And nowadays the western countries passed in the "three meals a day system" is not the same, the ancient Chinese emperor as the ruler, everything should pay attention to luxury, etiquette knowledge, pay attention to, "four meals a day" into the exclusive monarch rules and regulations, and even the ancient Zhou Dynasty period. In the ancient Zhou Dynasty period, the king of Zhou in addition to eating four meals a day, but also need to enhance a snack.
During the Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period, and the Warring States Period, the kings ate "eight treasures" (charcoal-grilled meat, sashimi, etc.). Later, during the Han and Tang dynasties, the emperors still ate four meals a day, and each time they ate more and better dishes, all of which were made from the finest ingredients of the dynasty, and the chef's superb culinary skills.
To the Song Dynasty, the food culture is emerging, the marketplace occurred, the street side of the tavern, catering one after another to release their own "specialties". The royals of the Song Dynasty also liked to look for the people's favorite food, and those specialties slowly evolved and became part of the emperor's table.
At this time, people already called the dishes eaten by the emperor "imperial banquet". In the Song Dynasty, general Zhang Jun invited Emperor Gaozong of Song to dine with a full 196 dishes, but also "smell dishes" "look at the dishes" and other processes, the level of the Imperial Banquet to a relatively high level. Through the Tang Dynasty, the type and sophistication of the imperial banquet went up a lot.
To the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the emperors love to eat the people eat things, commonly known as "close to life". But the level of luxury has not changed at all, come to the Forbidden City in Beijing, friends, should be shown there "Royal Restaurant" is not strange, the emperor ate a meal only one chopstick, a table placed on a hundred specialties, the pressure of the leftovers.
The problem is that the various dynasties of the Emperor's Royal Good need to do many dishes, the number of various, short of dozens of dishes, more is hundreds of dishes, the Emperor a person undoubtedly ate leftover, even with the concubines ate leftover, then how do we deal with this kind of dishes that can not be eaten under it?
During the Zhou Dynasty, it wasn't really easy to get and cook ingredients, mainly grains. The king of Zhou ate something breakfast will be slightly more sophisticated, is the chef of the day made of fresh grains and meat, lunch, dinner, snacks are eaten in the morning to eat the rest of the meal, hot and set the emperor's table. Until the period before the two Han Dynasty, meals were all solved by the monarch himself.
In the end, the ancient period of the ingredients are too precious, and there is no refrigerator, storage standards are very simple, so the kings themselves adhere to the "today's meal, today's end" principle, even if there is the occasional leftover meals, are discarded as waste, of course, this situation is very little.
Song Dynasty period, the emperor ate something to eat more food, food access is also easy, we also learn to pick ice in winter, summer will be ice from the ice cave out, used to make drinks, storage ingredients, simple storage methods, prompted the Song Dynasty chefs have the strength to give full play to the emperor to make hundreds of dishes.
The emperor simply ran out of food for one meal, and most of the remaining dishes were given to the king's ministers and concubines. Ministers and concubines who can be given, will take these meals as a very great honor, and even show off to each other, if it is not favored ministers or concubines, only envious of the share.
The Ming and Qing dynasties, the emperor ate something more meals, hundreds of dishes per day, the scene is very large, each dish is all handmade by the Imperial Cuisine Workshop. But most of the dishes are all go model, the surface is beautiful on it, the emperor ate nothing more than a few dishes away from their own recent, a day also need to eat four, eat a few mouthfuls of satiety, so a meal also need to be left over ninety percent of the leftovers.
Part of the leftovers, will be given to the favored eunuchs, maidservants or ministers, such as the Empress Dowager Cixi love sweets, hot summer often have to eat iced drinks afternoon tea time, the Empress Dowager Cixi only eat a bowl of other tea time will be divided into her side of the maidservants.
Other dishes, can be sold by the palace maids and eunuchs to pregnancy outside the palace, good quality sold to the catering establishments, so that the catering establishments a person to scientific research into how to become their own home specialties. The color is not so good, has long been rotting and deterioration of the dish, only sold to door-to-door vendors, sprinkled into a large iron pot, plus other seasonings sauce, boiled into a soup-type batter, sold to the common people.
In fact, the Qing Dynasty when the emperor ate food, there are many are the previous day to deal with the dishes, wet and hot after serving up, not as delicious as our own cooking now. The emperor's extravagance and waste, so that the word imperial goodness does not sound very good finish.