The book A Dream of Red Mansions describes the daily life of the Jia family in detail, including the description of food. According to statistics, about 31% of the chapters in A Dream of Red Mansions are about eating, and there are more than 91 kinds of banquets alone. As far as its scale is concerned, there are big banquets, small banquets and feasts. As far as time is concerned, there are luncheons, dinners, evening banquets, mothering banquets, invitation-only banquets, and other family banquets, poem banquets, lantern riddles, begonia banquets and crab banquets. There are Yuanxiao banquets, end luncheons, Mid-Autumn Festival banquets and New Year's Eve banquets named after festivals, and Fangyuan banquets and Taixu banquets named after banquet places. It can be described as a collection of banquets, with everything and colorful. There are countless kinds of dishes in the banquet. For example, Jia Mu wrote all the vegetables in the world with water labels and ate them every day. Let's combine the plot of the novel with several dishes in the red chamber banquet to see its food culture at that time.

1. pigeon eggs

1. The 41th time in A Dream of Red Mansions, "The Grand View Garden for Two Banquets by Shi Taijun" introduced Granny Liu's second visit to Jia's house. When the maid served the food, Li Wan brought a bowl to the table of Grandmother Liu. Xi Feng picked out a bowl of pigeon eggs and put it on Granny Liu's desk. When Grandmother Jia said "please" here, Grandma Liu stood up and said loudly, "Lao Liu, Lao Liu eats like an ox and doesn't look up after eating an old sow."

① Introduce Li Wan, Jia Zheng, the eldest daughter-in-law of Mrs. Wang, and Jia Zhu's wife, who lost her husband in her early years and adopted her son Jia Lan alone. There is a poem to prove it:

After the spring breeze of peaches and plums bears fruit, who is like a pot of orchids in the end?

if ice water is so jealous, it is useless to make a joke with others.

② A self-styled "Taoxiang old farmer" in Haitang Poetry Society, who took her sister-in-law and brother in law to recite poems, write lyrics and have fun to talk about loneliness.

2. One tael of silver is very expensive for a pigeon eggs, while Cao Xueqin's grandfather's salary is only one hundred taels a year. pigeon eggs caters for the Qing Palace, and there are old Qing Palace files to check. Pigeon eggs is one of the dietotherapy foods for Jia family to prolong life and keep youth.

2. Eggplants

1. The 41th time of A Dream of Red Mansions

At the banquet hosted by Grandmother Jia, "at the orders of Grandmother Jia, Xifeng gave some eggplant to Granny Liu to eat, and Granny Liu ate it and said," Don't fool me, the eggplant ran out of this smell, and we don't have to grow food, only.

eggplant is dried eggplant and stem is dried fish. Cao Xueqin was born in Zhong Ming Ding's family, and it is not surprising to create one or two fresh and delicious foods. But the most famous food in the book is the "eggplant owl" that makes grandma Liu spit out her tongue. Back to the 41th time, Wang Xifeng described its practice in detail, that is, "peel the fresh eggplant, only clean it, cut it into broken nails, fry it with chicken oil, then cut it into nails with preserved chicken meat, fragrant bacteria, new bamboo shoots, mushrooms, spiced bean curd and various dried fruits, simmer it with chicken soup, collect sesame oil, mix it with bad oil, and seal it in a porcelain jar." When you eat, you can mix the chicken seeds. " Hearing this, Granny Liu shook her head and spat out her tongue and said, "My Buddha, I got a dozen chickens to match it, which is strange."

People in Jiafu may eat too much cholesterol, so eating more eggplant has many benefits.

It's hard to tell whether this delicious food really exists, which is exactly what the author said: "When it's fake, it's true, and when it's true, it's fake, and inaction is everywhere."

Third, steamed duck with wine

1. Story of the Dream of Red Mansions

Fang Guan said that he was hungry and asked Mrs. Liu in the kitchen to bring food. "As he said this, I saw that the fruit of the Liu family sent someone to send a box. Xiaoyan then opened it, and there was a bowl of shrimp balls and chicken skin soup, a bowl of steamed duck with wine, a plate of preserved rouge goose, and a plate of four cream puffs? And a big bowl of steaming green fragrant rice and japonica rice. "

① Fang Guan: To welcome the relatives in Jia Yuanchun Province, a girl who studied opera was bought from the south and later assigned to Yihong Courtyard to be Jia Baoyu's maid. Later, he also became a nun.

② Bad things in South China (fermented food)

Fermented rice is a kind of sweet rice wine made from steamed glutinous rice (glutinous rice) mixed with wine yeast, which is called as fermented rice wine, rice wine, sweet wine, glutinous rice wine and distiller's grains in different parts of China. Distiller's grains food is a special product in the south, with a wide variety, delicious taste and enduring quality? It is even more precious to transport it to the north. At that time, when the rulers were tired of eating delicacies, they also liked to eat bad food from the south to adjust their tastes. Ganlong six times in Jiangnan? I enjoyed wine, beautiful women and delicious food, and brought them back to the chefs in the south, which attracted southern delicacies.

(3) This meal was "eaten by Baoyu together with the maid, Fangguan and Xiaoyan, and the taste was better than usual. He only ate a crispy roll and ordered Xiaoyan to set aside half a bowl of rice, which was very sweet and delicious", which reflected Baoyu's equality between men and women. As long as he was a girl, he was cute, regardless of rank. "Daughters were made of water, and men were made of mud, and it was refreshing to see his daughters. Duck with distiller's grains is a tonic for Jiafu.

IV. Lotus Leaf Lotus Soup

1. The 35th episode of A Dream of Red Mansions introduces the reasons why Baoyu was beaten: ① Jia Huan went to Jia Zheng's office to report that Baoyu tried to rape Mrs. Wang's maid, Jin Chuan, which caused him to commit suicide by throwing himself into the well.

(2) Faithful and obedient to the prince's house, he asked Xiao Dan to give gifts to each other. Qi Guan (who is closely related to Baoyu) "Jia Zheng raised his big board and gritted his teeth and hit him thirty or forty times. Baoyu was beaten blue or purple, whole or broken, but it didn't do any good." Is it written that after Baoyu was beaten, Lady Jia, Lady Wang and Aunt Xue went to visit Baoyu? Ask Baoyu what he wants to eat. Baoyu is talking about the lotus leaf soup. Hearing this, Xi-feng said with a smile, "The taste is not noble, but it is too grinding." Baoyu coaxed Yuchun to taste the "Little Lotus Leaf Lotus Soup", but he didn't feel it. He just asked Yuchun where it hurt. Showing Baoyu's guilt over the death of Jin Chuan. Tell Jin Chuan (the elder sister of Yu Chuan) that when Baoyu flirted with her, Mrs. Wang saw him and kicked him out of Jia's house after beating and cursing him. Jin Chuan committed suicide by throwing himself into the well with injustice and humiliation. Reveals the darkness of Jia's house and the viciousness of Mrs. Wang.

five, chicken marrow bamboo shoots

The 75th story of A Dream of Red Mansions tells that on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, the two sons of Jia Mu respectively sent several dishes to honor the old lady, and the only dish that Jia Mu left to taste was a chicken marrow bamboo shoot. Chicken marrow bamboo shoots is a southern dish, which is stewed with chicken marrow and chicken soup. Bamboo shoots, the main ingredient, have been regarded as "treasures in dishes" since ancient times. Li Yu, a scholar in Qing Dynasty, praised bamboo shoots as "the first vegetarian product".

Grandmother Jia loves this chicken marrow bamboo shoot, and so do the handsome guys and beautiful women in the Grand View Garden, because they know that bamboo shoots are indispensable for good skin.