A Dream of Red Mansions is an encyclopedia of ancient feudal society, which contains everything you want to know, whether it is poetry, Buddhism etiquette, the way of the world, architectural scenery or the food culture of aristocratic life at that time. As the saying goes, "Food is the most important thing for the people". How can the food in A Dream of Red Mansions not be rich? Taking Jiafu's life as an example, we can see three characteristics of Jiafu's food culture. One is that the items are rich and the classification of food is clear and definite. Second, the Jia family has five rules when eating, which have far-reaching significance under the fine products; Thirdly, Cao Gong described such delicious food and what he conveyed. If we want to open the food culture in ancient aristocratic life, we should start with the food in A Dream of Red Mansions.

First of all, Jia's food is very rich, and there are all kinds of food. Eating plays a very important role in people's lives, and the Jia family will pay special attention to eating. A major feature of Jiafu's dishes is their richness, and each meal will be strictly classified. Paying attention to food is also paying attention to the quality of life.

Although people in Jiafu don't care about eating big fish and meat, these dishes are indispensable dishes on the table. So what kind of meat dishes will appear in people's daily vision? According to Liu Sao, the kitchen manager of the Grand View Garden, the ladies and gentlemen in the Grand View Garden only need two chickens, two ducks, more than ten kilograms of meat and a basket of vegetables every day, so the demand of the whole Jia family is much greater.

There are more special meat dishes in Jia's family, so the most delicious food will be found in Wang Xifeng's yard, whether it's stewed elbow with ham eaten by Jia Lian's wet nurse, hot pheasant eaten by Li's wet nurse, pheasant eaten by Jia's mother, and fried quail eaten by Mrs. Xing. Anyway, Wang Xifeng's family is not short of meat. Other delicious meat dishes include "roasted venison" in Daguan Garden, a bowl of steamed duck cooked by sister-in-law Liu, the housekeeper of Daguan Garden, and fresh bamboo shoots and pneumatic cats specially sent by Baoyu and Daiyu. Food is much more than that, but in a nutshell. The confusion between meat dishes and Jia Zhen, killing pigs and sheep, geese and ducks every day, and Xia Jingui's quirk of drinking and frying bones instead of eating meat.

The vegetarian dishes in Jiafu are fresh vegetables every day. Among them, bamboo shoots are very special. Jia Fu cooked fresh bamboo shoots, and the following people dedicated to filial piety Jia Jia's chicken bone marrow bamboo shoots, the ham fresh bamboo shoot soup made by Baoyu at the beginning of his serious illness, and the sour bamboo shoot chicken skin soup made by Aunt Xue's family are all good things for appetizing and hangover. Lotus root is often mentioned, especially on Xue Pan's birthday. This lotus root is so big that it is usually not found. In order to tease Granny Liu and Wang Xifeng, she was once allowed to eat pigeon eggs. Ordinary eggs of pigeons are hard to get. Baoyu ate "tea soaked rice" with pheasants in order to catch up with the play.

Jiafu also has many pot-stewed dishes. Aunt Xue's family and Ningfu will specially make some bad goose feet and duck letters, Jia's family will make some bad quails, and Jia will eat some when she goes to Xue Luan to watch everyone eat barbecue. Rouge goose breast is a delicious food that Baoyu has eaten by the light of Fangguan, and Jia's family will also pickle the duck head, which Xiangyun ate when he wrote poems. Sauté ed radish and Chili sauce are also pickles for next meal.

Jiafu's porridge is also very rich, and the common one is bird's nest porridge. Jia's wealth lies in this bird's nest, which is just a normal diet. Among them, Qin Keqing drank it when she was ill, Baochai gave it to Dai Yu for her health, and Wang Xifeng was also drinking bird's nest porridge. Secondly, there will be porridge in Jia Fu's midnight snack, such as duck porridge, glutinous rice porridge boiled with jujube and almond tea. There are precious red rice porridge and bijing porridge in Jiafu's daily rice. As the saying goes, "He who eats the grain lives", so rice occupies a very staple food position in Jiafu. Coupled with Jiafu's maintenance secret, simple illness and hunger, eating light porridge and fine vegetables, so porridge will appear a lot.

Because Jiafu is also a two-meal system, dinner is very important, but besides strict dinner, it is not impossible to eat, so writing snacks and desserts will supplement the daily diet. Qingwen likes to eat steamed stuffed bun with bean curd skin best. Yuan Chun sent Baoyu steamed crisp cheese with sugar, and Xue Baochai sent Daiyu white flour, plum slices and snowflake foreign sugar. Qin Keqing can also eat jujube paste and yam cakes when he is sick.

Jia's family has special cream sponge roll crisp, sweet-scented osmanthus cake with lotus root starch, goose oil roll, small glutinous rice balls about an inch in size and a crab powder cage, but Jia doesn't like greasy food. There are many fruits in Lantern Festival, including acacia soup, auspicious fruit, wishful cake and various kinds of fruit Yuanxiao. Baoyu's wife menstruation also sent them some water chestnut cakes and chicken oil rolls. After Baoyu was beaten, he was covered with blood stasis and loved to drink sour plum soup. Mrs. Wang specially gave osmanthus clear dew and rose clear dew, both of which are good drinking water.

There are many dried fruits in Jiafu, including red dates, two chestnuts, three peanuts, four water chestnuts and five taro, which are used to cook Laba porridge. Baoyu once fed Jin Rundan to Xiang Xue in Jin Chuaner, but Jin Chuaner was kicked out by Mrs. Wang for his improper words. Baoyu once sent Xiangyun two kinds of fresh fruits, Hong Ling and the head of a chicken, and the other was a dish of steamed chestnut powder cake with sweet-scented osmanthus sugar. Li Wan's sister-in-law sent her a lot of tea, and she asked the servants to give it to You Shi.

Jiafu's fruit is also abundant all year round. She eats peaches in autumn, and Jia Mu has dinner with Baoyu and other children in the evening, so she can't attend the party in Ningfu the next day. Baoyu and Feng Ziying and other young masters went to eat. Among them, he also thought of a poem for pears, "Rain hits pears". The pears behind Daiyu's house and Jiafu's house have pear fragrance gardens, among which there will be no shortage of pears; Jia Fu loves watermelon in summer and autumn. Baoyu sent fresh litchi to Tanchun. It is not easy to eat litchi in the north. When Granny Liu came to visit the Grand View Garden, Qiaojie exchanged grapefruit and Banel bergamot, which also indicated their marriage. Baoyu saw apricots all over the trees, and he thought that Xing Xiuyan would be full of children in the future. He suddenly felt sad because his daughters were going to grow up and get married. There are plums in the fruit trees planted by the Jia family, but most people can't eat plums because the Daguan Garden later implemented the contract management system.