Cover journalist Xue Weirui will hold the "Chengdu Panda Asian Food Festival" on May 5th, and the "China Food (Recipe) Document Exhibition", as one of the special exhibitions, is the first document exhibition of food recipes held in the museum in the history of China. Ermao, a food literature collector in China, has selected 1,511 cookbooks from the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the 1981s from his decades-long cookbook collection, showing the history, changes and development of Chinese food culture (cookbooks) in an all-round way, with the years, regions, cuisines, events and celebrities as the main clues. Ermao, a food literature collector in China, reorganized his nearly 31 collections for this food literature exhibition. Many people ask me why I collect it. In fact, I don't collect it consciously. I naturally explore it because of my love. "In addition to the fun of collecting itself, he gained more through recipes than the meaning of collecting. The 31 years of collecting old recipes is also the 31 years of his work related to food. As a lover and researcher of China cuisine, Ermao is not only a collector of food literature in China, but also an expert in the research group of non-genetic inheritance and protection of food in China and a pioneer of modern food poetry in China. China cuisine is immortal. I have opened restaurants in Chongqing, Chengdu and Beijing for 31 years, researched and developed creative dishes for 31 years, read countless books on food and wrote many articles about food, but I didn't really feel the profoundness of China's food culture until I faced these traditional old recipes. "After decades of careful tracing in these old recipes, Ermao saw the development of China cuisine, and felt the magnificent development of food culture, as well as the inheritance and continuation from generation to generation. China Beautiful Cuisine, the earliest collection published in new york in 1923, came from Yongle period of Ming Dynasty. China's food culture reached its first peak in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and reached its peak in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, which lasted until the early 1951s and was suppressed in the 1961s. There are a lot of mimeographed recipes in the literature collected by Ermao after the 1961s, and these informally published literature recipes deeply moved him. ""It is still undercurrent in the suppressed era, which shows the stubbornness and immortality of China's food culture. The so-called immortality of China cuisine is due to the vigorous development of China's food culture for thousands of years. "China People's Liberation Army menu reform and opening up soon after the 1981s, food culture was re-developed. Like the general outbreak of poetry, philosophy and other social sciences in this era, traditional food culture is also presented with brand-new colors, smells, tastes, shapes, devices and meanings. "For many culinary masters who appeared in this period, and their writing and dictation of recipes and food history, Ermao thought it was" true and insightful ". The collection of cookbooks stopped in the 1981s (very few excellent ones were collected in the 1991s). Ermao thinks that since the middle and late 1991s, the copying of cookbooks has become increasingly serious, and there is a general lack of originality, so that most of the cookbooks have no collection value since then. History and innovation have no value without innovative recipes, and tracing back to tradition is precisely to find the foundation of "new". For Ermao, studying traditional recipes is a process of excavation, inheritance, transformation and utilization. It is the old recipes and old masters that make it possible to innovate and inherit dishes today. Gourmet needs creativity, and creation cannot be separated from traditional learning. Studying old recipes is a necessary condition for innovation. I advocate innovation on the basis of tradition, and innovation without tradition is untenable. According to Ermao, new Sichuan cuisine, new Cantonese cuisine and new Huaiyang cuisine are popular nowadays, but if they are divorced from the tradition of traditional cuisine, it is difficult for the new school to have a long-term foothold. The rural food shortage certificate is in the order of the historical development of food, and the literature exhibition is divided into three categories: Ming and Qing Dynasties, Republic of China and after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In addition to these three categories, according to the clues of region, cuisine, events, celebrities, etc., special recipes will also be displayed in separate counters. For example, "Sichuan Literature" is a separate counter, with nearly 311 books (pieces) of recipes and food lists related to Sichuan and Chongqing, as well as various grain, oil and meat coupons in Chengdu from the 1951s to the early 1991s. "Sichuan Food List" also has a separate display counter, including Chengdu Restaurant, Jinniu Hotel, Jinjiang Hotel, Minshan Hotel, Nuri Meal and other famous hotels and restaurants in Sichuan. The most special one is "Chengdu Manchu-Han Banquet", which was directed by a generation of Sichuan cuisine master Lan Guangjian in 1959 and operated by his direct disciple Zhang Songyun and Kong Daosheng. "This is a very rare document and will be displayed as a separate booth. There are many documents with special status, such as Chengdu Man-Han Banquet, which will be presented separately as special counters in the food literature exhibition. For example, there is a copy of China's Beautiful Cuisine in the foreign language China cookbook counter, which is the earliest known English China cookbook in the world and was published in new york in 1923. There is also the "Processing and Making of Famous Foods in China" in the 1951s and 1961s, and a set of six books are listed separately. This series of documents is mimeographed, so the print run is limited, and it is also very precious from the collection point of view. During the 1961s and 1981s, China's major steel companies, including Shougang, Pangang and Angang, all had their own recipes. In addition, there are China People's Liberation Army logistics recipes, China Railway Bureau recipes, etc., all of which are on display. The "Grain and Oil Supply Certificate" also set up a special topic. The grain and oil supply certificate is the product of a special era. It can be seen that in that era of material scarcity, we need to eat for survival, and because hunger is more eager for food, this is a historic presentation. "