Speaking of Yuan Mei, his poem "Moss" says that "the day is not everywhere, but youth only comes. Although the moss is as small as rice, it also blooms like a peony. " The year before last, it was adapted into a song by Liang Jun, a rural teacher, and Liang Xiao, a child in the mountains, which became popular all over the country.
Yuan Mei is a famous poet, essayist and literary critic. However, many people may not know that he is the number one "foodie" throughout the ages. To put it mildly, he is the chief gourmet in China. Yuan Mei has many hobbies, but he puts "eating" first. He wrote in "The Story of the House": "Good taste, lewdness, good house decoration, good travel, good friends, good flowers, good respect, celebrity calligraphy and painting, good books."
After Yuan Mei resigned, he had money and leisure, and lived a long and charming life. Chef Xiaoyu was a famous chef, so that he could taste all kinds of delicious food. Yuan Mei paid great attention to the characteristics of various diets and cooking techniques, and made extensive research to learn from others.
Sometimes, in order to get a formula, Yuan Mei bowed his head. On a trip, Yuan Mei ordered a dish in a small restaurant called steamed tofu with hibiscus flowers, which was colorful and delicious. Yuan Mei immediately asked the shopkeeper for the formula, but the shopkeeper refused to give it. Yuan Mei offered to buy it with a large sum of money, but Jiang still refused. Yuan Mei nasty, three bows on the spot. The shopkeeper knows Yuan Mei. He laughed when he saw this: "Zicai (Yuan Mei) has never condescended to be a great person, but now he condescends to be tofu!" After the speech, give the menu.
Yuan Mei said in the "Preface" of "Menu for Eating in the Garden" that if Confucius sings with others and listens to others' singing well, he must let them sing it again and then follow suit. Sages are good at learning from others because they have skills. I "respect this tenet. Every time I eat from a certain restaurant, I will ask the chef to go to the kitchen and hold a ceremony to accept the disciples." For forty years, it has gathered a lot of beauty. ..... Yu Du asked his policy and accepted it. " Look, this is the spiritual realm of a gourmet.
The content of Suiyuan Food List is divided into two parts. The first part is the basic theory, mainly including "advance notice" and "warning notice", which embodies Yuan Mei's thought of treating taste, not only expounds the essence of food cooking, but also contains the author's unique views on life. The second part is the menu, which includes 326 kinds of dishes, meals, tea and wine popular in China from14th century to18th century, from delicacies to side dishes of porridge and rice, which has preserved a lot of valuable information for the history of Chinese food. Today, Huaiyang cuisine, local cuisine, hangzhou dishes cuisine and Anhui cuisine have not changed from their ancestors, and they can't jump out of this food list.
02
There is a saying that "governing a big country is like cooking a little fresh". Everything in the world is connected, everything is known, and there are inputs and feelings, so it can be integrated. Yuan Mei, he read a lot of poetry books, not only "ancient prose, CET-4 and CET-6, but also can think spontaneously and understand the ancient method". It is also very enjoyable to watch him talk about the way to eat and drink!
The following excerpt is from Suiyuan Food List for readers.
Everything is innate, such as people have their own endowments. Human nature is stupid, although Confucius and Mencius teach, it is useless; Poor physical properties, although cooked in Yiya, but tasteless.
Generally speaking, pigs should be thin-skinned and not smelly; Chickens should be tender and not childish; Crucian carp is better with a flat body and a white belly, and the black back will rise stronger than the plate; Eels swim in lakes and streams, and those born in rivers rub their joints; Valley-fed ducks are fat and white; Bamboo shoots buried in the soil are few and sweet; The same ham is good, but ugly; The same owl, but beauty and evil are divided into ice and charcoal. Other sundries can be analogized.
Generally speaking, the chef's job ranks sixth and the comprador's job ranks fourth in a delicacy.
Brief analysis
What I'm talking about here is the importance of ingredients, and it takes 40% of the time to choose ingredients for a good dish. Professor Kong Meng's way is just right!
Enumerating examples, like the long and short sentences of Song Ci, is full of cadence, which shows Yuan Mei's language skills. Writing "eating" popular science is still so literary and admirable.
One thing has its own flavor, so we can't confuse it with another. Just like a saint teaching, teaching students in accordance with their aptitude is fun, not eclectic. The so-called beauty of a gentleman as an adult is also.
Today, when I saw the tacky kitchen, I moved chickens, ducks, pigs and geese, and the soup rolled together, with thousands of hands and tastes like chewing wax. I am afraid that chickens, pigs, geese and ducks have spirits, and I will complain in the city where I died in vain. People who are good at cooking must set up more pots, stoves, pots and bowls, so that everything has its own characteristics and each bowl has its own taste. The drug addict's tongue should be overwhelmed, and his heart feels overwhelmed.
Brief analysis
"Teaching students in accordance with their aptitude", so is cooking!
The Beauty of a Gentleman's Adult is joyful, but the sentence "I am afraid that chickens, pigs, geese and ducks have spirits, and I will complain in a city that died in vain" is even more exciting. Yuan Dacai is very humorous, haha ...
It is also polite to refrain from dancing jig to entertain guests. But once a dish is served, the reason depends on the chopsticks of the guests, thin and fat, each with its own merits. It is reasonable to listen to the convenience of the guests. Why force it?
It is common for the host to pick it up with chopsticks, and there is no bowl in the dirty plate before folding the guests, which is very annoying. You know, guests are not people without hands and eyes, nor are they children or brides. He is shy and hungry. Why should he be treated with the opinion of a small family in the village? Its slow guest is here! Recently, I advocate family, especially this bad habit, which is extremely hateful. I take food from chopsticks and force it into the population.
Brief analysis
Yuan Mei's reasoning is easy to understand, vivid in language, elegant and grounded.
It is a bad habit to help others with chopsticks. "It is disgusting to take food with chopsticks and force it into the population, just like rape." Don't say unsanitary. Some people are allergic to certain foods, so it is not convenient to talk about them. Therefore, it is difficult for the host to pile up the unsuitable food in his bowl and eat it in front of the host. Therefore, no matter what, there must be a degree, so is eating and drinking, and so is enthusiasm! Too much is not enough, this is the truth!
03
All levels of China's traditional culture are interlinked in essence. Therefore, the significance of rereading "Menu" with Garden lies not only in diet, but also provides us with materials to study the humanistic customs of ancient society, through which we can understand the philosophy of life conveyed by the ancients and even inspire literary creation.
Wu's Scholars once wrote that an official could not eat meat because of mourning, but he was insatiable about the delicious food at the banquet and secretly "caught a prawn garden" and swallowed it while others were drunk. How to make this "shrimp garden"? How does it taste? It's not written in the book, but it is introduced in Yuan Mei's Suiyuan Food List: "Shrimp Garden" is to mash shrimp (original note: "Don't stir the shrimp too finely to avoid distorting the taste"), mix it with glutinous rice flour, big oil and salt water (without soy sauce), add onion and ginger juice, then cook it in boiling water, take it out and put it in chicken soup and laver. After reading it, do you have a better understanding of the behavior of officials described by Wu?
Interestingly, as a poet and poetics scholar, Yuan Mei's poetics is often referred to as diet. This is not surprising. Some important categories and concepts of China's poetics were originally associated with "taste", such as verve, interest, body odor, interest and taste. This "taste" originally from diet has become the standard for evaluating the aesthetic value of art. Here in Yuan Mei, it is the same thing to discuss poetry and taste and treat taste and poetry. Try the following example.
Yuan Mei on Poetry:
"Bear's paw, the leopard's fetus, the most precious food, it is better to eat it alive than a dish and a bamboo shoot; Peony, peony, flowers are rich, cut the ribbon for it, not as good as wild horseradish. Fresh taste and real interest. Only in this way can people talk about poetry. " (Suiyuan Poetry, Volume 1)
"The taste is sweet and self-pleasing, but it is disgusting if it is too sweet; The bitter taste stings the mouth, but the slightly bitter taste makes people think. Knowing that it is sweet and fresh is not bad; If you can work hard, you will be happy. " ("Suiyuan Poetry" Volume 7)
Yuan Mei talks about eating:
"What is ear rice? Those who eat by ear are called service names. In the name of being greedy and boasting, eat with your ears, not your mouth. I don't know that tofu is more delicious than bird's nest; Bamboo shoots are not as delicious as seaweed. I said that chickens, pigs, fish and ducks are also heroes, each with its own flavor. The sea cucumber bird's nest is also an ignorant person. It has no temperament and is placed under the fence. " ("Menu with Garden")
"What is eye food? A gluttonous person is also called gluttony. Today, people admire the name of "eating after the abbot". Many dishes are eaten in stacks, with eyes instead of mouth. If you don't know how to write by hand, you will fail; Celebrities write poems, and when they are bored, they will have tired sentences. " ("Menu with Garden")
Yuan Mei also has a poem entitled "Taste":
The taste of life is like poetry, there is nothing sour and salty in the world.
First of all, look at the color, fragrance and when the pearl fairy dew will be served.
There is a saying in The Doctrine of the Mean: "People don't know the taste if they want to eat and drink." Cao Pi said in Dian Lun: "One generation of elders knows where to live, and three generations know how to feed." It can be seen that "eating" is a university question. Yuan Mei contributed greatly to making the knowledge of "eating" rise to an elegant hall! Besides Yuan Mei, there was a famous literary figure Li Yu in Qing Dynasty. They all pay attention to the taste and aesthetics of life. Their erudition, interest and style of writing have influenced a large number of modern prose masters such as Zhou Zuoren, Liang Shiqiu and Lin Yutang, and made great contributions to the enlightenment of modern life.
Writing, there are magnificent masterpieces that express social themes, as well as warm sketches full of human fireworks. Yuan Mei's exploration of "eating" is also worth learning.