Speaking of Empress Dowager Cixi, everyone's first reaction must be to scold her. She once said that she overestimated China's material resources and the happiness of the country, and regarded China in the late Qing Dynasty as a foreign treasure house. But today I put aside politics and talk about the connection between Cixi and food.
As a queen mother who is in charge of the power of the country, she is sure to have the best food in the world. In terms of the Qing Dynasty at that time, she should be able to fly in the sky and swim in the water to eat whatever she wants. Because In this way, Cixi became a gourmet.
Cixi was unparalleled in her food, and her luxury was famous both at home and abroad. Cixi had 100 bowls of different dishes for each dinner. There should be no similarities between dinners except Cixi's requirements. In other words, a hundred dishes would count as long as Cixi didn't say she would cook them next time. Was OUT. There are at least 20 bowls of dishes in the two "snacks" besides the main meal. Nowadays, people often say that you should eat breakfast like a king, but it seems that it is not easy to actually do it.
In terms of quality, there are 128 famous chefs from all over the country in the imperial kitchen of the Empress Dowager Cixi. They each have their own characteristics, each of them is good at something different, and the materials used are all purchased from across the country. It is top-grade, so what the Empress Dowager Cixi eats every day is a top-notch state banquet.
The dish "Tiger Pill in Clear Soup" is very popular in Cixi. It mainly uses the testicles of Siberian tigers. The male Siberian tiger is hunted, then the testicles are removed and simmered in prepared chicken soup for three hours. You know, the chicken soup here is not the common chicken soup in our homes, but has gone through many processes
Fresh chicken soup prepared by the chef. Then take out the tiger's testicles, peel them, and marinate them in seasonings for two hours. Finally, cut it into very thin slices with a knife, place it in the shape of a peony flower on a plate, and eat it with onion, ginger, garlic, vinegar and other sauces. For modern people, not to mention the clear soup tiger soup, even the chicken soup for boiling testicles is rare.
In fact, one of Empress Dowager Cixi’s favorite delicacies in her life was the very common roast duck. How much do you love eating? Judging from the palace menus we have seen so far, there will be a hanging oven duck on Cixi's dining table almost every day. Hanging oven duck is the current hanging oven roast duck. Cixi is a Manchu, and Manchus like to eat barbecue. Empress Dowager Cixi loves barbecue very much. In her Imperial Tea Dining Room, there was a department called Gualu Bureau, which specialized in making roast duck for Cixi.
The Empress Dowager Cixi was so obsessed with eating that she could eat all kinds of dishes, but she dared not eat one kind of food, and no one in the palace dared to cook it for her. That's beef.
Today, beef is the most common food on the public table. Whether it's barbecue or shabu-shabu, beef is a very common dish that everyone can afford. But in the late Qing Dynasty, eating beef was prohibited in the palace. In the ancient era when there was no machinery for survival, cattle farming was the main productivity, and the emperor mainly relied on agriculture to maintain the stability of the country. You must know that farmers have no fields and will resist when they starve. Therefore, cattle are regarded as sacred creatures in various dynasties. Cixi always stayed away from farm cattle and never ate them. In 1903, Princess De Ling, who had returned from studying in Western Europe, entered the palace for the first time. When Empress Dowager Cixi entertained her for dinner, there were more than a hundred kinds of dishes on the table, including pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, vegetables and various sweets. De Ling was fascinated by the food. The princess was dazzled. But there was only no beef. She didn't understand why there was no beef, because in Europe where she lived, beef was edible and beef cattle were often raised specifically for food.
Cixi later explained: "Eating beef is a great sin"