In the famous novel A Dream of Red Mansions, the food culture of the Jia family was introduced. We all know that Jia Fu is a prince, an ancestor and the most powerful aristocrat in ancient times. The final decline of the Jia family has a lot to do with their long-term extravagant life.
Before Daiyu entered the mansion, Jia's mansion was in decline. At that time, the family had been unable to make ends meet for a long time, and it was necessary to sell some valuable items to barely hold up the facade. In fact, the Jia family has so many fields and various private incomes from outside, which should not be so bad, which is related to some policies of the Jia family. Such a large family in their house spends a lot of money and eats luxuriously on weekdays, which is Jia's style.
For example, granny Liu entered the Grand View Garden and tasted a dish called eggplant. It is made of common eggplant, but it needs a lot of materials to match when making it. Grandma Liu said that she needed more than ten chickens to match. This statement is obviously exaggerated, but it also shows how extravagant Jia's diet is.
Cao Xueqin described many dishes in the book, which were also summarized as the recipes of the Red Chamber. However, many of these dishes are fictional, such as eggplant, which was later imitated by some people and could not be cooked well according to the book. Besides, nobles like Feng and others can't cook by themselves. They don't know so much about any dish on the table.
However, Jia Fu's cuisine has one feature, that is, pickles are the main food, which is also a major feature of ancient aristocratic and court cuisines. At first, the cooking techniques of the ancients were relatively few, and these cooking and frying techniques were gradually developed. Relatively speaking, the curing technology is more mature, and ancient dishes can't be well preserved, but the dishes made by curing technology can be preserved for a longer time.
Noble families like Jiafu eat a lot of food every day, instead of having three meals a day on time as they do now. There are also many kitchens at home, and even many small kitchens have been set up in the Grand View Garden to prepare dishes for young ladies and maids. This is the kind of small kitchen that Siqi brought people to smash.
These kitchens will prepare some pickles in advance so as to provide finished products at any time. They can't let ladies and gentlemen wait until they are ready. These pickled vegetables have to go through many processes and be preserved in various precious porcelain jars in order to keep fresh and fragrant for a long time.