The traditional eight bowls are economical and easy to make. In the long years, after careful planning by many chefs, in the Republic of China, the varieties of the eight bowls were basically finalized, forming a famous flavor banquet.
The traditional eight bowls are divided into meat mats and vegetarian mats.
There are eight bowls of traditional meat banquet, namely, red meat, crispy meat, braised pork, steamed pork, vermicelli, auricularia, bamboo leaf green, lily or red meat, braised pork, thousand pieces of meat, tea beans, bamboo leaf green and vermicelli. Depending on the preparation of raw materials, there are also cases of mutual substitution, such as replacing tea beans with white beans and replacing bamboo leaves with day lilies. In addition to red meat, meat dishes can also be sprinkled with a small amount of potato lotus roots. For example, a bowl of steamed pork is steamed with pumpkin, soybean sprouts, fennel and rice flour. Spiced duck eggs, liver-blown, tenderloin, milk fan and peanuts are used as mulch, and crispy fried douban with fish can also be used instead of milk fan, peanuts, vegetables and radish pickles as bottom. A bowl of red meat is dyed with koji rice. Putting a bowl of five spices in the center of the mat is actually the "cover plate" of the whole banquet. In addition, a spicy soup with salt was added to the mat, half with salt and half with pepper, one red and one white in a small porcelain plate, which was very nice.
This is the traditional four meats, four vegetarian dishes and eight bowls. Later, the eight bowls developed into a regular eight bowls and one plate. In fact, a dish is to change a bowl of spiced food into a dish and a bowl of spiced food into a bowl of vegetarian food to make eight bowls. In recent years, with the continuous improvement of living standards, eight bowls and one plate have changed from four meats and four dishes to six meats and two dishes, and from eight bowls to ten bowls. Six meats and four dishes are stacked together to form a plate, plus a cup of vegetable soup. According to the owner's economic ability, adding roast duck, carp and other dishes to meat dishes presents an increasingly luxurious trend. But no matter the old eight bowls or the present ten bowls, red meat, duck eggs and salty and spicy dishes are indispensable, because red meat symbolizes "prosperity"; Duck egg means "pressing your mouth and tongue", which leads to right and wrong; Salty and spicy dishes play a role in seasoning.
Eight bowls of vegetarian banquet are carefully made in imitation of the traditional eight bowls of meat banquet and cooked in Buddhist festivals and Buddhist activities in various temples. The appearance is exactly the same as that of the eight bowls of meat feast, which makes it impossible to distinguish between true and false. In fact, these dishes are carefully cooked with tofu, sesame seeds, bait blocks, pockmarked seeds, mushrooms, flour, fungus, yam and various fresh vegetables, and vegetable oil.
Today, the Eight Bowls of Bai nationality in Heqing have gone out of the special day of wedding, funeral and marriage, out of the farmhouse and into the hotel, which has become a special banquet for Heqing people to entertain distinguished guests.