Shanghai cuisine, also referred to as Shanghai cuisine for short, developed with the evolution of Shanghai as well as its art. After the Opium War, the "treaty of nanking" made Shanghai one of the five trading ports. A large number of western economies and cultures were imported, and merchants and scholars from all over the world gathered together, which impacted Shanghai's market and culture. The catering industry in Shanghai, accompanied by its culture and art, has also undergone rapid changes. This culture and art, which has surpassed the original category, developed in Shanghai, bears the imprint of Shanghai and the times, and was bred, grown and spread in Shanghai, is collectively called "Shanghai School". It is under such conditions that Shanghai cuisine stands out from the major cuisines in China. It includes not only local dishes that have been learned from others, but also all kinds of local dishes that have been reformed according to Shanghai's dietary customs on the basis of maintaining their original characteristics.

1, the rise of local dishes in Shanghai

The development of Shanghai cuisine begins with local cuisine. According to historical records, wine restaurants appeared in Shanghai as early as the end of the Southern Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty. By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Shanghai restaurants had been very rich in banquet dishes except snacks and light meals. 1 843 After Shanghai was forced to open to the outside world, the invasion of foreign capitalism also stimulated the development of national industry and commerce in Shanghai, and the catering industry in Shanghai flourished rapidly. There are groups of shops in the streets and alleys of the city. According to 1 876' s Miscellaneous Notes on Shanghai Tour, there were as many as 100 Shanghai restaurants from Xiaodongmen to Nanjing Road at that time. At that time, there were three different types of Shanghai restaurants: first, many small and medium-sized restaurants operated economical and convenient dishes and meals, and at the same time they also engaged in a small number of stir-fried dishes. For example, Shanghai's famous popular dishes in the early days include fried pork louvers, bacon tofu, shredded pork and soybean soup, grass carp vermicelli, eight-treasure hot sauce, fried three delicacies, family photos and so on. There is also a "guest meal" (a dish, a soup and a bowl of rice), which has many eaters. The second type is some large and medium-sized restaurants, mainly engaged in cooking and "harmony dishes". Harmony cuisine is the first in Shanghai restaurant. It is a combination of cold dishes, hot dishes, big dishes and soup. It has many varieties and is more affordable. It was very popular at that time. The price of Hecai is high or low, the highest is Yinyang 1 O Yuan Hecai, which has eight big dishes, eight small bowls, sixteen dishes, four hot meats and four snacks. There are ribs, bird's nest, hanging duck, mandarin fish and so on. There are also those from 8 yuan, 6 yuan, 4 yuan and 2 yuan, and customers can choose at will. The third is some famous restaurants, mainly engaged in banquets and high-grade famous dishes. This kind of restaurant is large in scale, well-equipped and elegant, such as Qinhe Restaurant, Hongyun Building (pictured above) and Dazhong Garden, which are the earliest local restaurants in Shanghai. At that time, the main famous dishes they operated were roast duck, braised shark's fin, three-silk shark's fin, sea cucumber with scallion oil, steamed shad, eight-treasure duck, abalone in clear soup, first-class bird's nest, clam yellow croaker soup and so on. It can be seen that Shanghai cuisine has developed to a higher level. At that time, the main characteristics of Shanghai cuisine were: taking local fish, shrimp and vegetable specialties as raw materials, cooking was good at braising in soy sauce, steaming, stewing, frying, cooking was bad and stir-frying, the dishes were thick with oil and red sauce, and the quantity was high and quality, paying attention to benefits, while the soup brine was mellow and not greasy, salty and palatable, with a strong flavor of Jiangnan water town.

3. Local flavor restaurants have appeared in Shanghai.

In the late Qing Dynasty, with the development of local restaurants in Shanghai, catering operators and chefs from all over the world also came to Shanghai to open restaurants (above). The first person to enter Shanghai was the Anhui Restaurant, which opened in Xiaodongmen. It serves both dishes and noodles in soup. Its specialty is fried back and stewed sea cucumber. Two particularly famous dishes are wonton duck and big blood soup, which were famous in Shanghai for a while. At that time, the main Anhui restaurants were Cuilou, Tongqing Garden and Greater China. While Anhui restaurant entered Shanghai, Suzhou and Wuxi restaurants also appeared in Shanghai. Suzhou and Wuxi dishes are famous for their Taihu boat dishes. Because their tastes are similar to those of Shanghai, and Suzhou and Wuxi people are mostly in Shanghai, they are especially popular, such as Tongzhi Laozhengxing Restaurant, Sanxing Garden, Dehe Pavilion, China Merchants Hotel, and later Southeast Hongqinglou, Dali, and freshwater fish dishes. By the early 1930s, Suzhou-Wuxi restaurants had accounted for about half of Shanghai restaurants. During the Xianfeng period, Guangdong Restaurant had Xinghualou and Cuibiju, and later there were Guangdong Merchants Restaurant, Xinya Restaurant, Dasanyuan Restaurant and East Asia Restaurant. Ningbo restaurants came to Shanghai earlier, such as Hongyun Building on Jinling East Road, Zhuangyuan Building on Yongjiang River, and Zhuangyuan Building on Siming. They mainly deal in seafood dishes and are also very popular with customers. Zhenyang Restaurant first began in Guangxu period, such as hankou road Lao Banzhai; Youlou, Xinbanzhai Restaurant, etc. The earliest Beijing gangs are Huibin Building, Yuebin Building, Taibai Building, Shanjiayuan and so on. Sichuan restaurants existed during the Tongzhi period, the earliest ones were Daya Building, Beautiful Caution, Du Benefit, Taohechun, followed by Jufengyuan, Shuzuo Hotel and Meilong Town. Henan restaurant first had Liangyuan Zhimei Building, followed by Houfu Building. Fujian restaurant has a small day, another day, and then a paradise. The Muslim Pavilion began in the early Ming Dynasty, including Hong Changxing, Yan Lin Chun and Nan Laishun. Vegetarian restaurants include Kutokuhayashi, Chunfeng Songyue Building and Jade Buddha Temple. In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, 1 1 local flavor restaurants appeared in Shanghai. From the early Republic of China to the end of 1930s, Hangzhou cuisine, Chaozhou cuisine, Hunan cuisine and so on were successively added, thus forming a pattern in which six local flavors, such as Shanghai, Jiangsu, Wuxi, Nanjing, Huizhou, Guangdong, Beijing, Sichuan, Fujian, Hunan, Henan, Shandong, Yangzhou, Chaozhou, Muslim and vegetarian dishes, were gathered in one place, which provided good conditions for developing and enriching Shanghai cuisine.

(C) the new characteristics of modern Shanghai cuisine development

From 1930s to the end of 1940s, this was the most prosperous period of Shanghai restaurants. At that time, local restaurants in Shanghai were still in the majority, and their business was booming, especially the banquets were very popular. Because Shanghai cuisine is cheap, there are a large number of dishes, and Shanghai is a modern big city, people who come to Shanghai have to taste Shanghai cuisine, so most of the banquets in Shanghai are held in Shanghai restaurants, so the business is very good, as are Suzhou and Wuxi restaurants, which are similar to Shanghai cuisine. As Shanghai cuisine constantly absorbs the advantages of foreign restaurants, especially with Suzhou and Wuxi cuisine, Shanghai cuisine is more characteristic of Jiangnan water town. First of all, pay attention to fresh materials and seasonal vegetables. Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces are the main fish and shrimp, and live fish are displayed in fish ponds all year round for customers to choose and cook on the spot. Second, there are many kinds of dishes, and the four seasons are different. For example, in spring, there are stir-fried grass heads, stir-fried gouqi heads, bamboo shoots, medlar, stir-fried bean sprouts, saury, and squid. In summer, there are fried eel paste, steamed shad and crystal shrimp. There are more famous dishes in autumn and winter, such as chrysanthemum crab bucket, fried crab powder, fried crab yellow oil, lion's head with crab powder, soft-shelled turtle with rock sugar, hairy crab in oil sauce, red-poured circle, big black ginseng with shrimp, preserved fresh winter bamboo shoots, big fish head in casserole, fragrant lung with herring, and paddling the chin with clear fish and so on. Thirdly, in terms of cooking methods, Shanghai cuisine pays equal attention to roasting, steaming, simmering, nesting and frying, and gradually turns to roasting, stir-frying, and steaming, among which stir-frying and stir-frying are the most, especially good at cooking fresh seafood in four seasons. Fourth, the taste has also changed a lot. Originally, Shanghai cuisine was dominated by thick soup and thick juice, and later it gradually became moderate, light and elegant, and there was also thick oil red sauce. When cooking dishes such as braised pork, braised pork and braised fish, seasoning and thick oil red sauce are still used to make the food fresh and obscure. Stir-frying is used for cooking, paying attention to freshness, white color and salty taste. Especially in summer and autumn, the dishes with bad taste, such as bad chicken, bad pig's feet, bad belly, bad pig's tongue and bad herring, are rich in flavor and quite distinctive, which is quite different from the early Shanghai cuisine in the past, showing the trend of integrating all kinds of ignorance to continuously improve self-development.

At the same time, the operating conditions of many local flavor restaurants are constantly changing. Except for a few big shops and famous shops in downtown areas, many other local restaurants are not doing well and have fewer customers, because a large number of customers in Shanghai are mostly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. They all like to eat in local restaurants and rarely eat in foreign restaurants. In the mid-1930s, banquets were popular in Shanghai, Suzhou and Wuxi restaurants, but few in Guangdong, Fujian, Sichuan and other restaurants, especially the banquets hosted by Guangdong restaurants. Although the colors were beautiful, the number of dishes was small, the seasoning was simple, the cooking was tender and the taste of dishes was not as good as that of Shanghai. Because they were not suitable for the characteristics of Shanghai in operation, many restaurants learned from Shanghai in order to meet the needs of local consumers in Shanghai. Some of its own operating methods and seasoning materials have been changed, such as Shanghai Cantonese Restaurant borrowing western dishes to cook long fish and Geely prawns, so as to gradually adapt to the consumption characteristics of Shanghai, and thus various so-called "Shanghai-style dishes" have emerged. In fact, these foreign restaurants have become various flavor restaurants that can not only adapt to the consumption characteristics of Shanghai, but also adapt to foreign visitors. In fact, by the 1940s, most of the business operators of these restaurants had been replaced by those of Shanghai restaurants and became an integral part of Shanghai cuisine. Due to the long-term interaction between Shanghai local restaurants and foreign restaurants, Shanghai local dishes (including Suzhou and Wuxi dishes) have absorbed the characteristics of local restaurants, while foreign restaurants have gradually assimilated into Shanghai dishes and become various local flavor restaurants with Shanghai characteristics. Shanghai cuisine has gradually developed from the original local cuisine to form a local flavor dish with Shanghai, Suzhou and Wuxi Jiangnan water towns as the main body and local flavors. In Shanghai in the 1940s, there were many restaurants and famous dishes, and delicacies were the essence of both at home and abroad. The Grand View of Shanghai Market, published in the 1940s, systematically introduced the characteristics and different flavors of Shanghai cuisine with the theme of "Eating in Shanghai". Newspapers all over the country once praised: "Shanghai is a world of eating." In a word, Shanghai cuisine is a kind of cuisine that strives for survival in adaptation, development in keeping with the times and innovation in development. Its style is characterized by adaptation, trend and development.