The dinner on New Year's Eve is very rich, including snacks, hot meals, cold meals, dried fruits, wine meals, fruit tea and so on. Take the menu of the emperor's family banquet on the 44th New Year's Eve of Qing Qianlong as an example. The snacks of this family banquet are selected from five kinds of snacks commonly used in the court, such as mugwort leaf crisp, mouth crisp, sand-rolled crisp, crispy flowers and honey twist.
Cold meat 18 kinds, such as hanging furnace meat, spiced mutton, pork belly, brine chicken and nangchangzi. There are 20 kinds of dried fruits, including honey bergamot, honey red melon, honey cucumber, honey bayberry and honey white cherry. There are 20 kinds of cold meals, such as mutton slices, mutton fork, sheep liver, hanging duck and roasted venison. There are 20 kinds of hot dishes, such as bird's nest, rotten bamboo shoots, lotus seed babao duck hot pot, stewed tofu with roast chicken slices, shark's fin, steamed duck with bird's nest and so on.
There are 109 kinds of meals on the emperor's royal banquet table, plus various soup and drinks, totaling 153 kinds; A table for the queen, the imperial concubine and the imperial concubine; The rest of the concubines have two or three people at a table, and each table has at least 37 meals.
At about 4 pm, the emperor took the seat, and the queen and others bowed to the emperor in their seats. With the sound of neutralization and less music, the eunuch first set the hot rice, and then served soup rice, wine rice and fruit tea in turn. The emperor and his family toasted each other and exchanged New Year wishes.
Extended data:
Chinese New Year Customs of Ancient Emperors
1, the word "fu" was given by the imperial pen, which began with Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty. Every year after entering the first day of the twelfth lunar month, the emperor would write the word "Fu" in Shu Fang Zhai of the Chinese Palace or the West Nuan Pavilion of Gan Qing Palace. The first word "Fu" will be hung in the main hall of the palace and then posted all over the palace.
When the emperor used the word "Fu" to reward officials such as princes and ministers, it was after December 20th. When praying, the emperor waved the word "fu", and then two eunuchs held the word "fu" face to face. The minister who was given it knelt down under the word "fu" and kowtowed to thank him, indicating that the blessing was covered.
On New Year's Day, the emperor will also hold a "New Year's Party" in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, that is, Dachao. At dawn that day, the ministers gathered outside the noon gate, guided by the officials of the Ministry of Rites, entered the palace according to the text, crossed Jinshui Bridge and Taihe Gate, entered the Hall of Supreme Harmony Square, and waited in the same place in the order of grades from grade one to grade nine.