By Jin Manlou, Contributing Writer

Stills from "Shang Food".

Guanglu Temple and the Shangshi Food Bureau

According to the Rites of Zhou, during the Zhou Dynasty, the palace already had a complete set of imperial catering organizations and personnel, including caterers and butchers. In addition to "the king's food and drink meals, to feed the king and later generations of children", but also for the guests to provide food, to provide offerings for the rituals, and so on.

The Northern Qi period, originally responsible for the palace gate of the Guanglu Temple began to take care of the palace food. Sui Dynasty, Guanglu Temple turned into a specialized agency to manage the palace meals, this setup has been inherited for more than a thousand years, until the end of the Qing Dynasty. With the continuous expansion of the size of the court staff of the various dynasties, Guanglu Temple is no longer the only food management organization in the palace, after the Sui Dynasty, but also the establishment of the Shang Food Bureau. Generally speaking, the Guanglu Temple is the official body of the court, mainly responsible for rituals, court meetings, banquets and other official activities of the food supply, Shang Food Bureau is mainly for the emperor and members of the royal family services, equivalent to the royal private kitchen.

During the Ming Dynasty, the palace dietary management organization continued the traditional two sets of systems, the outer court and the inner court. Among them, the main responsibility of the Temple of Light and Lu is "in charge of the festival, feast labor, wine, food and shame," these activities also need the Ministry of Rites, Ministry of Public Works, Taishang Temple and other departments, such as the Ministry of Rites to determine the appropriate rituals, Ministry of Public Works to provide dietary raw materials and cutlery, Taishang Temple to determine the list of participants in banquets or sacrifices, and so on.

Inside the Palace, responsible for the Royal meals are mainly the Secretary, the food supervisor, the Secretary and the Department of Wine, Vinegar and Noodle Bureau and other institutions. These institutions, the Secretary is the general management of the palace affairs department, also in charge of the palace meals. In the Ming Xi Zong before, the Secretary also has a soup bureau, meat bureau, vegetarian bureau, responsible for the production of the palace diet, serving members of the royal family meals, and so on.

After Emperor Ming Xizong, the Ming Palace set up a specialized dietary management institutions - Shangzian, in charge of the Emperor's Imperial meals, diet and feasts in the Palace. Wage Division is mainly responsible for the palace fuel supply, in addition to providing firewood for the kitchen, but also for the winter heating to prepare enough fuel. The Wine, Vinegar and Noodle Bureau was responsible for providing the palace with enough wine, vinegar, noodles, and of course, sugar, wheat, soybeans and other catering-related ingredients and condiments. Due to the large number of members of the Ming Dynasty royal family and palace maids, eunuchs, the Ming Palace in the production of food and drink is a very heavy task, the cost is not expensive.

Empress Dowager Cixi used the silver Shouzhi hot pot (hidden in the Palace Museum in Beijing).

Origin of the Imperial Tea and Catering Room

The dietary management organization in the Qing Dynasty had both similarities and major differences compared to the previous dynasty. First of all, the Qing Dynasty still retained the Guanglu Temple this institutional setup, mainly for the court celebrations, rituals and other activities to prepare feasts and provide food for the officials. Before holding the above activities, officials of the Guanglu Temple, together with officials of the Imperial Household, the Taishang Temple and the Ministry of Rites, supervised the slaughtering of animals, and were responsible for distributing sacrificial meat to the officials after the end of the activities. In addition, Gwanglu Temple is also responsible for the Mongolian princes, foreign envoys to provide food for all seasons.

Unlike the previous dynasty, the Qing dynasty palace affairs by the Ministry of the Interior is responsible for all the members of the royal family, of course, food, clothing, housing and transportation is also included. In this sense, previously in charge of the palace meals, such as food bureau, food supervisor has been replaced by the Ministry of the Interior. Of course, the Ministry of the Interior is a large government, the palace construction, security and management of eunuchs and courtesans are within its purview, the provision of palace meals is only part of the work of the Ministry of the Interior.

From time to time, the Qing Palace meal management organization has a continuous development process. In the early years of Shunzhi, the Ministry of the Interior set up a "tea room" "room" responsible for the palace dietary affairs; Qianlong thirteen years (1748), the tea room, room merged into the "Imperial Tea and Catering Room", which became the specialization of the Qing Palace meals. Became the Qing Palace meals of the specialized agencies. In order to match with the Imperial Tea Catering Room, the Interior Ministry also set up a "palm off the Defense Department", which belongs to the official three warehouses, Enfeng warehouse, within the meat and potatoes room, outside the meat and potatoes room, wine and vinegar room, vegetable library, etc., are for the Palace meals to provide ingredients, snacks and condiments of the institution. In addition, the Department of Internal Affairs wide storage tea library, create a charcoal library, firewood library, palm Yi Division of the fruit room and the Qingfeng Division under the jurisdiction of the livestock herd, etc., are closely linked with the palace meals.

As the production of palace meals, the Royal Tea Catering Department also has a clear division of responsibilities. Such as catering room under the meat bureau, vegetarian bureau, hanging stove bureau, snacks bureau, rice bureau and so on. Among them, the meat bureau is responsible for providing fish, meat, seafood dishes; vegetarian bureau is responsible for providing green vegetables, dried vegetables, vegetable oil, etc.; Hanging Hearth Bureau is responsible for providing barbecue dishes; Dim Sum Bureau is responsible for providing buns, dumplings, biscuits, cakes, cakes, etc.; Rice Bureau is responsible for providing congee, rice and so on. In addition, the Imperial Tea Catering House also has a buyer of meat, meat room and dry meat warehouse, responsible for meat and seafood into the collection, storage and supply.

Stills from "Shangshi".

Meal Bottom Stalls and Shou Bottom Stalls

From the layout point of view, the Qing Dynasty Palace has a multitude of dining rooms, the largest of which is the Imperial Catering Room, which serves the emperor. There are two imperial dining room, one is located outside the Jing Yun door outside the imperial dining room (also known as the imperial food room), here is responsible for the production of the feast group of ministers of the "full banquet", but also for the duty of the ministers to prepare meals; the other is located in the side of the Palace of Yangxin within the imperial dining room (also known as Yangxintian imperial dining room), which is basically the emperor's special kitchen.

In addition to the emperor, the princes had their own dining room and pantry, and the consorts in the palace had their own corresponding dining rooms. Generally speaking, the lower the status, the fewer dishes, the tableware used is correspondingly downgraded, ranging from gold and silver to tin and porcelain. During the Jiaqing period, Shoukang Palace additional tea room, which is for the Empress Dowager, concubines catered tea place. In addition, the palace also has an outside dining room, which is for the guards to provide food and drink dining room.

Outside the Forbidden City, such as the Yuanmingyuan, Summer Palace and other imperial gardens also has a dining room, that is, "garden dining room". In the Mulan hunting service, Hot River Palace (Chengde Summer Resort) and along the Luanhe River and other palaces also have an imperial dining room, that is, "line in the Imperial Cuisine". The emperor each trip, such as the southern tour of Jiangnan, the eastern tour of Taishan, also with the imperial food staff, to ensure that the emperor and others outside the food safety. Every place, local officials will often offer local specialties, if the emperor feels satisfied, and sometimes will bring the chef back to the palace.

Qing Dynasty "Ziguangge give feast map" partial (hidden in the Palace Museum in Beijing).

It is worth mentioning that the Qing emperor's diet can be fully understood by future generations, should be attributed to the Qianlong thirty-six years (1771), the Imperial Tea and Catering under the archives room set up, the agency is mainly responsible for the record of dietary matters in the Palace and the custody of paperwork and archives, and so on. Among them, the Emperor's meal bottom file and the Empress Dowager's life bottom file is the most well-preserved, respectively, recorded the successive emperors and the Empress Dowager's breakfast, dinner recipes and chef lists, meal locations, various tableware, meal table settings, meal after the reward, and so on. When the emperor was on tour, the corresponding dietary records are also recorded, which provides a rich source of material for the study of the Qing Palace and the food culture of the Qing Dynasty.