As an ancient saying goes, food is the most important thing for people, and the problem of eating has always been the most concerned issue for people. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the grain supply of Beijing imperial court depended on grain transportation to a great extent, and then formed a complete system of grain transportation and storage. With the abundance of materials, the flavor of food permeates every corner of old Beijing. Even "eating food" is the person who can live best.

Old Beijingers pay attention to food, which is incomparable to other places. Children's rhymes in Beijing sing: small Toona sinensis, yellow buds, fragrant and fragrant when pinched; Scrambled eggs and mixed tofu are delicious. Try them. Beijing side dishes not only have the taste of home, but also are full of the grasp of natural seasonal changes. Mr. Liang Shiqiu, a famous writer, once said: If there were no bean juice and big Sugar-Coated Berry, would it still be Beijing? The writer's heart is keen, and it also shows the importance of "what to eat" for Beijing culture and life.

With the gathering of department stores in the capital, soups and delicacies in the south of Suzhou, you can almost taste cuisines and snacks from all over the country, which are known as "Imperial Capital Pinhui" and "Imperial Capital Pinwu", both at home and in chinese odyssey. Up to now, the snack streets in Beijing are still very lively, such as Wangfujing snack street and Shichahai snack street (the original Qianmen snack was moved). In the Qing Dynasty, some of Beijing's food became more and more popular, while others were more difficult to taste. At the end of the book Ji Sheng at the age of Emperor Jing, Pan Rongsheng, a Qing dynasty poet, praised Beijing's gourmet crowd with poems:

Good food, five flavors are all in the capital; Beijing cuisine is fried in the north, and Xianlu lives in a hundred flavors.

The economic ability of citizens living in Beijing determines the scale and depth of consumption. Beijing, which gathers businessmen from all over China, together with local officials and gentry who "eat the imperial grain", has spawned many unique local market life and entertainment industries. There are so many snacks in Beijing that you can see them everywhere when you go out, so they are commonly called "meeting for food" or "vegetable tea". The poem "Dumen Zhuzhi" in the Qing Dynasty vividly wrote:

Where the sunset drama is scattered, the banquet is in the same six-game draw. Three big money to buy sweet flowers, cut cake ghost legs noisy. A bowl of sweet porridge in the morning, only to eat tea soup and tea. Fried sugar ear with preserved fruit cake, baked sesame seed cake in hanging furnace, Aiwowo. The fork has just been sold on fire, and the hard noodles are called cakes. Steamed dumplings's wonton is full of dishes, and newly added glutinous rice balls. Fried tripe oil and liver incense enema, Mushu Huangcai Pian 'er soup.

This interesting poem about Zhuzhi depicts the diversity of snacks in Beijing. In addition to the old Beijingers, other people living in Beijing come from all corners of China, and there is also a demand for many local specialty snacks, so that "nothing comes without fish, nothing is delicious.".

Pan Rongsheng, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, introduced a variety of Jingshi delicacies in Ji Sheng at the Age of Emperor Jing:

Pigs and sheep are divided into two wings, and the flock returns to the streets of Japan; Millet grain accumulates thousands of warehouses, and the city is outside Zhanyunfang.

camel bee with bear's paw, and milk cake with moose-tailed cheese crisp mallet; Wild cats, pheasants, ground beavers, shrimps and miscellaneous wind sheep.

Beijing-style cuisine is hierarchical. At first, Beijing cuisine with time-honored brands and complete categories and even "local restaurants" in various places were sky-high prices, which made many people flinch. But at the same time, the diversity of Beijing-style food varieties has eliminated this class nature internally. A refined gentleman can taste Beijing flavor, and a down-and-out scholar is not ashamed to eat Beijing flavor, and the working masses can also taste Beijing flavor. "jiaozi lies on its head, and pancakes spread eggs on its feet." The sugar piles, sesame cakes and mung bean cakes on the street sometimes make it fresh and famous, and there are also delicious snacks and cheap food stalls, which have far-reaching "gourmet taste" distance among the shouts of vendors.

in the history of China, the basic production pattern of farming in the east and grazing in the west, rice in the south and wheat in the north was formed. As the saying goes, "Southerners are meticulous and northerners are rough". The gathering of ten thousand people in the capital has a balance between thickness and farming and animal husbandry, which is manifested in Beijing-style cuisine. There are about 211 or 311 kinds of snacks in Beijing, including side dishes with wine (such as white water sheep's head, fried tripe, roasted sheep's head in Bai Kui, mustard chopping block, etc.), pasta used in banquets (such as Wotou, minced meat biscuits, Yangyaner steamed stuffed bun, Five Blessingg Shoutao, Ma Rong Bao, etc.), and various snacks as snacks or breakfast and supper (such as Aiwowo, donkey rolling, etc.). Among them, bean juice, enema, fried liver, sesame bean curd and Zhajiang Noodles are the most characteristic of Beijing flavor.

In the late Qing Dynasty, there were delicacies in Beijing, which were expensive, as well as street snacks with good quality and low price. With the improvement of transportation mode, many tropical fruits have also entered Beijing. On May 21st, the thirty-second year of Guangxu (1916), Yun Yuding tasted fresh litchi from Shanghai, which was "red muscle and white meat, and the juice was sweet and fat, several times better than that of the bottler". He couldn't help but sigh, "Today's land and water transportation, all the fresh things in the southeast, such as shad and loquat, have won the appetite of northerners, and our chances are better than those of the ancients."

Xinfenglou Restaurant, which is attached to Xiangchang, is a famous new Shandong restaurant in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, which is famous for its business of "Fried shredded belly with oil", "Bobo roast duck", "Almond Lantern Festival" and "Plain noodle soup". It is well-known for its "dry steaming point", "duck liver in bad noodles", "mullet eggs", "chicken in oil" and "steamed duck in bad noodles". In particular, its "Braised Purple Abalone with Chinese Cabbage" is a must in Beijing: high-quality small purple abalones are selected for operation, then boiled, made into flower dressing knives, and cabbage hearts are selected and grilled with hanging soup. The coriander is bright in color, tender and moist in taste, and has a unique flavor.

Western food has also entered Beijing. In the late Qing Dynasty, the number of "foreigners" in the market increased, and the "foreign flavor" in the capital naturally increased, and various "fan restaurants" gradually appeared. The famous condemnation novel "Evil Flowers" in the late Qing Dynasty specifically mentioned western-style restaurants:

Let's talk about this Dongjiaomin Lane, which used to be the gathering place of embassies from all over the world, with the largest number of foreign houses in the lane, which is very lively. This restaurant, which is opened by the chef in the embassy, is specially prepared for foreigners who enter and leave the embassy. They can also eat and stay. It is a very proper hotel.

It can be seen that western-style restaurants have been more common in the former foreign "embassy district", but they have appeared widely since 1911. Take the Six-Country Hotel in Beijing as an example. In the book "Generous Bamboo Branch Poems in Beijing" published in the second year of Xuantong (1911), the exotic food and lively scenes in the Six-Country Hotel are described as follows: "It's hard to guess overseas treasures, and two foreign flavors are blooming. There are not many foreign friends, and the red-topped flowers come every day. "

Inevitably, exotic foods attract officials in Beijing. They have nothing to do, and they often patronize restaurants in Six Countries in twos and threes, which adds a little more fun to Chinese food life. Some officials, gentry and businessmen even changed the traditional eating customs, saying that "the utensils must be western-style, and the food must be western-style", and "most of the guests who treat Japan are Chinese-style restaurants. Today, the Six Kingdoms Hotel, Dechang Hotel and Chang 'an Hotel are all western-style feasts. "In the past, drinking yellow wine from Liuquanju was widely recommended, but now it is not necessary to use Samsung brandy and beer." Modern drinks have gradually become the first choice and favor of all kinds of new youth and upper class.

There were many restaurants in the capital in the late Qing Dynasty, which were called "eight buildings", "eight residences", "ten halls" and "eight Da Chun". In addition, there are various unknown restaurants. The biggest difference between Ju and Tang is that Ju only holds banquets, but does not hold church meetings. Therefore, it is relatively small, and it is the place where ordinary officials or scholars who go to Beijing to take exams stay. The eight famous residences include Fuxingju, Wanxingju, Tongxingju and Dongxing outside Qianmen, Wanfuju in Dashilan, Guangheju in the northern half of Caishikou Hutong, Tongheju in Xisi and Shaguoju in Xidan. Among them, restaurants in the south of Jingshi City, Fuxingju in the north of Kannonji Road outside Qianmen, Wanxingju in the west of Meishi Street, Tongxingju in Dashilan and Dongxing in the south of Moshang Road are also known as the "Four Great Prosperities". Among them, Fuxingju's shredded chicken noodles are quite famous. It is said that Emperor Guangxu, who ate too much delicacies, would go there to eat a bowl of shredded chicken noodles every time he visited the eight hutongs to "moisten his mouth and taste the fresh".

as everyone in old Beijing knows, the famous casserole house is exquisite in materials. Piglets in Zhangjiawan, Tongxian County are specially used to make 66 kinds of white meat, which is sold for only half a day in a small place. In the past, there was a saying in old Beijing: The cover of casserole house is that its business is booming after noon. Guangheju is a place where Mr. Lu Xun invited friends to get together. It originated from the southern flavor brought back after six trips to the south of the Yangtze River. In Daoguang period, it evolved into a southern flavor restaurant specially opened for southerners, among which South fried kidney flower, soy bean curd, steamed fish in Pan Shi, steamed scallops and steamed yam mud were all famous for a time.

at the peak of the imperial cuisine in Qing dynasty, the imperial cuisine was in charge of the imperial cuisine, which consisted of four rooms (dining room, tea room, meat room and dried meat room) and five bureaus (meat bureau, vegetable bureau, oven hanging bureau, dim sum bureau, etc.). The emperor has a meal spectrum, and a hundred people have annual food. It's common to waste food in the court, so yongzheng emperor once wrote a letter to the dining room:

Those who have more than enough porridge, rice and dishes must not abandon the ditch. Or eat it with people in service. People who are inedible feed cats and dogs. If it is no longer available, it will be dried to feed birds.

With the decline of the central power of the Qing court, the prestige of the royal family has been declining, and some court cuisines have also flowed into the people, gradually becoming a delicacy enjoyed by the whole people. The Manchu-Han banquet was once the memory of the old Beijingers. Palace cuisine pays attention to the perfection of color, fragrance, taste, shape and utensils, which has both the characteristics of palace cuisine and the essence of local flavor, and is mainly based on Northeast, Shandong, Beijing and Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine, which is also the goal of some officials and gentry chasing food. Specifically, the materials used are extensive and precious, with emphasis on the modeling of dishes, specifications in production, auspicious dishes with rich names, colorful snacks and elegant utensils, which can be described as the essence of Manchu-Chinese food culture.

during the Republic of China, those chefs who once served in the royal "imperial dining room" and "caterers" started a new career with the exquisite skill of "Beijing cooking", improved and made it popular, which made court dishes containing Beijing flavor gradually enter the homes of ordinary people and led the trend of food culture. Manchu-Han banquet highlights the special flavor of Manchu and Han dishes, barbecue, hot pot and shabu-shabu are almost indispensable dishes, and at the same time, it shows the characteristics of Han cooking, which is both grilled, fried, stir-fried and roasted, which is really the treasure and the highest realm of Chinese cuisine culture.

The Manchu-Han banquet was originally a banquet hosted by Manchu and Han people in the Qing court. Generally speaking, there are at least 118 kinds of dishes served at the Manchu-Han banquet (54 dishes in South China and 54 dishes in North China), which need to be eaten in three days during the ceremony. Full seats are divided into six grades, while Han seats are divided into five categories, including group meals, cold meals, hot meals, snacks, milk cakes, milk skins, side dishes and green sauces. Generally, there are more than 71 products, ranging from a few to dozens of products. Bird's nest, shark's fin, sea cucumber, Hericium erinaceus and other dishes are often indispensable. Manchu-Han banquet dishes are salty and sweet, well-prepared in meat, widely used in materials, fine in materials, and all-encompassing in delicacies. Of course, due to the variety of Manchu-Han banquet and the tedious production, few people can eat a complete Manchu-Han banquet except the royal banquet. The staple food of Beijingers is corn flour and millet flour, and the expensive rice is only used to cook porridge; Because they can't afford to buy meat, heavy-flavored foods such as onions, garlic and peppers are very popular for flavor enhancement.

silk swaying bamboo hangs in the wine room, and the streets smell the wine deeply. Half a catty of knives and small dining tables, Pepsi Fengyun big wine jar. In Wang Zengqi's works, drinking in Beijing can be roughly divided into several levels: drinking 13 cents is a level, drinking Erguotou is a level, drinking red grain Daqu, Hua Deng Daqu and even Hengshui Laobaigan is a level, drinking eight famous wines is a high level, and drinking Maotai is the highest level. Most of the "wine seats" in an easy place belong to three levels, that is, the lowest level. They sometimes drink Erguotou, but they have a lot of complaints about Erguotou, which is not as good as a dime. At 13 cents, they drank "clothing" and felt that it tasted "smooth". Some of them even think that the taste of Daqu is intolerable, and the famous Anleju also sells loose beer in hot weather. By 1942, Guangzhou advertisements were widely rumored that "if you want to know the taste of Yanjing, the only way is to make beef with spiced sauce in the Qing Palace of the Summer Palace" and "to be a Zhajiang Noodles in Beijing", which also became a unique identity value.

Health preservation and philosophical culture in diet are also constantly sublimated in cooking. The life of Beijing flavor may be a dish of "spring onion mixed with tofu, the door is clear". Of course, the literati's attention to diet actually reflects the richness of street life and the peace and comfort of society.

In the Qing Dynasty, Yuan Mei recorded the cooking and matters of various dishes in the Menu for Eating with the Garden. "Everything that is cooked must be assisted. It is necessary to make the Qing dynasty match the Qing dynasty, the thick one match the thick one, and the soft one match it. ""Tofu cooked well is far better than bird's nest; If the seaweed is not cooked well, it is not as good as bamboo shoots ",even rising to the point of view of natural Confucianism. Yuan Mei said that" one thing has its own flavor, and it cannot be confused. Just like a saint teaching, he is happy to educate because of his talents. Broad bean green, broad bean yellow, green tender, old yellow, from green to yellow too hastily, the songs about food are passed down from mouth to mouth, which also shows the prosperity of food culture.

Therefore, the material is abundant, and the catering is diversified and complicated. Diet is not only a natural behavior to satisfy people's appetite and maintain their lives, but also a kind of consciousness, concept, cultural etiquette and communication mode, which profoundly affects the changes of people's lifestyle.