"Suiyuan Food List" was also included in the shortlist of 50 masterpieces handed down from generation to generation in Nanjing. This book can be said to have reached a new height, and its time span and influence have continued to this day, and it is still regarded as a necessary classic by chefs of major cuisines.
It's a pleasure to eat all the Han cuisine in the Yangtze River valley in Suiyuan Gourmet List. Knowing how to eat is a science. It is not difficult to write about the enjoyment and happiness of food. But being able to write something that people read and smell with relish is the highest level of being a gourmet. Yuan Mei, one of the three gifted scholars of Jiang Zuo during the Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty, was an incorrigible gourmet. He is good at eating, eating well, eating well, eating attentively and writing attentively.
Mencius said that "a gentleman cooks from afar", but Yuan Mei, a great scholar, spent 40 years accumulating the essence of "food and enjoyment" and wrote an unprecedented menu of China's diet with gardens, filling the gap in the history of China's diet culture for thousands of years. This booklet records 326 kinds of dishes and snacks popular in China from14th century to18th century, ranging from delicious food and seafood to side dishes, porridge and rice, to famous wines and teas. It is a miniature encyclopedia of China's diet. Yuan Mei, a native of Hangzhou, lives in Nanjing all the year round, so he covers all the delicacies of the Han nationality in the Yangtze River valley for hundreds of years.
Yu Xuerong, secretary general of Jiangsu Catering Association, said that China's recipes from ancient times to the present are all technical explanations, but Yuan Mei's own private kitchen menu with garden has a strong cultural atmosphere, rich literary color and full of elegant demeanor of literati. This book is not thick and has few words. You can browse it right away. "But after reading it, I will think that this old man really eats; Your second impression is that this old man can really write and eat. Today, Huaiyang cuisine, local cuisine, hangzhou dishes cuisine and Anhui cuisine are still inseparable from their ancestors and cannot jump out of this food list. "
Since its publication, the book Suiyuan Food List, which is recognized as a classic by chefs, has been divided into fourteen aspects: information list, warning list, seafood list, jiangxian list, special sacrifice list, miscellaneous sacrifice list, feather family list, aquarium scale list, aquarium non-weighing list, miscellaneous vegetarian list, small menu, snack list, rice porridge list and gourmet wine list. Twenty complete and strict operation requirements were put forward in the notice list, and fourteen precautions were put forward in the warning list.
Many viewpoints in "Suiyuan Food List" are still worth learning and using for reference today. For example, Yuan Mei believed that the beauty of food lies not in quantity but in quality, and nutrition should be emphasized. "Tofu is well done, far better than bird's nest; Porphyra is not cooked well, not as good as bamboo shoots. " Another example is Yuan Mei's emphasis on food collocation. He quoted the phrase "a husband should match a woman" in the Book of Rites, explaining that dishes should match "talent and appearance" and dishes should match "the same kind". "Only when the Qing people are well-balanced, the rich are well-balanced, the soft are well-balanced, and the rigid are well-balanced, will there be wonderful harmony." For another example, Yuan Mei pays attention to the taste of dishes and requires dishes to be "rich but not greasy; The taste should be fresh, not light ... If you blindly pursue fat, it is better to eat lard ... If you just want to be weak, you might as well drink water. " He asked for strict adherence to the order of serving. "salty first, light after; The rich are the first, and the thin are the last; Those without soup are the first, and those with soup are the last. "
"Menu with the Garden" is a thin book, but it is very literary and the text is simple and refreshing, so everyone can follow it. Yuan Mei also wrote a menu of a certain dish, from whose hand and from which family, which naturally became a guiding historical record for the whole society to improve cooking technology and study traditional dishes and cooking methods. Since its publication, this book has long been recognized as a chef's classic and has been translated into English, French, Japanese and other major languages.
Interestingly, Yuan Mei can only be said to be a food culture theorist, not a chef, because he can only eat but not cook.
When tea eggs need to be cooked with "two sticks of incense", can you still eat these mouth-watering dishes recorded in Suiyuan Food List in Nanjing? Yu Xuerong said regretfully: "Hard work!"
He introduced that Suiyuan menu is not a recipe, so although Suiyuan menu survived, Suiyuan cuisine has been lost for nearly 200 years. In the early 1980s, Xue, the chef of Jinling Hotel and a national culinary master, who was known as the "King of Chefs in Jinling", was determined to "revive" the garden cuisine that had been lost for many years and devoted himself to studying it for more than 20 years. With the advent of one dish after another, Suiyuan cuisine once regained its vitality.
Yu Xuerong said, don't think that the official dishes must be shark's fin and bear's paw. The emphasis on official dishes lies not in the preciousness and rarity of raw materials, but in the production method and time-consuming luxury. When trying to restore the vegetable garden, Xue encountered such a problem: How long will the tea eggs in the menu of the vegetable garden be cooked? If you eat tea eggs in the way of ordinary people, cooking 10 minutes is enough, and cooking for half an hour at most is already delicious. "Suiyuan Food List" says: "The more ripe, the more tender: such as kidneys and eggs." He also said that the time for boiling tea eggs should be "two incense sticks". To this end, Xue specially visited the old monk in the temple and learned that he was always offering incense. According to this calculation, it takes about 4 hours to "two incense sticks". He repeatedly tried to cook tea eggs with 32 eggs, and finally found that the tea eggs cooked for 4 hours were the best, and the marinade penetrated the yolk and tasted delicious.
The predecessor of "Gulou Grand Atrium Garden 1" once claimed to build Yuanjia private cuisine. Now Laomendong Hotel' Ask Liu' also claims to have borrowed from the "Suiyuan Food List", but these are mostly hype concepts to attract diners. " Yu Xuerong said that the real vegetable garden has been basically lost with the death of Xue.
About Yuan Mei and Suiyuan Xue Bing: I saw Yuan Mei's tombstone when I was a child. "I saw Yuan Mei's tombstone when I was a child." Xue Bing, a famous scholar of literature and history in Nanjing, said that after Yuan Mei's death, his tomb was also in Suiyuan, at Baibupo, Wutai Mountain. At the entrance of Wutaishan bowling alley.
Xue Bing studies in Jinling Middle School and lives in Shigu Road. To the north of the school wall is Suiyuan. On his way home, he often goes to play with Liang Qingshan and Suiyuan generation. So I have seen Yuan Mei's tombstone with my own eyes. "His wife and little wife are still buried there."
Baibupo is named after a hillside of Wutai Mountain, and it takes 100 steps from bottom to top. Yuan Mei's tomb was dug during the Cultural Revolution. When Wutaishan Gymnasium was built, the tombstone was directly removed, which was embarrassing.
Jianzhong Zhao, a member of Nanjing CPPCC, was very sad when talking about Yuan Mei. He said that there is no memorial hall in Yuan Mei so far, and now even the cemetery can't be found.
Suiyuan has 300 mu, which is within the scope of Nanjing Normal University today.
Because "Go with the Garden" has been haunting Yuan Mei, even the title is written as "Eat with the Garden". So Suiyuan, where Heather Normal University is located, is Yuan Mei's residence?
According to records, Suiyuan originated from Wu's Wu Garden, one of the "Four Childes" in the late Ming Dynasty. Later, Wu Yuan was transferred several times and became Cao Yuan in the hands of Cao Shi, the ancestor of Cao Xueqin. During the Yongzheng period, Cao Yuan was copied and given to Sui Hede, who was in charge of real estate, and then transferred to Yuan Mei. When Yuan Mei bought Suiyuan, it had been abandoned for many years, and Yuan Mei renamed it Suiyuan.
"According to records, Suiyuan has 300 mu. How big can it be? " Xue Bing said that the road parallel to Guangzhou Road between Shanghai Road and Qingdao Road is called Suiyuan. At that time, Suiyuan should have been extended to Nanjing Normal University.
According to research, Suiyuan borders on the west side of Qingdao Road in the east and Wulongtan Park in the west. There was Yuanmei Temple on Guangzhou Road in those days.