Papers on Dream of Red Mansions and Food Culture
In our daily study and work, when it comes to papers, everyone must be familiar with it. Papers are a tool for describing academic research results and conducting academic exchanges. I believe many friends are very upset about writing papers. The following is my carefully arranged paper on Dream of Red Mansions and Food Culture. Welcome to read it. I hope you will like it.
The masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions contains a lot of exquisite descriptions of "eating". From the first time to the eightieth time, there were nearly 71 banquets for famous purposes, accounting for about 85% of the total. Among them, the scenes that focus on the banquet are shown in the catalogue: "Celebrating Birthday, Family Banquet in Ningfu", "Rongguo Mansion Returning to the Province to Celebrate Yuanxiao", "Shi Taijun's Two Banquets in Grand View Garden", "Rongguo Mansion's Yuanxiao Banquet", "Shouyi Hongqunfang Banquet" and "Opening a Night Banquet with Different Signs makes a sad sound".
A Dream of Red Mansions is, after all, a literary work, and the description of food and drink mostly serves to portray characters or promote plots, except for the exquisite description of eggplant. A Dream of Red Mansions describes in detail the whole production process of "eggplant", from materials, methods to preservation, through the main character Wang Xifeng in the book, and only writes dishes for the sake of writing dishes, which makes many people puzzled.
On the forty-first occasion, Grandmother Jia hosted a banquet for Granny Liu at Rongguo Mansion. Faced with a table full of delicious food, Grandmother Jia asked Wang Xifeng to feed some "eggplant" to Granny Liu. After eating it, Granny Liu couldn't believe that she was eating eggplant. Later, after getting a positive answer from everyone, Granny Liu took another bite and chewed it carefully for half a day. She said with a smile, "Although it smells a little eggplant, it's not like eggplant. Tell me how to make it, and I'll make it. " Xi-feng said with a smile, "It's not difficult. You peel the fresh eggplant, as long as you clean the meat, cut it into broken nails, fry it with chicken oil, then cut the chicken breast with fragrant bacteria, new bamboo shoots, mushrooms, spiced dried fruits and all kinds of dried fruits into nails, simmer it with chicken soup, collect the sesame oil, mix it with bad oil, seal it in a porcelain jar, and take it out when you want to eat it, and use the copied chicken feet. The way of this side dish described by Xifeng really startled granny Liu, an old woman in the village, and said, "There are a dozen chickens to match it, which is strange."
"Owl" is a dialect of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In Zhoushan Islands, Zhejiang Province, fishermen call dried fish "fish fish". The dishes in Ningbo area are called "melons". Melon and eggplant are both block vegetables, and "eggplant" may have evolved from melon to Jinling near Zhejiang, so Cao Xueqin wrote this dish in A Dream of Red Mansions. Whether "eggplant" is a real dish is inconclusive. However, this dish was included in the menu of the "Red Mansion Banquet", and some people really made a "eggplant" according to what Wang Xifeng taught, but it was not the taste at all. Mr. Zhou Ruchang, a famous red scientist, thinks: "The diet of A Dream of Red Mansions does not lie in imitating the cat and painting the tiger-painting is also difficult; Just to understand its essence, that is, the philosophy and aesthetics of China's cooking. " The ingredients of "eggplant" are the most common food. Through exquisite collocation and reconciliation, as well as the storage and ingenious processing of utensils, it has become the "highest recipe" that Jia Fu can get, and it also hides the secret of China's highest recipe.
One of the mysteries of China's food culture:
All the ingredients in the highest diet are not rare, neither dragon liver and phoenix marrow nor bear's paw and scarlet lips, but just the most common and unusual things. These extremely ordinary ingredients, because of the exhaustion of thought and wisdom, means and skills in seasoning and practice, have become top-grade or even best food. The highest level of China's diet is to make the most common ingredients into the most unusual gourmet. Although the recipe "eggplant" is the best food, all the ingredients are extremely common, and even the named "eggplant" is the most "cheap" food. The "base" of eggplant is that the poor can also eat it and afford it. However, "eggplant" is the most varied. The poor can eat it by adding salt and boiling it in water, which can only meet the needs of the stomach. The eggplant made in this way is not delicious, or even difficult to swallow; When the rich cook eggplant, adding some oil and seasoning will improve the taste a lot, but it is not the best in the end; Eggplant, as the best dish of the rich and expensive family (Jiafu), is processed more fastidiously and chic on this basis, thus becoming a best dish.
This mystery is also the embodiment of China people's unique concept of equality. The ancient society in China was a hierarchical society. People were doomed to have unequal social status because of their family background, congenital conditions and growing environment. China's ethics has designed so many "inequalities", but it has also designed an ultimate road to equality, that is, the equality of personality. Equality of personality means that everyone can have the opportunity to become a moral good person through their own efforts.
Cao Xueqin reflected this idea of "equality of personality" many times in A Dream of Red Mansions. The most obvious thing is that the prosperity of the whole Jia family is based on a servant's loyal savior. Jiao Da in Ningguo Mansion "followed Great-grandfather for three or four times from childhood, and carried Great-grandfather out from the dead pile, and got his life;" I was hungry, but I stole something for my master to eat; I didn't get water for two days, but I got half a bowl of water for my master to drink, and he drowned himself. " It can be said that because of Jiao Da's efforts alone, he saved the great grandfather, and then the whole Jia family became prosperous. Cao Xueqin's design is also the embodiment of his thought of equality of personality.
Talking about the food culture of A Dream of Red Mansions from the perspective of "eggplant"
The second mystery of China food culture:
Every common ingredient participated in the production of gourmet food and gained the status of being an entity. In the process of making eggplant, every lowly and common ingredient participated in the production process, such as eggplant, fragrant mushroom, new bamboo shoots, mushrooms, spiced rotten fruit, various dried fruits and so on. In the "eggplant", every ingredient is equal, and as long as it is carefully made, every humble and ordinary dish can become a delicate and exquisite dish. Although each individual drowns himself at this time and only presents it in a holistic way, the initiative and responsibility to achieve perfection through practice are equal. Therefore, when Grandma Liu tasted "eggplant", she said, "Although it smells a little eggplant, it's just not like eggplant." Granny Liu, as a wise village woman, although her comments on this gourmet dish are vulgar and superficial, Cao Xueqin is trying to tell the typical characteristics of China cuisine from the mouth of Granny Liu, an ordinary rural old woman. The so-called cuisine is the best, that is, different ingredients, and at the same time, * * * exist and adjust each other to achieve overall harmony. The whole delicious food is composed of many individual ingredients, with the combination of meat and vegetables, mushrooms, bean products and dried fruits, chicken soup, sesame oil and waste oil. Finally, "eggplant is not like eggplant", and each single thing is involved.
Of course, harmony in the food culture of A Dream of Red Mansions not only refers to the collocation of various ingredients in taste, but also refers to the collocation of colors between dishes. For example, on Baoyu's birthday, Liu's family made a lunch in spite of their busy schedule. When Chun Yan came to open the lunch box, he saw "a bowl of shrimp ball chicken skin soup, a bowl of steamed duck with distiller's grains, a bowl of preserved rouge goose, a dish of four cream puffs and crisp rolls, and a big bowl of green fragrant rice and japonica rice". Pink shrimp ball soup, red rouge goose breast, white steamed duck, yellow cream crisp and blue stalk rice are just a unique oil painting.
"Harmony" is the ethical thinking of China people and the highest pursuit of political order and ideal life by the sages. China's harmonious thought theory is well constructed, and takes care of daily life, which permeates every China's way of thinking and actions. China's diet not only has a perfect material form, but also constructs a high spiritual form, which can be summarized by a word "harmony". To some extent, food inspired thinkers, and ancient thinkers summarized the philosophy of harmony on this basis. The "harmony" in China's diet corresponds to the "division" in the western diet. Chinese food pays attention to the harmony of five flavors, temperature and time, which reflects the main characteristics of slow culture in China agricultural society. However, the sandwich in the West is simply superimposed. Through the "sandwich", bread, chicken nuggets and ham "form" a hamburger, but the taste of the original ingredients has not changed: bread or bread, chicken nuggets or chicken nuggets, ham is still ham, and sandwich is a typical atomic combination.
The third secret of China's food culture:
Pay attention not only to the content of dishes, but also to their forms, and blend the most secular diet with elegant aesthetics. Special attention is paid to the requirements of shape in "eggplant": eggplant is required to be cut into broken nails, and these broken nails cannot be in a loose state, and they are required to be "fried with chicken oil". The shape also pays attention to matching, block by block, piece by piece, diced with diced, and shredded with silk. Therefore, the "chicken breast meat is mixed with fragrant bacteria, new bamboo shoots, mushrooms, spiced dried fruits and dried fruits of various colors" This "shape" is not only the shape, but also the shape of various ingredients. For example, all nails should be mixed with sesame oil, taken out when eating, and mixed with chicken feet. In the "eggplant", only the porcelain jar used to seal the "eggplant" is mentioned, which is an essential utensil for making the "eggplant". Although there is no mention of the utensils for holding "eggplant", the utensils for the food with such complicated and exquisite workmanship that the lady dowager likes can only be left to the reader's imagination. On the contrary, in the thirty-fifth session, Jia Baoyu was beaten by his father. Both Jia Mu and Mrs. Wang were very distressed and asked what they wanted to eat. Baoyu offered to eat lotus leaf soup. Lotus leaf soup is also a soup dish eaten by the imperial concubine Jia Yuanchun when she returned to her province. The preparation of lotus leaf soup is quite complicated. It is necessary to use silverware to make the "soup molds" of rice flour into various shapes and put them in a small box. * * * There are four pairs, "all of which are more than one foot long and one inch square, with beans, chrysanthemums, plum blossoms, lotus flowers and water chestnuts carved on them. * * *. Even Aunt Xue, who has always been knowledgeable, said, "Your family is desperate, and eating a bowl of soup still looks like this." In terms of the plot itself, it's really delicious. Here, Cao Xueqin writes about endless attention to cooking utensils.
The dispute between "Tao" and "Qi" has always been the most classic debate in Chinese traditional culture. Not only Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism have their own opinions, but also there are different opinions within Confucianism. In the Book of Changes, it is said: "The metaphysical is the Tao, and the metaphysical is the device." In the Book of Changes Justice by Kong Yingda in the Tang Dynasty, it was put forward that "Tao comes before the device": Tao is the name of no body, while form is the name of quality. Zhu Xi transformed the relationship between Tao and utensil into the relationship between managing things, and put forward that "the noumenon of the shaper is the Tao if it is separated from the shaper; In terms of shape, it is called a device. " From the perspective of humanism, Fu Zhi put forward "governing the apparatus and showing the Tao". China's food culture has to take part in the dispute of "Tao", "utensil" and "shape". People's judgment on food has both the same taste judgment and strong individual differences. Therefore, a wonderful diet is the domain of Tao before tangible things. The utensil originally refers to the dish, "the dish is also used for meals". The instrumentalization of eating utensils is an important feature of civilization, which is directly related to the formation of Ming Dow's traditional concept of "hiding and using utensils". While China's cooking is very particular about the presentation of form, Confucius has a saying that "food is not tired of essence, and it is not tired of detail". The food culture in A Dream of Red Mansions well expounds the relationship between Tao, utensil and shape, which provides the most convincing explanation for the dispute between Tao and utensil. ;