Everyone is familiar with cadre canteens, which are now available at all levels of government. But when it comes to ancient cadre canteens, I'm afraid you don't know.
In fact, as early as the Qin and Han Dynasties, especially in the Western Han Dynasty, the court did some favors to Guan Chen, such as "being a cook" and "being too official for food", but it was not widely used. Cui, an official of the Tang Dynasty, recorded the year of Emperor Taizong's "diligent rule of the world" in The Wall of the Judge Cao Dining Hall, so he decided to extend the time of attending the court meeting every day. In order to prevent officials from going to court hungry, the court provided free "working breakfast" for officials, and the canteen was under the porch of the Golden Hall. Because it is effective, it is liked by officials.
Soon after, seeing that his decision had achieved good results, Emperor Taizong decided to extend this policy to other government departments and local governments at all levels in the capital, and it was customized from then on. In the late Tang Dynasty, Cai Cili said in the book "Dining Hall of Confucius Institute in Qianzhou": "As for the county government in the world, if there is a Cao department, there is a public kitchen." Thus, in the three hundred years of the Tang Dynasty, the cadre canteen was popularized, and every dynasty since then has followed this system.
In ancient times, the standard name of "cadre canteen" was "public kitchen", but there were also different names.
If the emperor entertains you, it's called "Chutian". As long as local officials at or above a certain level come to Beijing to report on their work, they can go to "Chutian" for dinner. In Beijing, officials outside the scope of attending court meetings can have a working meal in the public kitchen of their department, which is called "Baiguan Kitchen".
Among the officials, the highest rank is the political kitchen of the Prime Minister's Office, which is called "the kitchen in the hall". It is mentioned that in 2000, during the reign of Emperor Gaozong, the prime ministers held a meeting with the theme of "drinking soup in the government hall" to discuss lowering food standards. Some people object that rich public meals are the emperor's emphasis on the central locomotive. Let's stop talking about it.
Local governments at all levels and organs of relevant central departments also have public kitchens with names such as "County Canteen" and "Cao Ding Canteen". In addition, all public kitchens, while providing working meals for officials, also set up canteens for officials, that is, ordinary small officials, such as chief officials, called "official kitchens" or "kitchen assistants".