Diet custom
In old Beijing, there was a great disparity between the rich and the poor, and there was a great difference in diet. In the mansion where bureaucrats and businessmen live, eating and drinking are very particular; The general public, on the other hand, are mostly hungry and full, and live with cornmeal (corn flour) and pickles all year round. After 1949, the diet of Beijingers changed dramatically.
There are more people coming to settle in Beijing than the original residents, and the dietary customs are becoming more and more complicated. Except for a few festivals, the daily diet and holiday diet are all according to their own preferences, and there is no unified "specification". Generally speaking, there is little difference in dietary level among residents. The proportion of rice consumption is increasing year by year, especially round rice with good quality; Sticky noodles have become an ornament in the diet. Vegetables, fish and meat are abundant all year round.
Beijingers eat three meals a day, mainly in the afternoon and evening. Breakfast is called breakfast, or go to the breakfast shop to buy it, or eat leftovers from the previous day at home. In the old days, the breakfast in the big house was delivered to the door by the designated breakfast shop, and the varieties were also common in the market, such as sesame seed cake, fried cake and japonica rice porridge.
People with status think that oil cakes are staple goods and they don't eat them. In the past, the lower class citizens rarely ate rice and white flour. The main staple food for lunch and dinner was Wowotou or vegetable dumplings and "paste cakes" (that is, a brown cornmeal cake). Those with good economic conditions can eat machine-made rice (brown rice), porridge (including rice porridge, millet porridge, sorghum rice porridge, mung bean porridge and cornmeal porridge) or hot soup noodles (including white flour and miscellaneous noodles).
Most dishes are boiled with radish, cabbage, potatoes and tomatoes, or cold dishes such as raw cucumber, cabbage heart and shredded radish, and some are accompanied by soy bean curd, stinky bean curd, leek sauce, sesame sauce, pepper paste and pickles. Rarely eat stir-fried dishes. Even if you eat stir-fry, you are always vegetarian.