Text \Jin Manlou, a special writer for this magazine
As the saying goes, people take food as their heaven.
The recently released TV series Shang Shi has drawn attention to ancient palace kitchens.
What were the dietary management institutions of the ancient court?
How do they work?
Guanglu Temple and Shangshi Bureau
According to the records of "Zhou Li", during the Zhou Dynasty, there were already complete imperial dining institutions and personnel in the palace, including cooks, cooks and so on.
In addition to "presiding over the king's food and food to support the king and future sons", they also provided food for guests and offerings for sacrifices.
During the Northern Qi Dynasty, Guanglu Temple, which was originally responsible for the access control of the palace, began to take care of the palace food.
In the Sui Dynasty, Guanglu Temple was transformed into a specialized institution for the management of court meals. This setting was followed for more than a thousand years until the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
With the continuous expansion of the scale of court personnel in various dynasties, Guanglu Temple is no longer the only food management organization in the palace. After the Sui Dynasty, a food bureau was added.
Generally speaking, Guanglu Temple is the official institution of the imperial court, which is mainly responsible for the supply of food for official activities such as sacrifices, court meetings, and banquets.
During the Ming Dynasty, the palace catering management organization continued the traditional two systems of the outer court and the inner court.
Among them, the main responsibilities of Guanglu Temple are "to take care of sacrificial enjoyment, feast labor, wine, and meal shame". These activities also require the cooperation of the Ministry of Rites, Ministry of Work, Taichang Temple and other departments. For example, the Ministry of Rites determines the corresponding etiquette, work The Ministry provides food raw materials and tableware, and Taichang Temple determines the list of people who will participate in the banquet or sacrifice.
Inside the palace, the main responsible for the royal meals are the Supervisor of Li, the Supervisor of Shang Shan, the Supervisor of Salary Care, and the Bureau of Wine and Vinegar Noodles.
Among these institutions, the Sili Jian is the general department in charge of intra-uterine affairs and is also in charge of intra-uterine meals.
Before the Ming Dynasty Emperor Xizong, there were also soup bureaus, meat bureaus, vegetarian bureaus, etc. under the supervision of Sili, responsible for making meals in the palace and serving the royal family members.
After Emperor Xizong of the Ming Dynasty, a special catering management institution was established in the Ming Palace, the Shangshan Supervisor, in charge of the emperor's royal meals, palace meals and banquets.
The Salary Care Division is mainly responsible for the fuel supply in the palace. In addition to providing firewood for the kitchen, it also prepares enough fuel for heating in winter.
The responsibility of the Wine and Vinegar Noodle Bureau is to provide enough wine, vinegar, and noodles for the palace, and of course, including sugar, wheat, soybeans and other raw materials and condiments related to catering.
Due to the large number of members of the Ming Dynasty royal family, palace maids, and eunuchs, the food preparation tasks in the Ming Palace are very heavy and expensive.
Origin of Imperial Tea Dining Room
Compared with the previous dynasties, the dietary management institutions in the Qing Dynasty had both similarities and major differences.
First of all, the Qing Dynasty still retained the establishment of Guanglu Temple, which mainly prepared banquets for court celebrations, sacrifices and other activities and provided food for officials.
Before the above activities are held, officials of Guanglu Temple, together with officials of the imperial censor, Taichang Temple and the Ministry of Rites, will supervise the slaughtering of animals in person.
In addition, Guanglu Temple is also responsible for providing seasonal food for Mongolian princes and foreign tribute envoys.
Different from the previous dynasties, all the affairs of the imperial palace in the Qing Dynasty were in charge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and of course the necessities of the members of the royal family were also included.
In this sense, the Shangshi Bureau and Shangshan Supervisor, who had previously been in charge of the palace meals, have been replaced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Of course, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is a large yamen, and the construction and security of the palace, as well as the management of eunuchs and palace maids, are all within its purview. Providing palace meals is only part of the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
From the perspective of time, the dietary management organization of the Qing Dynasty has a continuous development process.
In the early years of Shunzhi, the Ministry of Internal Affairs set up "tea room" and "dining room" respectively to be responsible for the catering affairs of the palace; in the thirteenth year of Qianlong (1748), the tea room and the dining room were merged into the "Imperial Tea Dining Room", which became the special management organization of the Qing palace's meals.
In order to cooperate with the imperial tea dining room, the Ministry of Internal Affairs also set up the "Personnel Defense Department". It is an institution that provides ingredients, snacks and condiments for the palace meals.
In addition, the tea storehouses of the Guangshou Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the charcoal storehouses and firewood storehouses of the Construction Division, the fruit houses of the Chief Ceremony Division, and the livestock herds under the jurisdiction of the Qingfeng Division are all closely related to the palace meals.
As the production department of court meals, the imperial tea kitchen also has a clear division of responsibilities.
For example, under the dining room, there are meat bureau, vegetarian bureau, hanging stove bureau, dim sum bureau, dining bureau and so on.
Among them, the Meat Bureau is responsible for providing fish, meat and seafood; the Vegetarian Bureau is responsible for providing green vegetables, dried vegetables, vegetable oil, etc.; the Hanging Stove Bureau is responsible for providing barbecue dishes; the Dim Sum Bureau is responsible for providing buns, dumplings, sesame seeds, pastries, cakes, etc. Responsible for providing porridge, rice, etc.
In addition, the Imperial Tea Restaurant also has a comprador meat department, a butcher's house and a dry meat storehouse, which are responsible for the procurement, storage and supply of meat and seafood.
Food stalls and longevity stalls
From the layout point of view, there are many dining rooms in the Qing Palace, the largest of which is the imperial dining room for the emperor.
There are two imperial dining rooms, one is the outer imperial dining room (also called the imperial dining room) outside the Jingyun Gate, which is responsible for the production of the "Man and Han Banquets" for the feasts of ministers, and also prepares meals for the ministers on duty; The place is the Inner Imperial Dining Room (also known as the Imperial Dining Room of Yangxin Palace) on the side of the Hall of Mental Cultivation, which is basically a small kitchen dedicated to the emperor.
In addition to the emperor, the princes also have their own dining room and tea room, and the concubines in the palace also have a corresponding dining room.
Generally speaking, the lower the status, the fewer the dishes, and the tableware used is correspondingly downgraded, ranging from gold and silver to tin and porcelain.
During the Jiaqing period, a tea room was added to the Shoukang Palace, which was the place where tea meals were served for the queen mother and concubines.
In addition, there is a dining room in the palace, which is a dining room for the guards.
Outside the Forbidden City, there are also dining rooms in imperial gardens such as the Yuanmingyuan and the Summer Palace.
During the autumn of Mulan, Rehe Palace (Chengde Mountain Resort) and other palaces along the Luan River also had imperial dining rooms, that is, "walking in the royal dining room".
Every time the emperor traveled, for example, when he toured Jiangnan in the south and Taishan in the east, he also had imperial dining staff to ensure the safety of the emperor and others.
Wherever they go, local officials often serve local specialties, and if the emperor is satisfied, sometimes the chef will be brought back to the palace.
It is worth mentioning that the reason why the diet of the emperors of the Qing Dynasty can be fully understood by later generations should be attributed to the establishment of the archive room under the imperial tea dining room in the thirty-sixth year of Qianlong (1771), which was mainly responsible for recording the diet in the palace. matters and keep documents.
Among them, the emperor's food stall and the empress dowager's longevity stall are the most well-preserved, respectively recording the breakfast and dinner recipes and chef's list of the successive emperors and empress dowagers, dining places, various tableware, table decoration, Meal completion reward and so on.
When the emperor was out on tour, the corresponding food archives were also recorded, which provided quite rich materials for the study of the Qing palace and the food culture of the Qing Dynasty.