When it comes to banquets, the first thing that comes to everyone's mind must be the sumptuous dishes on the table, relatives and friends they haven't seen for a long time, or the joy of drinking and talking.

Mr. Chen Yinke, a great historian, once said, "The culture of the Chinese nation has evolved over thousands of years and reached its peak in the Zhao and Song Dynasties."

So, what kind of extreme trend did the banquet culture of the Song Dynasty embody?

△Gu Hongzhong of the Southern Tang Dynasty, "Han Xizai's Night Banquet" Palace Banquet Xu Jijun once used the word "luxury" to summarize the food customs of the Song Dynasty in the book "Food, Food, Housing and Transportation in the Song Dynasty", but the court used the word "extravagant and lust"

"The word.

Indeed, the emperors in the early Song Dynasty still paid attention to their diet, but by the time of Renzong, the situation had already changed.

"Shao's After Hearing and Seeing Record" records: Once Song Renzong held a palace banquet, the food served by the servants included "one new crab, twenty-eight pieces", Renzong said: "I haven't tasted it yet, the crabs are straight (same as "

"worth") how much?

The servants on the left and right replied: One thousand.

Renzong was dissatisfied and admonished: "I warn you not to be extravagant. One chopstick (chopstick) costs twenty-eight thousand, and I can't bear it." Seeing this, do you feel familiar? This is a popular broadcast some time ago.

In the play "Qing Ping Le", in order to please Renzong, Zhang Yuhan took a piece of meat from three five-day-old lambs just to make him a bowl of soup. After Renzong found out, he also scolded her.

Emperor Renzong still knew how to be frugal, but in the late Northern Song Dynasty, the real extravagance in the court became overwhelming.

△Song Dynasty·Fachang "Shrimp and Crab" Song Huizong's "tasting of hundreds of dishes" has far exceeded that of his ancestors, but he is still dissatisfied. In the use of tableware and ingredients, he can be said to be "superior" in the use of tableware and ingredients.

Once there was a banquet held in Taiqing Temple, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty personally directed it, "He said: 'Here is the banquet, here are the utensils, here is the statue, here is the dish, and here is the music and dance.' After leaving the inner palace, the wine statues and treasures were placed.

Utensils, colored glaze, agate, water essence, sloped glass, jadeite, and jade, said: "This will add to the reputation." The delicious food from all over the world, including snails, clams, shrimps, mandarin fish, Nanhai Qiongzhi, and Dongling jade pistils, are the same as those from the sea.

, saying: 'Add this to the bamboo curtain...'" This shows the level, class and mood of the banquet held by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty.

△ Song Dynasty Huizong Zhao Ji's "Wenhui Tu" Chen Shichong, a poet in the late Southern Song Dynasty, included in "Suiyin Manglu" a "Jade Food Patch" written by a sishan concubine in the Southern Song Dynasty court and given to the prince by the emperor. The specific content is as follows

: Occasionally, in the box, I was given several pieces of paper from the "Jade Food Batch" to the prince every day, which were written by the people in charge of the dining room.

Such as white kidney with wine vinegar, stir-fried quail with three fresh bamboo shoots, roasted dove roe, kingfish, spicy soup, sea salt snake bream, pan-fried three-color bream, pan-fried turtle, Lake fish paste, fried frog, chicken

Herringbone roasted kidney paste, fried catfish, cricket sticks, deer crabs and wine crabs, river shrimps, green shrimps, spicy soup, swallow fish soup, mullet, wine and vinegar hoof crisps, raw tofu, Baiyi

Soup, dried seeds, boiled white kidneys, fried sheep in wine, brains of two animals in vinegar, mixed with clear juice, braised smelt fish, spicy tripe soup, white fish boiled in wine and so on.

Alas!

To receive the support of the world, you must first worry about the world.

Otherwise, it would be a shame to eat vegetarian food, and it would not only be the ruin of your family.

To name just a few, for example, when using a sheep's head to pick two wings, only picking out the two gills of an earth-stepping fish; using a cricket (swimming crab) as a pick to make wontons or a urn, picking out two pincers, and then discard the rest.

It is said that non-noble people can take food from them, so it is said that "this generation is really a dog."

Hey, how can one not know the taste of food in a day?

From this recipe, it is not difficult to see that its variety and ingredients are phoenix marrow and dragon liver.

The recipe of a Southern Song Dynasty prince was so wasteful, so how could this emperor live in such a humble state?

△ Ma Yuan of the Song Dynasty, "A Banquet with Lanterns", the number and types of palace banquets enjoyed by nobles are unprecedented. However, the luxury of the banquets held by powerful officials outside the palace walls is beyond imagination.

In November of the 22nd year of Shaoxing (1152), Zhao Gou, Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty, went to the mansion of Zhang Jun, the prince of Qinghe County, to enjoy a luxurious banquet.

Someone once called this "the largest banquet in Chinese history." How luxurious is it?

It can be said that "there are thirteen rows of appetizers and fifteen cups of wine. There is no interruption between meals, and there are still four dishes at the end." The order of the imperial banquet is as follows: Embroidered high row with eight fruit banks: citron, mandarin orange, pomegranate, tangerine

Seeds, goose pear, milk pear, hawthorn, flowering papaya.

A line of gift bags of Lexian dried fruits: lychees, round eyes, fragrant lotus, torreya nuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts and ginkgo, pear meat, date rings, lotus seed meat, forest bird spinels, and steamed dates.

A line of golden fragrant herbs: brain flower, licorice flower, cinnabar ball, woody clove, waterborneol, Shi Junzi, shrinking sand flower, osmanthus flower, atractylodes ginseng, olive flower.

A row of carved honey fried dishes: carved plum balls, red flowers, carved bamboo shoots, honey winter melon and fish, carved red flowers, large sections of papaya, carved kumquats, green plums and lotus leaves, carved ginger, honey bamboo shoots, carved flowers

Columbine, papaya and square flowers.

A line of salty and sour aromas: papaya, pepper plum, vine flower, cherry, perilla, Xuanhualiuer, grape, licorice flower, shredded ginger, plum meat cake, water

Red ginger and mixed plum cakes.

Preserved cured meat: pork strips, Chinese saps, Yunmeng 豝儿, shrimp cured, meat cured, milk house, bream, Jinshan salted black bean paste, wine cured pork, meat and melon dumplings.

There are eight plates hanging down the hand: pickling bees, sweet apples, rosary beads, balm seeds, large kumquats, new coconut ivory plates, small olives, and elm orange seeds.