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In Cohen’s article, Living the Good Life, he mentions that, Manchu emperors try to achieve a dominant status in the cultural life of the Chinese elite,  in order to define their culture as well as distracting them from the political power, and food is a perfect topic in Chinese culture. Food bears much more meaning than its original function. We can see something through the TV series, Empresses in the Palace, which is very popular among Çhinese people.

The series tells the story of Zhenhuan, an innocent girl who becomes the most powerful woman among the Yongzheng emperor’s many wives by defeating her opponent step by step. Food appears much frequently than any other item as a necessary element to depict the luxury way of people’s lives in the Qing Dynasty as well as the fierce infighting among women.

As a symbol of status

Food is viewed as a symbol of political status in the Qing Dynasty. In Empresses in the Palace, the Yongzheng emperor eats the best food(in the meaning of value, nutrition, function, and so on), and has the power to give whatever in the warehouse to whatever he wants. He usually sends fresh fruit, which is hard to get because Beijing is remote from the origin of many fruits to the one he loves most at that moment, to show his favor and generosity. Also, when he feels someone needs to be awarded, food is a good choice, too. Hierarchy exists everywhere in a feudal society, so as to the emperor’s harem. Theoretically, the queen should have enjoyed the best food among the emperor’s women, but in Empresses in the Palace, Hua enjoys a much more luxury food consumption, because she has a potentially higher political status than the queen for the sake of her brother, Nian Gengyao, who is the most important officer in the court. By emphasizing the significant differences between Hua and the queen’s daily meal, their status is indicated.  

 

As a tool to achieve a specific purpose

What surprises me most is when an imperial concubine Cao’s daughter was taken by Hua to show her mercy to children to the emperor ostensibly, but in fact, she poisoned the little girl to frame Zhenhuan secretly. Cao was so afraid of Hua’s power that she was not able to tell the truth to the emperor. Instead, she cooked a bowl of lotus seeds soup for the emperor without getting rid of its core, which tastes bitter. When the emperor was eating the soup, he suddenly understood what Cao wanted to tell him, although she did not say even a word to him. It is because the lotus seeds pronounce as Lianzi(莲子) in Chinese, which reads the same as Lianzi(怜子), means to have mercy on your child. As a result, the emperor asked Hua to give Cao’s daughter back to her. The most common way to use food as a tool is to cook it by the imperial concubine themselves and send it to the emperor, to show their love and consideration to him, thus improving their status. (If you want to watch the TV series, click this link.)

Really amazing, isn’t it?

 

 

 

Like accents, preference of regional food reflects one’s cultural identity. Regional food not only brings people who are away from home a sense of culinary nostalgia,which Swislocki argues as “the recollection or purposive evocation of another time and place through food”, but also constructs an imaginary ideal society. As a Cantonese person, white cut chicken (baiqieji) is always a prominent dish to evoke homesickness when I was in New York. Featuring freshness and simplicity, the authentic white cut chicken is made with freshly-killed Qingyuan chicken whose meat is remarkably firm-fleshed and juicy. Instead of boiled, the meat is repeatedly dipped in the boiling water until cooked. In this way, crisp chicken skin and bone with slight blood signal the best white cut chicken. Ultimately, the dish is served with ginger-and-scallion-fried sauce rather than condiments with heavy taste, which allows the gourmets to taste the original flavor of the meat.

white cut chicken

White cut chicken is regarded as one of the most classic dishes in the Cantonese cuisine for several reasons. First, Cantonese people believe that “a feast is incomplete without chicken” (wuji bucheng yan) and have the tradition of entertaining honored guests with good-quality chicken (liangji). Second, it takes lots of time and labor to make the dish, though the steps look seemingly easy. Also, it largely projects the most distinguishing characteristic of the Cantonese cuisine–presenting the original flavor of the ingredients, suggesting that the freshness of ingredients is extremely important.

In 2014, to prevent bird flu, the Guangzhou government decided to replace live chicken with frozen ones in wet markets (read here: http://www.chinanews.com/cj/2014/06-18/6293092.shtml). Both the mass and some officials from the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (zhengxie) strongly opposed the decision, claiming that the taste of frozen chicken was far worse and that would greatly transform the eating habit of Cantonese people. Like people from other regions in China, Cantonese not only “cook their dishes with ingredients produced in their own district”, but also “by their reluctance to eat the food of another region”, yet more significantly, they have great obsession with fresh food. I believe that it implies both people’s capacity to select the appropriate ingredients based on time and season and to some extent, the pride of their perfect living environment which constantly provide adequate seasonal ingredients in their cooking. Consuming frozen food in turn indicates a loss of their ability and pride.

Six years after the prohibition, live chicken never disappears from people’s daily life. Nowadays, many rural tourism restaurants (nongjiale canting)—operated in suburban farms where customers can interactive with farming facilities and nature—and underground restaurants(sifangcai)—located in the owners’ home where home-made dishes are offered and generally bypass local zoning regulations and sanitary standards—near the city of Guangzhou provide dishes made with freshly-killed chicken. These restaurants find favor with lots of urban residents and epicures from other regions. I assume that it is because their food invokes culinary nostalgia, shortly bringing customers back to the old days when people were able to purchase fresh ingredients from wet markets and do home cooking in relaxed pace. Although some customers may never differentiate the taste of meat made with freshly-killed chicken from the frozen one and such nostalgia is only a false sense of a way of idealized life that they never experience, “freshly-killed” has always been a popular selling point in those loosely-regulated restaurants. Nevertheless, in New York, or the whole US, despite that the number of Cantonese restaurants is huge, there are few really “authentic” Cantonese meat dishes, for most of the raw meat has been frozen for days before it arrives at the kitchen.

In this week’s readings, Joanna Waley-Cohen depicts a vivid China’s food and cuisine landscape in Ming-Qing era. As she stated, “food, the culinary arts and their practitioners, and by extension gastronomy, in the sense of an informed and active appreciation of their pleasures, occupied a central role in social and cultural life and in the culture of consumption.” The food selection and consumption of the upper social class, including the cultural elite group and the imperial court, shaping the food culture and people’s gastronomic life in a great way. And in all eras, people always enjoy of talking the food stories of the emperors. The connection to the emperors would always endow the delicacy a special and miraculous charm.

Ming dynasty: Zhu Yuan Zhang and the beggar’s chicken. As the first emperor of Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuan Zhang has an impoverished family and a starving childhood. One day he was very hungry and tried to find something to eat. Then he met a beggar. The beggar saw the poor little boy, shivering and starving, and he decided to steal a chicken for him. The beggar wrapped the chicken with a lotus leaf and baked it in the fire. Zhu Yuan Zhang ate the chicken and thought it was the most delicious food in the world. Later when he ascended the throne, he sent people to seek for the beggar, and named the “Beggar’s Chicken” as one of the most precious imperial delicacies.

the picture of the “Beggar’s Chicken”

Qing dynasty: Qianlong and his adventures of Jiangnan. Qianlong has been to Jiangnan six times, each time he discovered several types of delicacies. In Joanna’s description, Jiangnan is the other center of culinary art besides Beijing, “in terms of claiming the most refined gastronomic sensibilities—the Jiangnan elite at least rivaled the court; in practice each tended to imitate the other, competing to claim the most recherché dishes and the most refined palate.” If Qianlong still alive, he would be a great supporter of Joanna’s words. Once when he went down to the south part of the Yangtze River, he wandered to a restaurant named “Song He Lou”. He ordered a mandarin fish and asked the chef to cook it. The chef fried the fish and covered it with tomato juice. When he placed the dish on the table, the fish body creaked because of the hot oil. It sounded like a squirrel. Qianlong tasted it, it has a sweet and sour flavor, and was crisp outside and tender inside. He enjoyed the delicacy and named it “Squirrel-Shaped Mandarin Fish”. The Jiangnan elites heard the story. They endeavored to taste the delicacy, and asked their chefs to imitate it. Then the dish became well-known and popular and was passed down today as a traditional specialty. In fact, Qianlong boomed several delicacies in this way, such as Gusu’s crucian carp soup, Weishan Lake’s four-nosed carp, Xushun’s sizzling rice soup…He even loved to write poems for the delicacies and then named them with beautiful poetic names (which the Jiangnan elites also loved to imitate to do so). If you went to cities in Jiangnan today, you could still find a lot of restaurants served foods which “has been tasted by Qianlong”. But be careful, most of them only borrows the name of the dish, without borrowing the taste of it.

the picture of the “Squirrel-Shaped Mandarin Fish”

When we describing food with the term of “Di Dao” in Chinese, which means the food is exactly the same with the food of our hometown. This is very hard for every restaurants that are trying to reproduce the local cuisine, because when it comes to food every Chinese will become a picky one.

People could easily find food from their hometown in Shanghai because of the fast developing logistic industry and the diversity of people in a city. However, lots of them find that these food are not “Di Dao” enough, which is not comparable to the food they have back in their home town.

Many people that come to a different city for work or study purposes are expecting to find the food that will satisfy their taste buds with hometown characteristics. Though the adroit chef could copy the dishes exactly like what they look like back in people’s hometowns, they could not imitate the local flavor and the bound between people and their own hometown. Chinese attach great importance and meaning to their hometown food culture. For example, individuals from Inner Mongolia Prairie, would still have a kind of nostalgia feeling even when they are eating the lamb that mailed from Inner Mongolia Prairie. This is because he/she is not breathing the air of that vast prairie. The lack of the feeling of “local” makes people have a sense of loss. 

In fact, though it is not possible for people to eat the actually “Di Dao” food in a different city, lots of people are still willing to go to the restaurants that creates an atmosphere of “Di Dao.” It might become more like a commercial promotion instead of actually meeting people’s desire to experience both the local atmosphere and the techniques used by the local chefs of their hometown. However, I personally very appreciate the efforts that the restaurants devote to create the atmosphere of “Di Dao.” For instance, Nanjing Sidewalk Snack Booth is a restaurant that serves snacks from Jiangsu Prov. especially from Nanjing. Its decoration is a reminiscent of old Nanjing, and the waiters have special outfits that give people strong impressions of old Nanjing.

Another thing I want to mention is that the local people will always face the question of their friends that comes from other cities about where can I eat the most local (Di Dao) cuisine. Usually, local people will take them to the restaurants according to the maps in their mind that was polished since they were born. However, it might be hard for exotic people to accept the “Di Dao” food. For example, there are some famous local cuisine that include lots of insects, which is not friendly for the people first try to taste the local food. Then the local people will turn to take their friends to the restaurants that creates an atmosphere of  “Di Dao,” and this will satisfy their friend. This is because they do not have a sense of “Di Dao” as the local people do.

In conclusion, it is impossible to perfectly reproduce local food, but there are still some techniques for people to recreate a sense of home to a greater extent, which might be a sense of “Di Dao.”

 

 

Chongqing is my hometown. It is famous for Mala hot pot. No matter where I go, hot pot becomes the symbol that represents my memories in Chongqing.  Chongqing hot pot was first eaten by boatmen near Yangtze River. People eat spicy hot pot because it’s easier to boil different vegetables and meat together, and also because spicy food are healthy for the humid weather. Today, Chongqing hot pot becomes the city’s cultural tradition, and tourists all come to the city to taste the most authentic Mala hot pot. When I studied in the U.S, hot pot became the food that I missed the most. It’s not just the taste of the food, but memories of my hometown. Just like the author said in the essay Thinking about Food in Chinese History, “regional foodways remain a core component of cultural identity in China. Both the tenacity of regional taste preferences and the almost limitless flexibility that food provides as a vehicle for constructing a sense of home and imagining an ideal society.”

I have eaten Chongqing hot pot in many countries and cities, but they all taste differently. The taste of hot pot changes based on local customers’ needs. Outside Chongqing, hot pot is just a symbol of the city. For example, in Flushing, Chongqing LaoZao hot pot (重庆老灶) is famous for making the most authentic Chongqing hot pot in New York. The restaurant has many Chongqing style decorations and furniture. It looks like a hot pot restaurant in Chongqing, but it tastes differently. It’s not spicy and ma (麻) enough, because many Americans can’t eat spicy food. Similarly, in Shanghai, many hot pot restaurants taste sweet because local Shanghainese love to eat sweet food. Back to my experience, even though I know those restaurants are not authentic enough, I still love to go, because it is my way of “culinary nostalgia, the recollection or purposive evocation of another time and place through food.” It is a form of self-deception. I’m always eager to find authentic Chongqing hot pot around the world although I know it’s pointless and nearly impossible, because people who lived in that city are different. Even the same owner opened the restaurant in New York, London and Shanghai, she or he has to localize Chongqing hot pot based on the local market. Today, Chongqing hot pot is not just the food but the symbol of reginal culture. When I talked to my friends about hot pot, I always start with the history of hot pot and some cultural traditions while eating hot pot. The taste of hot pot is not that important outside the Chongqing, but the story of Mala hot pot becomes vital.

In Chinese history, food is always tied with aristocracy. In the Shang Dynasty, King Zhou of Shang, one of the most extravagant emperors, is famous for filling the pool with wine and hanging the meat in the forest so that he would enjoy wine and meat anytime and anywhere. There is no doubt food comes first for Chinese food. Mass population depend on food to survive, while the gentry distinct themselves through setting a high standard of cuisine.

A Dream of Red Mansions, regarded as the dictionary of aristocratic life, not only depicts daily diets and party cuisine, but also documents indigents and recipes of those cuisine. Cao Xueqing the author was raised up in a Jiangnan’s family. His family was in charge of silk tribute to the emperor. A Dream of Red Mansions is, in fact, based on Cao’s experience as a noble person when he was young. However, those descriptions of such high standard of cuisine point out hierarchy and political power exerted through rare ingredients and sophisticated recipes.

The most known plot, “Grandma Liu visits the Red Mansions”, demonstrates how hierarchy is established and reinforced by food. Grandma Liu is a rural woman, who is a distant relative of the royal family, and is invited to visit them at the Red Mansions. The royal family treats her with a dish called Dried Eggplant (Qiexiang, “茄鲞”). The royal family sees this dish as a home-made food not even a sophisticated one, commented, “It is not complicated to prepare. It only needs fresh eggplant to be peeled, chopped, and fried with chicken oil. Then stew in the chicken broth the fried eggplant with chicken, fungus, mushroom, bamboo shoots and nut, all chopped, until the broth is dried. Put the dried stew in a sealed porcelain jar with sesame oil. When you need to enjoy it, mix it with fried chicken claws.” Grand Liu is amazed by Dried Eggplant, and saying it tastes nothing like eggplant. Through Grandma Liu’s reactions, which teases those aristocrats, the segregation is obvious between ordinary people and aristocrats. The most important part in the plot is that those aristocrats enjoy it when someone from the lower class shows his/her astonishment. Moreover, there is power dynamic in the plot. Red Mansions require supports from a huge number of servants. Those servants who are close to family members, such as first footmen and Lady’s maids, contempt Grandma Liu, because they have enjoyed what the family enjoys while Grandma Liu haven’t. Those servants are the agency for aristocracy to exert power upon mass population. Red Mansions seem to be regarded as a world of aristocracy’s own. In fact, aristocracy is not a castle in the air. The foundation is the mass population, – who work as servants, provide indigents, and so on.

Find out here: Recreate Dried Eggplant (Qiexiang, “茄鲞”).