How to decorate food?

People in the Song Dynasty had two methods. One method was to arrange flowers and colorful flags directly on the food, and the other method was to tie bamboo or wire into a certain shape and hang the food on it.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a general named Zhang Jun, who was a colleague of Yue Fei. After Yue Fei's death, he was named a county king and was very favored by Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty.

One year, Emperor Gaozong took the emperor's relatives and civil and military officials to his home as a guest. He was flattered and gave a banquet with many dishes.

According to "Old Wulin Events", various fruit plates were first served at the banquet that day, and then various appetizers were served. When the drinking began, dozens of appetizers were served.

The food was put on the fruit plate, and after the fruit plate was served, all kinds of exquisite pasta were served. There were hundreds of dishes with different names. Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty and his accompanying officials ate from morning until dark, and they were dizzy and the sky was dark.

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We can all understand fruit plates, pasta, appetizers, and snacks. The problem is that there is "food" behind the snacks. What kind of food is this?

I used to take it literally and take it for granted that it was a staple food served during a banquet.

Now that I have read more, I finally figured it out. It turns out that inserted food is decorated food.

How to decorate food?

People in the Song Dynasty had two methods. One method was to arrange flowers and colorful flags directly on the food, and the other method was to tie bamboo or wire into a certain shape and hang the food on it.

For example, during the Double Ninth Festival in the Song Dynasty, people would give each other Double Ninth Cake. This Double Ninth Cake is a kind of food: mix rice flour with sugar water to make rice cakes, steam them in a basket, and put a small flag on the top after taking them out of the basket.

, carry it to the neighbor's house (see "Meng Liang Lu" Volume 5 "September").

Good pastry, why put a flag?

It's not for the taste, just for the beauty - putting flags on pastries is like putting pearls on a beautiful woman, it's dressing up the food.

Another example is that people in the Song Dynasty celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival. Every household tied mugwort, calamus and sunflowers into the shape of a small tree or hill, placed it at the door of their house, and then tied dozens of rice dumplings with red silk threads and hung them up, just like Westerners do during Christmas.

It's like hanging candies on the Christmas tree (see "Dragon Boat Festival" in Volume 3 of "Old Martial Arts").

Rich people tied a big centipede with gold and silver wire. The centipede had its feet in the sky and strings of oranges, tangerines, rice dumplings and candied fruits on its feet. It was called a "food plate rack" at that time.

The children were playful and took the candied fruit from the food tray holder, holding it and nibbling it. It is said that it can ward off evil spirits.

Now let’s go back and take a look at the food that Zhang Jun served to Song Gaozong that day: fried white kidneys, roasted belly gizzards (roasted lamb tripe), roasted quail breasts (roasted quails), roasted pancakes (roasted steamed buns), and non-roasted

Cooking cakes (steamed steamed buns)... were originally ordinary foods, but Zhang Jun asked craftsmen to make them into rockeries and bonsais, and then hung these vulgar foods on top, and the effect was immediately different.