This is Chairman Mao on September 24, 1961 in Wuhan, East Lake A House banquet in honor of Marshal Montgomery's menu. On that day, Chairman Mao received Montgomery, originally planned to talk for a few minutes, mainly to discuss military issues. But did not expect, Chairman Mao and Montgomery chat very happy, so it was temporarily decided to stay Montgomery **** for lunch.
Cheng Ruming was informed at the time that "the President invited foreign guests to lunch at noon, the specifications should be high."
"My grandfather said he immediately thought of Western food. But there were very few western food ingredients prepared in the kitchen that day. Thinking about it, he thought the special prawns from Bohai Bay were good, and Westerners like cheese, so he had a bright idea and then invented a new dish."
According to Liu Jian, at that time, Cheng Ruming cut the marinated prawns into slices of meat as thin as cellophane, rolled the cheese in the center, and then wrapped the outside with egg, flour and breadcrumbs, and then deep-fried in the pot. The difficulty with this dish is that you can't break the shrimp, so it's a lot of knife work. Once the shrimp meat is broken, when fried cheese heat flow out, even if the failure.
If you do well, then this dish is the outside of the charred inside, eat when the shrimp cut, with shrimp meat dipped in the flow out of the cheese to eat, in fact, it is a very enjoyable dish.
"Field Marshal Montgomery was 74 years old that year, but he barely had any of the dish left that day. After the luncheon, Montgomery said to Chairman Mao, 'Thank you, Chairman Mao, I haven't had such a full meal in a long time, your food is so delicious.' Chairman Mao was very happy to hear this, because it meant that the talks that day had not only made Montgomery agree with Chairman Mao's military thinking, but also develop a liking for Chinese cooking. At a time when we had not yet established diplomatic relations with Britain, the attitude of an important person like Montgomery towards China would certainly have had an impact on the relationship between the two countries."
At the time, Chairman Mao thought the dish was not made by our chef, so he also asked Nurse Wu Xujun to inquire in the kitchen. After learning that it was indeed from the hands of Cheng Lao, Chairman Mao gave a thumbs up and said, "Master Cheng has excellent craftsmanship." Since the dish was made to entertain the marshal, it was later named Marshal Shrimp.
"In fact, the changes in state banquets over the years can clearly reflect the trajectory of our country's development." Liu Jian said, pointing to a photo of Cheng Ruming with Deng Xiaoping and others.
In Chairman Mao's time, there were very few places in our country where we could eat Western food, and there weren't many Western dishes in the state banquet, which had a lot to do with the preferences of the leaders as well as the country's politics. Therefore, Cheng Ruming created a lot of Chinese and Western dishes. Until the 80s, when the reform and opening up began, western food was not common in China.
According to Cheng Ruming, at that time, there were airplanes at the Beijing airport every day to bring in good steak ingredients from France, and there were only two cars to pick up the airplanes, one from Maxim's and the other from Zhongnanhai.
"But among Deng Xiaoping's group of leaders, many had experience living abroad, were open-minded, and were very receptive to Western food. For example, Deng Xiaoping, he ate steak as long as medium rare. Moreover, at that time, we opened up to the outside world and received more and more foreign guests, so we also need to introduce more Western food."
At this time, the state banquet began to be in line with international standards. After research, it was considered feasible to share meals for state banquets as it was a courtesy and ensured that everyone was well fed, and it was also more hygienic. Since then, our state banquet has begun to use the form of separate meals, which is often referred to as "individual food".
"This is undoubtedly a step forward for the state banquet itself, but at the same time more able to also reflect the evolution of our country."
"Speaking of the state banquet, there is nothing mysterious, just high specifications, ceremonial heavy only." State banquet cooking master, Diaoyutai State Guesthouse deputy chief chef Wang Hongfa said in an interview.
The dishes of the State Banquet, brings together local cuisines from all over the country, mainly Huaiyang Cuisine, by several generations of chefs to organize, improve, refine and become, such as Sichuan Cuisine, less numbness, spiciness, greasiness, a variety of dishes in the original basis, made improvements, recipes are generally also light, meat and vegetables with the main.
A national banquet of the highest standard in addition to the dishes to ensure that, in the raw materials and selection of the same can not be taken lightly.
Wang Hongfa said, all the raw materials, are from fixed channels, are using strict standards, such as vegetables, are organic vegetables, can not add any chemical fertilizers to avoid damage caused by harmful substances. Cooking required raw materials used parts also have strict regulations, such as "open water cabbage", this dish is generally only selected three and a half inches high, green leaf meat thick cabbage, but also to remove the vegetable stick to stay in its three leaves tender heart.
In addition, the state banquet all materials, must be selected from its origin. Such as bird's nest, non-Thai official bird's nest is not used; shark's fin, not the South China Sea production of a very group of shark's fin is not on the table; golden jujubes, can only be used in the production of Leling.
"Because it is a state banquet, these materials have to be counterparts to order, so as to be delicious."
These chefs from all over the world, in addition to high political quality, but also "rooted in red", to pass the political review, and cultural quality requirements are also high, in addition to the spoon on the kung fu, but also requires the study of customs and culture of various countries, will be cooking famous dishes around the country, according to the different objects of the service, according to the difference, with the guests and change.
"The first thing you have to do is to find out what can't be served. Countries with different cultures, religions, beliefs, each with different taboos on food and drink. And the chef of the state banquet cooking, and not simply a soup, a soup on the table so simple, to take into account the national relations, regional characteristics, dietary practices, hobbies, banquet form and many other aspects of the problem, a little bit of bad, may affect the national political aspects of the overall situation." Therefore, Wang Hongfa said, the chef needs to have a comprehensive comprehensive quality, not only to have superior cooking skills, but also have a wealth of dietary knowledge, understanding of the countries' dietary habits and taboos.
Such as in the dishes can not appear in the visiting country's flag, logo; can not appear chicken claws, offal and other ingredients; can not be contrary to the religious beliefs of the visiting country's taboo food, such as the Indians regard the cow as sacred, the table can not appear steak; British view of the goat and the peacock as an ominous thing, in the shape of food carving can not appear in these two kinds of animals; the French do not like chrysanthemums and so on. A state banquet chef is called "ambassador", the world's countries and customs, food style food customs are to be as familiar.
The state banquet cooking is very fine, stewing, burning, boiling, steaming, deep-frying, slipping, stewing, popping, steak, plus in recent years, but also borrowed and absorbed the western cooking techniques, so that the means of cooking is more diversified. Development of the menu, the chef as far as possible to fully understand the living habits of Chinese and foreign guests and taboos, tastes and hobbies, as well as age, physical condition; taking into account the seasons, climate, food ingredients, nutrition and other factors, the summer to light-based, winter to nourish the main.
Cheng Ruming said, big fire frying, slow stewing, wax fire lightly burn these seemingly subtle differences in the fire, but will produce a very different flavor, the need for chefs to repeatedly test and summarize.
"A lot of dishes stew the best time but that two seconds, miss it is not a flavor at all."
According to reports, U.S. President George W. Bush and Reagan's favorite "Buddha jumped over the wall", at least three days and three nights on the fire. Now with electrified cooking utensils, new process management approach, efficiency has been greatly improved, the attitude of meticulous work remains unchanged.