The gourmets described by the famous writer Lu Wenfu are like this. They know the local food well; wherever there is new food, they will rush there quickly; their comments on the food are appropriate...

First of all, it should be noted that the "gourmet" we are talking about here refers to the food in general, that is, the food material object in the meaning of "diet", and is not limited to "food" - dishes and pasta in the narrow sense. Professional personnel for tasting and appreciating pastries and cakes. Different from gourmands, whose main task is to fill their stomachs, and gourmets, who aim to explain the esophagus and explain food theory, gourmets are people who use a happy attitude towards life to conduct artistic appreciation and aesthetic taste of food, and are engaged in the exploration of ideal food.

The main purpose of gluttons is to pursue and satisfy material desires, while food scientists focus on cognitive explanation and theoretical induction. Gourmets not only have rich and vivid gastronomic practice and material enjoyment, but also have profound and unique experience and artistic awareness. They are explorers and creators of the beauty of food life that harmonizes material and spiritual, physical and psychological.

There are countless gourmets in Chinese history - most of the eaters above the intermediate food culture level fall into this category. There are also many gourmets, but very few can truly be called gourmets. , "Everyone eats and drinks, and rarely knows the taste" (Volume 52 of "Book of Rites· Doctrine of the Mean" No. 31), it is really true in one sentence. Of course, this does not mean that it is difficult to become a gourmet, nor does it mean that the work or profession of a gourmet is unattainable. The fact is actually very simple: "Those who know will go beyond it, and those who are ignorant will not be able to do it"; or "(Shang Yi) Those who lower the shells) will go above and beyond, and those who are unworthy will fall short." (Book of Rites, Doctrine of the Mean, Chapter 31, Volume 52) Those who are wise and lofty-minded do not have this ambition, and they disdain it! In an era when Confucius and Mencius' thoughts on food suppression grandly dominated social concepts, and the food behaviors of the upper class often deviated from their food opinions, how could we expect those "knowers" and "sages" to take this matter into consideration. In the same way, those "fools" and "unworthy people" are of course incapable due to economic poverty or poor culture, and once they are expected to transcend the boundaries of "only the wise and the ignorant" set by saints or social obstacles (" The Analects of Confucius·Yanghuo 17" Volume 17), rising to the status of a "knower" or a "sage" must be disdainful without exception. The historical fact is that it is only in the era of spiritual freedom, ideological democracy, and cultural prosperity that is far greater than in any previous historical era, and the historical results of science and technology and economic and social reserves (mainly referring to the fields of food production and food life) have made new progress and development. After the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the phenomenon of individual "knowledge" and "sages" in the intellectual community began to focus on the practice and exploration of food with a healthy and normal mentality; in other words, the social conditions that produced gourmets began to appear. Preliminarily available. Before that, those who were famous for their food could only be called gourmets at best, or they still belonged to the category of gluttons.

For about ten centuries from the middle of the Tang Dynasty to the middle of the Qing Dynasty (the historical pinnacle of the development of ancient Chinese food culture), the emergence of gourmets and their number as historical and cultural manifestations gradually increased horizontally. trend, and vertically it is the continuous deepening of thoughts and the gradual improvement of aesthetic taste. If we look at it from the perspective of practical fields and aesthetic objects, it generally shows a logical sequence of tea drinking, followed by wine drinking, and finally eating food. This is because, from the establishment of the standard of tea ceremony in the mid-Tang Dynasty to the refinement of tea tasting in the late period, Chinese tea art has been vividly demonstrated; and although wine has a long history, the drinking of distilled liquor, one of the important varieties, did not exist until the Yuan Dynasty. Fang mainly became a social custom due to the preference of the poor nobles, so the full display of the wine cultural form was later than the tea ceremony. As for the food eating culture that focuses on traditional hand-operated dishes, its content is relatively large and complex, involving the full development of raw materials, the corresponding development of tool technology, the expansion of finished product varieties, and the comprehensive culture of banquet activities. The accommodating expression was fully released after the prosperity of the Mid-Tang Dynasty, the prosperity of the Song Dynasty and the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Therefore, although the eating activity with the main function of absorbing calories and basic nutrition (this should be stated according to the historical development process) occurred earliest and is the most important in life, the full development of its nutritional review did not begin until the middle of the Qing Dynasty. Spray thinly. The order of maturity of the above three is the historical logic of the operation of food culture, regardless of taste level.

Famous gourmet