredients, so the serving speed is not slow at all.

The "wok gas" that is very particular about Cantonese cuisine is the "pot gas" mentioned in the movie "One Step Away". There is a "wok gas" in cooking. The kitchen must ensure that the ingredients are fresh, the chef has good knife skills, and the ingredients are cut into neat and appropriate sizes and thicknesses, so that they can be stir-fried quickly over high heat and stir-fried until fragrant. The chef also needs to be skilled and can move quickly from cutting the ingredients to putting them on the plate. Restaurant management also needs to be good, and food must be served quickly.

The imperial cuisine in the palace is not good. The dishes are prepared in the "outer imperial dining room" outside Jingyun Gate, put into boxes, and then sent to the "inner imperial dining room" next to the Yangxin Hall.

In the dining room, there are several charcoal boxes with an iron plate inside. When the dishes are delivered, they are placed on the iron plate and grilled over charcoal fire.

After the order of "pass the meal", the royal meal, which had been baked for a long time, was put into a red lacquer box, held by the eunuchs, and delivered to the dining place designated by the emperor.

In winter, the lacquer box would be wrapped in a yellow cloud satin cotton bag (commonly known as a quilt in the palace) when the meal was passed around. The tableware was also changed from porcelain to silverware, and after serving, it was held in a porcelain jar filled with hot water.

In the winter in Beijing, it is minus ten or twenty degrees Celsius. What role can a quilt and a hot water tank play?

The outer imperial dining room is outside Jingyun Gate, that is, to the east of Qianqing Gate Square. Jingyun Gate is an important forbidden gate leading to the inner court, and officials are strictly prohibited from entering without permission.

The inner dining room is next to the Yangxin Hall and is entirely in charge of the eunuchs. The two dining rooms are 500 meters away.

Therefore, what is eaten in the imperial meal is not the taste, but another two words - ostentation.

"Eat once, look twice, and then look three times." This is a saying circulated in the palace to describe the many dishes on the imperial meal. Putting out dozens of dishes for a meal is just a window-dressing to show the royal dignity and style, but in fact it is extravagance and waste.

After the Qing Dynasty fell and Puyi abdicated, he enjoyed preferential treatment from the National Government. A meal still included sixty or seventy dishes. But in his opinion, the imperial meal is "showy, expensive but not beneficial, nutritious but not nutritious, bland and tasteless", and it is not worth using chopsticks at all.

What does Puyi eat for every meal? Dishes sent by Queen Mother Longyu .

Empress Dowager Longyu had her own small kitchen, which she inherited from her aunt Cixi .

Longyu is Cixi's niece, also named Yehenala. This is a photo of Longyu when she was middle-aged. She was surrounded by a group of eunuchs.

She was not good-looking, and Guangxu didn't like her either. It was under pressure from Cixi that he chose her to be the queen.

In the Qing Palace, the cook for the Queen Mother was called Shou Shanfang, and the quality was not very good.

When Cixi was still alive, the eunuch chief Li Lianying opened two game kitchens to improve her food, and hired famous chefs from outside the palace to cook the dishes. Cixi did not eat alone. At each meal, she would give the emperor a few dishes from the game kitchen to try.

Several generations of emperors relied on the food sent by the Queen Mother to satisfy their hunger.

When eating these dishes, the emperor must abide by the rules and not be gluttonous for the sake of preserving his "dragon body". It is said that in the palace, a dish should be served in no more than three bites.

Eunuchs must be smart and know how to look when serving the emperor. When the emperor looked at a dish, he would move the dish in front of him, and then use a spoon to scoop it into the cloth dish. If the emperor thinks it tastes good, he scoops it out again and then removes the food immediately.

This was done to prevent the emperor from eating too much and causing physical problems, and also to prevent people from finding out about the emperor's dietary preferences and poisoning him.

In the late Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi had to eat hundreds of dishes when she had a large meal. Just like this film and television still, there is a lot of things in front of you.

The grandeur of the imperial meal can also be seen from the number of ingredients used by the Qing palace every day.

Puyi once calculated an account. As a 5-year-old child, according to the palace's regulations, the meat he used every day was: 22 kilograms of plate meat (big elbow), 5 kilograms of soup meat, 1 kilogram of lard, and 2 fat chickens. Only 3 fat ducks and 3 green chickens.

Taking the example of Empress Dowager Longyu and the four concubines Jin, Yu, Xun and Jin, a total of nearly 4,000 kilograms of meat and 400 chickens and ducks were used in a month.

Every day, the queen mother and concubine have to add more dishes to their small kitchens. Everyone in the palace also had to eat. They spent nearly 11,600 taels of silver on meat, fish, eggs and other vegetables in one moonlight.

In his autobiography "The First Half of My Life", Puyi made a statistical table of the monthly meat consumption of Queen Mother Longyu and the four concubines. Five people use 3,150 kilograms of meat a month, including 74 chickens and 74 ducks each. Puyi himself used 840 kilograms of meat and 240 chickens and ducks in a month.

This does not include the 8 plates of cakes (i.e. snacks) that the emperor ate on demand before and after breakfast and dinner. To make each plate of pastry, you need 4 pounds of fine white flour, 1 pound of sesame oil, and a lot of sesame seeds, Chengsha, white sugar, walnut kernels and black dates.

The emperor also drank tea and milk every day.

The imperial tea room had to prepare 75 bags of tea (2 taels per bag) and 100 kilograms of milk for him every day. The water used to make tea for the emperor was specially transported from the Yuquan Mountain in Beijing outside Beijing, with 12 cans per day.

The emperor only drank water from Yuquan Mountain. This was a rule set by Qianlong. According to Puyi's younger brother Pujie, the water trucks in the imperial palace in the late Qing Dynasty were passed down from generation to generation. A yellow dragon flag was hung on the car, and four large buckets covered with dragon-embroidered tarpaulins were brought into the palace every day. When the waterwheel enters and exits the city from Xizhimen , the city gate must be opened and closed for it.

During the Republic of China, the water tankers of the Xizhimen Palace came in and out of Xizhimen every day. During the civil war in the early Republic of China, the city gates were strictly closed. No one was allowed to enter or leave except military personnel and foreigners. However, this water tanker with a yellow flag still passed unimpeded. It was ridiculed as a "foreign waterwheel." The picture shows a photo of Xizhimen in the Republic of China.

A lot of fruits are also used in the palace, which may not be eaten in the stomach.

Like the Empress Dowager Cixi, she likes to use fruits as incense. In the Chuxiu Palace where she sleeps, there are five or six large vats. On every second and sixteenth day of the Lunar New Year, the palace ladies are asked to replace the old fruits in the vats with fresh southern fruits, such as bergamot, citron, papaya, etc. .

"changes the tank" twice a month, and the sweet fruity fragrance can be smelled in Chuxiu Palace all year round.

The plate in the picture is the bergamot and citron used by the Empress Dowager Cixi to diffuse incense. Both are produced in southern China provinces, such as Taiwan, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan.

Both bergamot and citron have thick flesh and strong aroma.

The imperial dining room was a bug in the Qing court: a lot of money was spent, the quality was not good enough, and it was difficult to satisfy the royal family.

It was not until the 13th year of the Republic of China (1924), the year before the deposed emperor Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City, that the imperial dining room was abolished. With the withdrawal of

, tens of thousands of people were left without food.

refers not only to the fired imperial kitchen cooks and their wives and children, but also to a large group of civilians outside the palace who are waiting to eat the "leftovers".

Think about it. To make an imperial meal, only the best parts of so many ingredients were used to make dozens of dishes. The emperor only touched a few of them and took a few bites. There can’t be much left! How to deal with

? The practice of longevity dining room is mentioned in "The Eunuch's Talks".

After the Empress Dowager Cixi finished her meal, in addition to giving "restricted food" to the emperors, concubines, princes, and various people, the remaining dishes were taken back to the dining room and shared among the dining room leaders and the kitchen servants below.

The last leftover soup and rice are mixed together and sold to vendors outside Shenwumen, Donghuamen and Xihuamen who specialize in folding baskets. The hawkers take the food home, prepare it and cook it, and give it to ten big men on the street to feed the poor.

When cooking in the palace every day, there will be a lot of leftovers, such as chicken heads, fish tails, and brains. It will be sold to the Ershipu restaurant outside the palace at half the market price.

In addition to leftovers, there are also some dishes that flowed from the Qing palace to the people. For example, the representative of Beijing's civilian snacks, Braised and Huoshao, is a simplified version of the imperial dish's "Su Zao Pork".

"Su Zao" was actually originally "Su Zao". It is said that when Qianlong went to the south of the Yangtze River, he tasted the craftsmanship of a chef from Suzhou and was very satisfied with it, so he took the chef back to the Forbidden City in the Forbidden City and set up a "Su Zao Bureau" in the imperial kitchen.

"Su Zaoju" has a secret to cooking. It selects traditional Chinese medicinal materials such as cloves, cinnamon, licorice, and fruits according to the seasonal solar terms, puts them in gauze packets, and decocts the soup for seasoning.

Later, this secret spread to the Forbidden City, and the breakfast shop outside Donghua Gate also started selling "Nanfu Suzao Meat".In a large iron pot, there were rectangular slices of pork ribs more than two inches wide, cooked in thick soup until crispy.

During the Guangxu period, people were poor and could not afford pork ribs, so they ate cheap pig head meat and even cheaper pig offal.

Small intestines, pig lungs and other leftovers not used in the palace are boiled and seasoned with various medicinal materials to make a "braised small intestine". Fire-roasted and fried tofu are added to it, which is rich in oil and has a rich meat flavor.

During the Republic of China, the people at the bottom who drove foreign carts and worked as coolies loved this food. They had soup and vegetables to satisfy their cravings and not only keep them hungry.

This is an old Beijing folk painting "Selling Braised Sauce and Boiling on Fire", which is the work of modern painter Makino. There were not many diners at this stall selling braised pork, and the boss was cooking it on the table.

Pig urine is dirty, especially in the small intestine. To get rid of the fishy smell in the small intestine, you have to turn the casing over, remove the intestinal oil, and rub it repeatedly with salt and alkali.

You have to eat braised food while it's hot. It's best to serve it from a boiling pot and finish it in a few big mouthfuls. Once cold, the braised soup becomes lukewarm and greasy, and the low-quality meat in the bowl condenses into lumps.

This snack was served on the dining table of Queen Mother Longyu. According to the imperial banquet tradition, a plate of braised tofu was already cold when it was placed in front of the Queen Mother, and moving her chopsticks would probably make her nauseous.

This meal list copied by Puyi is the breakfast menu of Empress Dowager Longyu on a certain day. There are more than twenty dishes in total, and "braised tofu" is in the second to last row.

There is also a special Beijing snack made from sheep offal, which was definitely not eaten in the Qing palace, called water-exploded sheep tripe.

Baoduer pays special attention to the serving method, and it has to be served one plate at a time. There is only half a small bowl, about two taels, in the pot at a time. After it comes out of the pot, the fried belly is crispy and tender, and will return to life when it cools down a little. After a long time, it will become hard to chew.

If the emperor wanted to eat so much in the Qing palace, he would probably kill the cook who was in charge of the spoon.

There is also a sequence for eating. First, order the thickest tripe. After finishing one plate, you will then have tripe mushrooms and louvers. Finally, you will have a plate of white, thick and soft tripe kernels, dipped in a mixture of sesame sauce, soy sauce, spicy oil, coriander and chopped green onion. ,fragrant.

On the left is Pandu Ban'er, and on the right is Pandu Ren'er. One is black and the other is white. There is a big difference.

The most famous Baoduer restaurants in Beijing are in Dong'an Market. One is called "Baoduer Wang" and the other is called "Baoduer Feng". Small fried belly stalls are popping up all over the city and are very popular with the general public.

Don’t think that old Beijing’s favorite food is not available on the table. There are still several imperial dishes in the palace that were introduced from the private sector. The one with the most unique flavor is Douzhier .

Bean juice with burnt rings and a bowl of spicy shredded vegetables is the most authentic way to eat in old Beijing. The bean juice at Huguo Temple and "Ciqikou Bean Juice Shop" tastes very good.

I am not from Beijing, so I am not used to drinking bean juice.

Liang Shiqiu, a gourmet of the Republic of China who wrote a lot of "Yashe Talks about Eating", said that the beauty of bean juice lies in its sourness, and the sourness has a strange smell of rancidity.

In the 18th year of Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1753), a powder shop in Beijing saw that the pulp water in the vat had been left for a day, and it developed a sour smell. After being cooked, it had a unique taste. As soon as it is sold outside, more and more people drink.

Emperor Qianlong saw that this fresh snack was popular in Beijing, so he recruited two or three bean paste craftsmen and assigned them to the imperial dining room as servants.

Even after entering the palace, Douzhier still maintained a low price, and even poor civilians could afford to drink it.

Every August, Douzhier pickers start selling cooked bean juice, also called "douzhier porridge" in Beijing.

This is a folk painting created by Beijing-style painter Yang Xin. It has a bean juice picker. The pot on the left is still steaming. The case on the right is surrounded by children drinking bean juice.

It is the same as the folk painting above, the bean juice picker. One end is a large stove pot, which is used to simmer bean juice to keep it warm. The other end is a wooden table used as a cooking table, with bowls, chopstick tubes, and shredded pickles stacked on it.

There were several small benches placed under the wooden table. The diners sat around, sipping hot bean juice and picking up spicy pickles with chopsticks. It was so hot and spicy that they made them sweat profusely.

The upper-class people in the prince's palace would not come to such a stall. If they wanted to drink soybean juice, they would send a servant or an old woman to buy a pot back, reheat it and drink it.When buying, don’t forget to ask for a plate of spicy pickles.

It is said that the Empress Dowager Cixi was also good at this drink and often drank it in the palace. She also likes to ask the imperial dining room to prepare a special kind of steamed bun.

This kind of coarse food was eaten by Cixi by chance on the way to escape.

In the Gengzi Year (1900), the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing. Empress Dowager Cixi put on folk costumes and fled in a hurry with Guangxu and his entourage. She only took some scattered silver with her when leaving the palace. Unexpectedly, there was chaos all the way. Even if you had money, you couldn't buy food, and sometimes you couldn't even drink water.

Among the accompanying attendants, someone presented Cixi with a cornmeal steamed bun. When she was hungry, rough food like steamed buns would become fragrant and sweet in the Queen Mother's mouth.

After returning to the palace, Cixi asked for food. The imperial dining room mixes finely ground cornmeal with soybean flour, white sugar and sugared osmanthus to make sweet and soft steamed buns.

The picture shows the palace dim sum sold at Fangshan Restaurant in Beihai Park. The left side is small steamed buns and the right side is pea yellow. They are both yellow and very royal.

After entering the palace, snacks made of rough food and fine food were also included, including a dish of pea yellow.

Folk street vendors sell thick pea yellow. When cooking, don't peel the peas, just take the bean paste with the skins on. After steaming it in a big iron pot, flip it over and put it on a wooden board, cover it with a piece of white gauze, push it on the cart and sell it.

can be sold and cut at any time. Three or four copper coins can be bought together. Most working people like to buy them for breakfast.

entered the palace, and the production process of pea yellow became more refined. Choose good white peas, peel them and boil them until they are mashed, then sift them through large and small radishes a dozen times so that the filtered bean paste does not contain any residue. Then use fresh osmanthus and honey to bring out the sweetness, and after freezing, it will be as smooth and smooth as golden satin.

In terms of complex processes and exquisite production, folk snacks often cannot keep up with the imperial cuisine. If we just talk about the taste, the same dish cooked in the palace may not be the best.

Take Beijing's popular delicacy roasted mutton as an example. It is often on the imperial menu and the Empress Dowager Cixi also loves it.

loved it so much that he gave four waist tags to Yueshengzhai, a time-honored brand that specializes in making soy beef and mutton in Beijing, so that the store staff could send special roasted mutton to the palace.

In the old store of Yueshengzhai, there is a plaque like this: "The first-class gifts used by the emperors of the former Qing Dynasty, and the travel boxes from other provinces, are praised by customers from all walks of life, and are famous all over the world."

Yueshengzhai

Yueshengzhai, whose full name is Yueshengzhai Majia Old Shop, opened in the 40th year of Qianlong’s reign (1775). It is located on the west side of Qianmen Street. It is a famous time-honored brand for beef and mutton in Beijing. Yang Jingting, a poet of the Qing Dynasty, once wrote a poem in "Miscellaneous Odes of Dumen": "Feed the sheep to be fat and tender for several days in Beijing, and cook the sauce with clear soup color. It will be burnt and rotten at noon, and I will be happy without the smell of mutton and greasy throat." Praise for Yueshengzhai’s roasted mutton.

If you don’t have money but still want to eat roasted mutton, go to Bai Kui, a famous century-old restaurant in Longfu Temple.

Bai Kui is the name of a person who opened this halal restaurant during the Qianlong period. The original name of the store was "Dong Guang Shun", but it changed owners several times. The method of cooking roast mutton has never changed, so the store name has always been called "Bai Kui", which is louder than the sign.

In the Republic of China, Bai Kui's shop was still very small. It could only accommodate seven or eight rough wooden tables with long benches in front of the tables, which was not considered high-end.

Roast mutton is also not expensive. If you buy the meat or offal for more than ten copper coins, it comes with a small bowl of hot old stock soup.

A regular customer bought roast mutton and took the bowl to Zaowen next door.

Zao is pronounced as "suffering", and it is also a famous century-old store. The original name was "Longshenghao". Because the business was booming and the stove was always hot, it was nicknamed "Zaowen".

The boss of Zaowen is good at making noodles, and his specialty is stretching out a bowl of thin noodles.

When I entered the store, I asked for a bowl of noodles, topped with Baikui's old soup, and the simmering roast mutton. I could eat it in my stomach in just a few bites while it was hot, and it had a rich aftertaste.

This old photo from the Republic of China shows a noodle maker. The conditions of Zaowen are probably similar to this one, it's just a low-end restaurant.

People who eat at these two restaurants include urban poor people who pull carts and work as coolies, as well as educated people who sell pens.Zhao Heng, who wrote "Lao Tao Man Bi", said that Zao Wen was recommended to him by Chen Mengjia, a new poet of the Republic of China.

It is also a dish of roasted mutton. It is a privilege to eat it when you are sent to the palace, but it is a warm and human touch when you come to Baikui. It doesn't cost much to keep your belly full, which is both enjoyment and a gift for the poor at the bottom.

In Dong'an Market, a place for eating, drinking and having fun in Beijing during the Republic of China, there was a large restaurant that was as humane as small restaurants like Baikui and Zaowen.

This is the Dong'an Market during the Republic of China.

Dongan Market is the earliest shopping mall in China, filled with restaurants and food stores of various grades. "Beijing One Hundred and Two Bamboo Branches" wrote: "The newly opened markets are wide, and it is not difficult to buy whatever you want. If you want to talk about prosperity first, please go to Dong'an in the city."

This big restaurant has a very famous name, saying Everyone knows - Donglaishun .

Donglaishun Restaurant is located at the north gate of Dong'an Market. The shopkeeper is named Ding Deshan . He came from a miserable background in Beijing when he fled the famine.

When the Dong'an market was opened in the 29th year of Guangxu's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1903), shopkeeper Ding set up a stall at the north gate, selling some halal snacks, bean juice and grilled cakes. Three years later, the stall was replaced by a wooden shed and listed as "Donglaishun Porridge Shop".

When business was getting better and better, the Beiyang Army mutiny happened in the second year of the Republic of China (1913), and the Dong'an market was completely burned down.

In the second year, shopkeeper Ding built several tile-roofed houses on the same site, reopened the business, changed its name to "Donglaishun Mutton Restaurant", and started a mutton-shabu-shabu business. The restaurant has become a well-known restaurant because of its fine selection of meat, fine knife skills, excellent seasonings, and exquisite tableware.

"Dong Laishun Shabu-Shabu Mutton - Authentic"

This folk painting is titled "Dong Laishun Shabu-Shabu Mutton - Authentic" and is the work of the modern painter Makino. Donglaishun's mutton comes from big-tailed sheep in Inner Mongolia, and only uses castrated rams that are two to three years old or ewes that have only given birth to one litter to ensure that the meat is tender and not "woody". The knife is fine, and the meat slices are as thin as paper, as pulpy as a spoon, as neat as lines, and as beautiful as flowers, so it tastes authentic.

"The poor will lose some money, and the rich will make up for it." Shopkeeper Ding never forgot his roots when he got rich. He set up a low-end "big bench" in Donglaishun, selling a variety of low-priced and generous portions of common people's food. Like dumplings, tortillas and the like.

Those who drive foreign trucks and set up stalls all fall in love with the "big bench". Students with no money can also get meals here, and the price is cheaper than eating at school.

"Big Bench" has a booming business every day. The restaurant can accommodate hundreds of people eating at the same time and is often full. The lively and popular place here can never be felt when dining in the Qing Palace.

Royal members eat at separate tables. Most of the time, each "master" eats alone.

Puyi's younger brother Pujie recalled that when he and his two younger sisters were at Prince Chun's Mansion, he and his two younger sisters had dinner with his grandmother. They opened three small tables in the grandmother's house, and each had their own food. Every time there was some delicious food on the grandmother's table and she wanted to share it with her grandchildren, the accompanying eunuch would go to three tables and ask a child to eat some.

In the palace, the emperor and the queen mother rewarded their ministers with sitting at the same table. It was a great honor for the person receiving the reward. If they were not asked to sit down, they had to stand and eat with them. You must also abide by a lot of strict rules, in line with the dining etiquette in the "Book of Rites":

Do not break the rice, do not put the rice, do not let it drain, do not eat it, do not chew bones, do not eat fish, do not throw it to dogs bone. Don't hold on to your gains, don't give away your rice. Do not eat rice with chopsticks. No chewing the soup, no fluffing the soup, no thorns, no grinding...

That is to say, when eating, you cannot stuff your mouth with big mouthfuls, pick up the food and cannot put it back into the bowl, you cannot gobble it up, or eat too fast or too hard. You cannot squeak, make noises while eating, chew bones, turn fish over, etc. In short, don't let people eat at will.

So when Puyi met Zhang Ting, the "king of companions" who did not observe table etiquette, he liked him very much and loved to have meals with him.

That was after February 1925. Puyi moved from Beijing to Tianjin and lived in the "Pingyuan Building" in Zhangyuan Building in the Japanese Concession.

This is a photo taken when Puyi lived in Zhangyuan.

This is a photo taken when Puyi lived in Zhangyuan. The child standing next to him is called Zhang Xueyi, who is nicknamed the "King of Accompanying Drivers". Zhang Xueyi's father, Zhang Biao, , served as the governor of Hubei Province and the commander of the Eighth Army Town in the late Qing Dynasty. He was an old man from the former Qing Dynasty and was very loyal to Puyi. Later, Zhang Xueyi followed Puyi to the Northeast and was renamed Zhang Ting by Puyi.

Zhang Ting is the son of the owner of Zhang Garden. He is still a child and does not know the rules very well.

was left to eat by Pu Yi. After the table was served, he just wolfed down the delicious food. The attendants on the side waved and winked at him several times, but pretended not to see him.

Puyi not only did not blame him, but also told him which dishes were delicious and asked him to eat more. When the mood comes, I will tease the child, take away the good food, and wait for him to get anxious before having someone bring it again.

Come to think of it, there weren't many people dining with the emperor in the first place. Even if they eat with them, they are all a group of courtiers who know etiquette and observe propriety. How can they really chew as much as this child does.

References:

"The First Half of My Life", Puyi, Beijing Oriental Publishing House

"The Past of the Palace Maid", Jin Yi, Shen Yiling, Forbidden City Publishing House

"The Past of the Eunuch", Xin Xiuming et al., Forbidden City Press

"Insights of Palace Life in the Late Qing Dynasty", Literary and Historical Information Publishing House

"Old Taoist Comics: Memories of Food Drinking in the Past Fifty Years", Zhao Heng, Sanlian Bookstore

"Memories of Food and Drinking", Jin Yunzhen, Bowen Publishing House

"Taste of Beijing" 》, Cui Daiyuan, Sanlian Bookstore

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