However, in the Qing Dynasty, it was an exception. Rulers usually ate two meals a day. Kangxi thought that if people want to live a long life, they can only eat seven points full, which is his way of keeping in good health. He also despised the behavior of Han officials eating three meals a day.
Later, the Qing royal family continued this tradition, and neither the prince nor the princess was allowed to eat too much. This has led to the situation of not having enough to eat. Although they are from the royal family, the royal family is not so comfortable.
According to Pu Yi's recollection, the emperor had no specific time for dinner. Just tell the eunuchs around you to pass the food to the imperial dining room, and the food will be served soon after delivery.
The reason why the chef can serve food so quickly is that they have prepared it in advance. Every process and flow of these dishes is very complicated, and someone needs to supervise the tasting. If we don't do it in advance, I'm afraid the emperor will need to be hungry for a while.
A complicated process
What a waste of time cooking for the emperor! Just look at Cixi's longevity canteen. Cixi's longevity canteen is a huge organization, with about 300 people, 100 stoves. Each stove is equipped with three people. They are cooking and cooking.
Among them, odd jobs are the most tedious. He needs to select, select and clean the raw materials before he can give them to the side dishes. Side dishes need to be cut, cut, chopped and prepared, and these preparations can only be handed over to the chef.
During the period, there was the supervision of the general manager of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Shou canteen. On the one hand, it is to prevent poisoning, on the other hand, it is also to know who is in charge of this dish, and then if the superior doesn't like to blame, he can have a landing.
After eating, the dishes will be put into a silver bowl, and those dishes that are inconvenient to put silver products will be accompanied by a silver medal, which is to prevent poisoning.
These dishes will be tasted by eunuchs before being sent to the emperor. This process is called eating. After these dishes are made, they will be wrapped in Huang Yun and sent to the emperor before they can be opened.
As can be seen from this program, this process is very complicated. Therefore, the chef must prepare the dishes in advance, or it is a great sin to give them to the emperor hungry.
Emperors generally don't eat the dishes in the imperial kitchen.
After these dishes were put on the emperor's table through various procedures, they had no other use except to support the scene. The emperor also knows that these dishes are prepared in advance, and the emperor generally won't eat those cooked dishes.
So what does the emperor eat? Emperors usually eat about 20 kinds of dishes sent by the empress dowager or the imperial concubine.
When the food is finished, the emperor can move chopsticks. Generally, only three chopsticks can be used for each dish, and eunuchs will take them away.
Similarly, in order not to let others know the emperor's preferences, others know which dish the emperor likes to eat, and it is difficult to detect the chronic poison in this dish. It can be seen that the emperor is not so good, and he can eat as much as he likes.
It is a tradition of the Qing royal family for the empress dowager to send meals to the emperor. It is the empress dowager or the toffee who expresses love to the emperor. After the emperor finished eating, the eunuch would tell them about the emperor's meal, of course, most of the time it was a formality.
The affection between the royal families is cold, and this is just to add a little human touch to the deserted palace.
No matter what the emperor eats, eunuchs who deliver meals usually reply to the queen mother, "Long live the Lord!" " !
The emperor is a human being and needs to eat. Except for those complicated procedures, it is no different from ordinary people. He chewed and swallowed with chopsticks.