To talk about the food in "A Dream of Red Mansions", we have to mention how many times Grandma Liu entered the Grand View Garden. Due to the pressure of life, Grandma Liu came to the Jia Mansion for help. Everyone in the Jia Mansion treated her quite well. Thank you. The Jia family was favored by everyone, and she ate a lot of good food. She ate the kind of flower-shaped pastry that even the most dexterous girl in their village couldn't pinch with a paper hinge; she ate "one or two silver coins" that fell on the ground and were picked up without even making a sound. (pigeon eggs), but what left the deepest impression on her and most readers was probably the eggplant dish that was served with "ten chickens". That day, Grandma Liu asked Mother Jia to have a meal with her. Sister Feng was ordered by Mother Jia to pick up some of the famous dish-eggplant and "feed" it. After eating it, Grandma Liu couldn't help laughing when she heard that it was eggplant. "Not "surprised"), and said the following: "Don't fool me! The eggplant smells like this? We don't have to grow food - only eggplants!" The word "laughing" here is more important than "surprised". It effectively reflects the taste of eggplant - an elderly village woman who should often eat eggplant did not believe that what she was eating was eggplant. When everyone reassured her and she chewed the food carefully, she was dubious. Then she asked Sister Feng how to make it and wanted to go back and eat it. Sister Feng told her: "It's not difficult. You just peel off the eggplant. Just clean the meat, cut it into pieces, fry it with chicken, then cut it into nails with chicken breast meat, mushrooms, new bamboo shoots, mushrooms, five-spice dried bean curd, and various dried fruits, simmer them in chicken soup, and add sesame oil. Once collected, add the vinegar and mix it, put it in a porcelain jar, seal it tightly. When you want to eat it, take it out and mix it with the fried chicken and melon." At this point, Grandma Liu made her famous statement, which was recognized by Mr. Zhou Ruchang. "Extraordinary" exclamation: "My Buddha! I poured a dozen chickens to go with him! No wonder it tastes like this!" As Mr. Zhou said, "This is to declare to readers the true meaning of Chinese advanced recipes." secret". Chinese high-end recipes are not necessarily about rare things such as dragon liver and phoenix marrow, bear paws and orangutan lips. Instead, they pay more attention to using the most ordinary ingredients to make delicious and pleasing dishes. The emphasis is on the method rather than the ingredients. Mr. Jin Yong also explained this point of view in his excellent work "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" through the words of Hong Qigong, a martial arts master and a gourmet. When Huang Rong said that he would make roasted cabbage and steamed tofu for Hong Qi. When eating together, he was ecstatic and introduced the essence of China's advanced recipes to readers. The true art of paying attention to food is not to show one's intentions and luxury in those rare things, but to show one's mental wisdom and means and skills in the most common items. The eggplant in "A Dream of Red Mansions", the "Twenty-seven Kongming Moonlight Night" in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" (making tofu into a round ball, embedding it in Jinhua ham and steaming it, only eating the tofu, but not eating the ham), All are representative works. Someone once copied this eggplant according to the guidance of "A Dream of Red Mansions", but the result was "not very tasty." In fact, the food in "Dream of Red Mansions" is not to show off how well the author knows how to eat and how luxurious his life is, but to reflect the spirit, philosophy and aesthetic taste of Chinese food. Therefore, "painting a tiger cannot be compared to a dog". will happen. There is another description of food in "A Dream of Red Mansions" that is also impressive and very different from Qie Zhen's style, and that is the simple meal Baoyu invited Fang Guan to eat. That day was Baoyu's birthday. Fangguan was a southern girl who was not used to eating longevity noodles and was not qualified to go to the "table" to drink. So she felt unhappy and asked for a food box from the kitchen. "In it is a bowl of shrimp ball and chicken skin soup." , there was another bowl of steamed duck with rice wine, a plate of pickled rouge goose breast, and a plate of four butter pine pulp rolls. Xiaoyan and Fangguan both laughed. "Although this meal is small in scale, it is very exquisite and special. It's the steaming bowl of green rice and japonica rice that's so hot it's so appetizing. It's so lifelike. Looking at it as a whole, the food box - green rice, red goose breast, milky white duck, and light yellow japonica rolls - is really colorful and makes people want to eat it. The characters in "A Dream of Red Mansions" have a special liking for poultry. Let's talk about Fangguan's "casual meal". Among the three dishes, poultry occupies two of them - steamed duck and goose breast. Let's look at "Shi Taijun's Two Banquets in the Grand View Garden" ", Jia's mother was very fond of a poultry dish - quail. These details tell us that wealthy people at that time attached great importance to the connection between diet and health - poultry and birds are generally "cool in nature" and "reducing fire" , it is very suitable for such a pampered person, so we checked the Qing court archives and found that the meat of the nobles in the palace also mainly consisted of poultry, especially ducks. (The breakfast of Emperor Gaozongchun of the Qing Dynasty on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month in the 53rd year of Qianlong's reign was: shredded chicken with bird's nest and lentils, duck stewed in wine, pork knuckle stewed in wine, shredded chicken in bird's nest, roasted mutton slices, duck in soup, steamed duck, Bamboo buns, white cakes, milk, and a few seasonal vegetables) Empress Dowager Cixi’s favorite dishes were stewed duck, braised steamed duck, and roasted duck—probably because they had too many things to worry about. It is easy to get angry, so pay attention to reducing the fire and inflammation. "A Dream of Red Mansions" records the details of people drinking tea and rinsing their mouths after meals - Lin Daiyu came to Rongguo Mansion for the first time, and after finishing her meal for the first time, "Each maid brought tea in a small tea tray." The author wrote a paragraph below: " On that day, Lin Ruhai taught her daughter to cherish blessings and maintain her health. She said, "Be sure to swallow all the food grains after meals, and then drink tea after a while, so as not to hurt the spleen." Lin Daiyu still felt that it was inappropriate, but because she followed the Romans in the country, she accepted the tea and said, "Morning "I saw someone bringing me a rinsing bowl again," I realized again, "I rinsed my mouth in the same way."

This detail once again illustrates that the Chinese diet at that time was not only a necessary energy supplement for survival, but also a culture - a culture of health care and health preservation - tea is alkaline, and gargling with tea after meals can clean teeth and prevent and treat diseases. Tooth erosion is greatly beneficial. You must know that there were no specialized dentists at that time, and no one knew how to wear dentures. Therefore, dental care and health care should start from a young age and focus on the details. As the saying goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." "A Dream of Red Mansions" is a wonderful book with profound and boundless connotations. From just a few short fragments mentioned in the book, we can derive the spirit, philosophy, aesthetic taste of Chinese food and the connection between food and health, which is enough to illustrate this a little. However, due to the limitations of knowledge, shallow social experience, and the gap between the times, we have not been able to go deeper, so we specifically mention it here.

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