Empress Dowager Cixi is a famous "luxury empress dowager" in history, especially in diet. Take Shoushan House, which is responsible for Cixi's personal diet. This cooking class, located on the east side of the Summer Palace Grand Theatre building, consists of 108 rooms, occupying 8 courtyards, with 128 chefs working in it! Such a large-scale cookhouse squad can provide food for one person and even serve an assembler. According to the catering system of the Qing court, the emperor's standard diet for one day includes: 22kg of plate meat, 5kg of soup meat, pork 1 kg, 2 sheep, 5 chickens, 3 ducks, * * * Chinese cabbage, spinach, coriander, leek 1 9kg, 60 radishes and melons/kloc-0. Sesame oil 1 kg, sesame 1 5 spoon, sand 3 spoon, white sugar walnut kernel and black jujube each 12, Yuquan Shanshui 12 can. Empress dowager cixi's food standard was basically the same as that of the emperor at first, but later, with the acceleration of enjoyment, the food standard gradually surpassed that of the emperor. In terms of quantity, there are 100 bowls of different dishes in only two meals a day, and there are at least 20 bowls of dishes in two "snacks" other than meals. As for quality, there is no choice. This 128 chef is a national famous chef with exquisite craftsmanship, but each has its own characteristics. The raw materials used are all top-grade products purchased from various places, including "Bazhen Bird", "Bazhen Sea" and "Bazhen Grass". Pay more attention when cooking. For example, bean sprouts require that all the roots of bean sprouts be pulled out one by one, and the bean sprouts themselves cannot be broken. Cixi eats top state banquets every day, and there are many famous chefs and dishes. As for the value, it is no exaggeration to say that what she eats is definitely "real money and silver"! One year, Empress Dowager Cixi wanted to get rid of the train addiction and put a huge imperial meal class on her special train. Although it is a temporary kitchen built on the train, the quantity and scale are not satisfactory. A * * * occupies four carriages, of which 1 carriage is equipped with 50 stoves, each of which is responsible for cooking two kinds of dishes. * * * employs 100 chefs. Prepare 100 kinds of conventional dishes and 100 kinds of cakes, fruits, sweets and dried fruits for each meal. Of course, Cixi is a real everyman, not as massive as Marshal Tian Peng, so so many dishes are basically just a few dishes around her, decorating Galeries Lafayette's face. These inexhaustible delicacies will be poured into swill buckets to feed pigs after she eats them, or distributed to female officials, maids and senior eunuchs. Cixi herself is still a famous "foodie", and she studies food as much as beauty, which leads her to pay too much attention to food. Take the tea she drinks as an example. In order to ensure a "fresh" word, the water used for making tea is the spring water shipped from Yuquan Mountain that day. The scented tea she drinks is not fire-baked jasmine and roses, but flowers. Flowers and tea are soaked together in a small cup, so that the brewed tea has both tea fragrance and floral fragrance. The quality of tea has gone up, and the props for drinking tea can't be shabby, so the cups used by Cixi are all made of fine white jade, and even the saucers are made of pure gold. Every time you use tea, there is also a set of quite exquisite procedures. First, two eunuchs carefully held the saucer in their hands and respectfully sent it to Cixi. Then they shouted beautifully: "Lafayette has tasted tea!" Cixi began to drink tea lazily. In addition to daily dishes, Cixi also has her own preferences. Whenever she is hungry or greedy, she will appoint a chef to cook at any time. Famous chefs who cook for Cixi include Wang Yushan, Schell and Zhang Yongxiang. Among them, Wang Yushan is good at "grasping the stir-frying", which is called "four major grasping"-grasping the fried tenderloin, grasping the fried fish fillet, grasping the fried kidney flower and grasping the fried shrimp. Cixi also has a hobby of eating snacks. On her 60th birthday, snacks include: meatball cake, Shouzi cake, Fuzi cake, deer cake, auspicious cake, Fushou cake, Changchun cake, New Year cake, Qixing cake, Songshou cake, Ruyi cake, Baihua cake, Santao cake, Huatao cake and pine nut cake. Empress Dowager Cixi's weirdest hobby is to display fruits and smell incense, and the fruits she eats every year are equally valuable. According to records, there are more than 158000 apples a year alone. The following is a list of fresh fruits eaten by Cixi, Emperor Guangxu and Empress Yulong in the 23rd year of Guangxu: 65,438 apples, 65,438 autumn pears, 065,438 autumn pears, 77,300 Li Tang pears, 53,295 Xiao Hongli pears, 2,275 persimmons, 2,400 official pears and 366 pomegranates. 429 baskets of cherries, 920 baskets of plums, 694 baskets of apricots, 49 baskets of sand fruits1basket, 770 baskets of betel nuts, 0 kg of grapes 16385 kg of fresh hawthorn 16663 kg, walnuts, chestnuts, red dates, black dates, ginkgo, hazelnuts and sun-dried hawthorn. In fact, the reign of Cixi was the most difficult period for the people of the Qing Dynasty. In addition to paying the prescribed tax burden, the people are also indirectly exploited by western powers.