What makes a dish pleasing to the eye is not only its color but also its shape. When it comes to the shape of the dishes, we have to talk about the skill of the knife, which is now often referred to as knife skills. Cooking activities include bold cutting, fine cutting, and even exquisite carving. The most commendable thing about Chinese chefs' desk skills is their cutting skills. The basic skills of Western chefs are not to regard knife skills as a skill to be proud of. The difference between East and West is very obvious at this point. Our food is carefully chopped and cooked, making it very convenient to eat. People gulp it down like a jujube, or "cut it" into several pieces and put it in the pot. When it's time to eat, they cut it into small pieces with a knife and eat it with a fork. It obviously takes a little effort to eat it. Whether from the perspective of cooking or eating, Chinese food is slightly better, and there is a kind of ingenuity and flexibility in science.
Our tradition of paying attention to knife skills can also be traced back to ancient times. "The Analects of Confucius·Xiangdang" records that Confucius "doesn't eat until he cuts it straight" and "never tires of fine food and fine meat." Without the chef's skillful knife skills, the old master would not have such high-level requirements.
In order to please the eyes, the ancients also used carving and dyeing techniques to create craft dishes and snacks with ornamental value, and directly applied artistic expressions to their dietary life. Shaping, dyeing, engraving, color platters, all the plastic arts techniques are used. The food on the table is so varied that sometimes it is so beautiful that diners can't bear to move their chopsticks. Documents record that the dough-sculpting technology was widely used in the Tang Dynasty. For example, Wei Juyuan's "Shaking Tail Banquet List" records a group of pasta products in which seventy Penglai immortals were shaped from dough and steamed in a cage. According to "Beimeng Suoyan", Cui Anqian, a servant of the Tang Dynasty, was a vegetarian Buddhist. When he was out of town in Xichuan for three years, when entertaining his subordinates, he "dyed noodles with konjac and the like as colors, and used elephant dolphin shoulders, The genus of sheep's odor and savory food are both realistic." Vegetarian and meat dishes have a long history.
In order to make the shape and color of food more beautiful, techniques used in ancient times include carving and sticking. Ancient examples of food carving can be read in "Tokyo Menghua Lu". People in Bianjing in the Song Dynasty "carved melons into patterns on Chinese Valentine's Day, which they called flower melons." Flowers and melons are both for appreciation and begging for luck. They are a beautiful decoration during special festivals. According to Li Dou's "Yangzhou Painted Boat Record", Yangzhou people are good at making watermelon lanterns. They use watermelon rinds to carve the shapes of people, flowers, insects and fish, and burn red candles inside, which is novel and cute. The sticking technique is generally used for fruits. According to "Chunming Mengyulu": "In the early Ming Dynasty, for banquets and sacrifices, all tea, food and fruits were tied together with loose powder. After Tianshun, they began to use sticky bricks. Each plate was two feet high and 120 kilograms of lychees were used to round the eyes. Above, more than 260 kilograms of jujube and persimmons. "There are so many fruits piled on one plate, no wonder they have to be made using glue. I wonder if the adhesive is glutinous rice milk or something like that?"
The thought that the ancients put into their diet can also be reflected in the small eggs. In ancient times, there was a food tradition of carving eggs. The eggs were carved with patterns and dyed with stippling, also known as "carved chicken eggs." The tradition of carving eggs has been formed in the Han Dynasty at the latest, or even earlier, as evidenced by the words "carve eggs and then carve them" in "Guanzi·Xi Mi Chapter". By the Tang Dynasty, braised chicken had become a must-have food during the Cold Food Festival, as described in "Taiping Guangji". King Luo Bin also wrote the poem "Carved Chicken", which said that in the Tang Dynasty, eggs were carved into various shapes of human faces, and they were also decorated with colors. Yuan Zhen's poem "Cold Food Night" also mentions carved eggs, "when the peach blossoms are dyed red and the snow is pressed against the pears, and the exquisite chickens win the battle". It can be seen from the poem that the carved eggs have to be tested together to see who can carve the most beautiful eggs.
In the Qing Dynasty, egg-painting became more and more popular, and its scope expanded from cold food to marriage between men and women and the birth of children. The scale was as large as "hanging bamboo poles with hundreds of branches" . In fact, the tradition of painting eggs has been carried forward to the present day. As a pure handicraft, the painting skills of colored eggs have become more sophisticated and their preservation value is also higher.
As a craft dish that is both ornamental and edible, the most affordable one is the colorful platter. The appearance of ancient colorful platters should be no later than the Northern and Southern Dynasties. "Book of Liang·Biography of He Chen" says that at that time there was a custom of "accumulating fruits like mountains and dishes with embroidery" on the dining table. This should include colorful platters.
There is a sentence in "Book of Northern Qi·Yuan Xiaoyou Biography" that makes it even clearer, indicating that large-scale platters of colorful dishes had indeed appeared at that time, "Today's rich people are extremely extravagant, and the facilities in the same prison are even better than sacrificial plates. Tired fish become mountains, and mountains have "Forests; above the trees, luan and phoenixes exist. It is a waste of trouble and will eventually be abandoned." Fish pieces are arranged in the shape of hills, and meat is used to plant trees. Luan and phoenixes carved from food stand on the trees. This is not a landscape bonsai, but it is better than a bonsai, turning food into an authentic art appreciation.
In the Tang Dynasty, combined scenery platters appeared, which were very spectacular. The description in "Qing Yi Lu" says: "Bhikshuni Fanzheng is an extremely sophisticated cook. He fights meat, melons and vegetables to create scenery, and combines it into a small sample of Wangchuan picture." This is an extra-large color platter, Wangchuan is the name of the place. In today's Lantian County, southeast of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. It got its name because the valley and water merge into a shape like the rim of a cart. Wangchuan was originally the location of the villas of Wang Wei and Song Zhiwen, the famous landscape poets and painters of the Tang Dynasty. There are 30 scenic spots such as Baishi Beach, Zhuli Pavilion, and Luchai. Fanzheng was a nun, and she used food ingredients to create a large plate of Wangchuan. It can be said that it was an unprecedented initiative at the time, and it is worth a book in the history of Chinese cooking.
The taste of food is the most important, along with its nutritional value. In addition to taste and nutrition, the shape and color of food also need to be paid attention to in the eyes of the ancients. They are used to satisfy visual enjoyment. The original color and shape of food already have a certain artistic quality in people's eyes. After cooking, it not only becomes exquisite dishes, but also can be regarded as exquisite works of art.
Chinese cooking pays attention to the color combination of dishes and knife skills. In addition to the purpose of cooking techniques, it is also designed to a large extent for the eater and to please the eater's eyes. The pleasing results are that it increases appetite and cultivates temperament, which not only satisfies the stomach but also entertains the mind.
Scientific experiments have proven that the color of drinks and food will directly affect people’s taste sensitivity and stimulate or inhibit appetite. There is a report that the same pot of brewed coffee was put into glasses of different colors, and then several people tasted it. The result was that the taste in the yellow cup was bland, the taste in the green cup was sour, and the taste in the red cup was sour. The taste is delicious. There are also reports that blue and green can make people lose appetite, yellow or orange can stimulate people's appetite, and red can significantly increase appetite. Various colors have different effects on people's taste on the dining table. White has a clean, tender and light feeling; red gives people a strong impression, has a strong fragrance and sweet and sour pleasure, and has a bright taste; yellow gives people a refreshing fragrance. Delicious feeling. Golden yellow has a crisp and dry aroma, light yellow has a light, sweet and tender feeling; green gives people a bright, lively and natural feeling, green and tender green will feel fresh and light at first glance; tea has a rich aroma, coffee and reddish brown It has the effect of enhancing the taste; black color can easily give people the impression of bitterness, but the deep maroon color that is almost black has a strong and dry aroma.
Chinese cuisine pays attention to color effects and color matching. A plate of dishes with good colors and shapes is like a good work of art, with strong appeal and inherent appreciation value. Some people believe that dishes must first achieve the effect of "taking the taste first", making people feel a sense of pleasure and pleasure before they even eat it.
The color of the dishes should be natural and harmonious, without excessive modification. The ancients also regarded the natural beauty of food. For example, "Book of Northern Qi: Biography of Zhou Yong" said that Zhou Yong lived in seclusion in the mountains. General Wang Jian of the Wei Dynasty asked him: "Where did you eat in the mountains?" Zhou Yong replied: "Red rice, White salt, green sunflower, and purple polygonum. "Red rice, white salt, green sunflower, and purple polygonum are the most basic things that hermits usually eat. The only thing worth humoring is the color of the food.
In the poems of Lu You, a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, there are many poems about food, many of which are good verses about the color of food, such as: "The green plums are cleverly matched with the white salt of Wu, and the beauty of the bamboo shoots is more suitable for the fragrance of Sichuan soybean." "; "There is no yellow leek in Xinjin, and the color is as yellow as three feet"; "The yellow armor is as big as a plate, and the red cubes are as sweet as honey" etc.
The quality of cooking dishes was also very particular in ancient times. For example, Jia Sixie of the Northern Wei Dynasty's "Essential Art of Qi Min" puts color in a very important position when talking about the production requirements of certain dishes.
In the "Preserved Cured" section, we talk about the method of preserved snakehead fish, and the finished product is required to be "as white as snow and taste unparalleled", which is "extremely precious and delicious to eat with wine". The roasted suckling pig method is mentioned in the "Roasting Method" section, which requires the finished product to be "the same color as amber, and similar to real gold", so as to achieve the effect of "dissolving when entering, looking like icing snow, containing slurry and moist, and very special". Whether it is as white as kerosene or the color is as amber, it may be related to the method or the heat. If the color is not achieved, the taste of the dishes may be affected. When the time comes, the sex is delicious.
In addition, the ancients were also very good at complementary colors and color combinations in food. Among the delicacies listed in Lin Hong's "Shan Jia Qing Gong" in the Song Dynasty, there is a kind of cold noodles called "Sophora Leaf Tao", which originated in the Tang Dynasty. Du Fu has a poem "Sophora Leaf Cold Tao" as evidence, which states: Here’s how to make this cold noodle. In summer, the tender green locust leaves are picked, boiled in water, pounded into juice and mixed with noodles, "whichever is fresh and lovely is the best". Lin Hong said that the beauty of this lengtao lies in its color and coolness. Its beauty is rare. Even for the emperor, eating it in summer is a kind of enjoyment. The "Xuexia Soup" and "Golden Jade Soup" mentioned by Lin Hong are also based on the combination of colors. He wrote: "Pick hibiscus flowers, remove the heart and stems, blanch them in soup, and cook them with tofu. The red and white colors are interlaced, like the soup made by snow and ice, and it is called Xuexia soup. The yam and chestnut are cut into pieces, and boiled with sheep juice. It is called Xuexia soup. "Golden Jade Soup." Tofu is white, hibiscus is red, and the color is beautiful, and the artistic conception is beautiful; yam is as white as jade, and chestnuts are as yellow as gold. .
It can be seen that modern Chinese cooking emphasizes the beauty of color and has a deep-rooted tradition. It cannot be considered to be just the result of the influence of modern aesthetic concepts.