Manchu's Dietary Customs

The dietary customs of Manchu are formed and developed with the changes of Manchu history, social production and economic conditions. Manchu ancestors lived among the white mountains and black waters in the northeast of China for a long time. Apart from "many pigs eat their meat", fishing, hunting and gathering are their main production methods, while fish, animal meat, wild plants and fungi are their food sources. Pork is a meat product comparable to fish and venison in Manchu food composition.

Eating meat to worship the gods is the primitive religious custom of Manchu people. In the folk, when offering a single pole (sacred pole) in the New Year, it is necessary to make blood sausage (later white meat blood sausage); Sacrificing seven stars in the dark night, it later evolved into seven-star mutton. In Manchu sacrifices, pigs are often sacrificed, and pork is called "blessed meat" and "sacred meat". After the sacrifice, everyone shared food.

Manchu people like sticky food, honey, rice tea and other customs, which are also influenced by their long-term economic production such as hunting, gathering, breeding, farming and beekeeping. It is customary to identify them through sacrifices in sacrificial activities. Of course, the formation of this diet custom is also restricted by geography, climate and living environment.

After the Manchu entered the customs to unify China, although the dietary customs were greatly influenced by the Han nationality, they still maintained the traditional inertia. From folk snacks, three sets of bowl seats to the imperial palace in Qing Dynasty and Manchu-Han banquet, it constitutes a huge lineup of Manchu diet, which is not only an integral part of Manchu national culture, but also an important wealth in the cooking treasure house of the motherland.

First, a few Manchu snacks:

Cixi xiaowotou

When Eight-Nation Alliance went to Beijing, Empress Dowager Cixi fled, and had cornmeal steamed corn bread, which was delicious. After returning to Beijing, one day, I remembered to eat Wowotou again, so I called the kitchen to make Wowotou. The workers in the kitchen make steamed bread with fresh corn flour and soybean flour, accompanied by honey that Manchu people like to eat. So Xiaowotou became a court snack in the Qing Dynasty.

Bean flour paper

Manchu people like sticky food and sweets. Bean flour rolls, or bean flour cakes, are mostly eaten in spring. The method is to steam the sticky rice noodles in a pot, roll them into thin slices, and then sprinkle the fried soybeans evenly on them, or add sesame salt, roll them into rolls, and cut them into one to two inches long, which is golden in color, sticky and fragrant.

Perilla leaf cake (sticky mouse)

This is also a sticky food that Manchu people like best. In summer, soak glutinous rice, grind it, press it into a round cake, put small peas in it, wrap it with fresh perilla leaves, and steam it. It is fragrant to eat without leaves (or with leaves).

sour soup

This is a kind of food that Manchu people like to eat in summer. The method is to soak corn, grind it into flour and ferment it. Squeeze the fermented noodles into a "soup pot" (or a pig halaba bone with a small hole) to make noodles and leak them into a boiling water pot. After cooking, add seasoning and serve. Honey and sesame can be added as sweets in summer. Sweet and sour, palatable.

Shaqima (also called sugar bag)

Mix white flour with water and eggs (or cream), beat into thin slices, cut into thin strips and fry until cooked. Boil with sugar or rock sugar, stir, pour into a wooden trough paved with sesame, green shredded pork and melon seeds, flatten, take out and cut into cubes, which is sweet and palatable. In the Qing Dynasty, the Three Mausoleums outside Guanwai were also offered as offerings, which shows that Manchu people attached great importance to them. Now it is a favorite pastry for people of all ethnic groups in China.

Xiaoroufan

That is, the traditional Manchu staple food Yangzi rice. Stir-fried diced pork with sorghum. Add some water and you'll get the shoe porridge.

Brother Rico

Rice cooked with rice, millet and adzuki beans. "Bean" is the homonym of "bean", and rice and millet are metaphors of dragons and tigers, so it is called "Long Hudou".

Rice and rice

Boil glutinous rice with water, take it out with cold water and soak it in cold water. Usually in summer.

Second, the Manchu-Han banquet uses allusions:

Nuerhachi golden meat

According to legend, Nurhachi worked as a policeman under Li, commander-in-chief of Liaodong in Ming Dynasty. Company commanders mansion's rule is: there must be eight dishes and one soup on the table every day. One day, the cook was ill. After each of the seven maids cooked a dish, they couldn't think of the eighth dish. Nurhachi told me the eighth course, and he cooked meat dishes with good color and flavor. Later, Nurhachi became the old man king, and golden meat became a famous dish of the Qing Dynasty symbolizing the industrial achievements of the empire.

Gan long dou fu bo Cai

When Qianlong visited the south of the Yangtze River, he got lost in the country one day. It's already noon and my stomach is growling with hunger. At this time, I saw an old woman cooking, and the red, green, yellow and white peas were beautiful. So, I sent for a plate, and Qianlong ate it all at once. He even said that the food in the world is the best. So people ask, what is this? The old woman said with a smile, this is "Brother Red-billed Jade Seal Gold". So, a farm dish went into the imperial kitchen.

Tasi honey (mutton in honey sauce)

This is a common dish of the Qing court. Just because one day Cixi was enjoying herself, she asked the name of this dish. In order to please, the chef said that it was newly created by a slave and had not yet been named. She asked Lafayette to give it a name. Cixi was very happy. She said smoothly that this dish is as sweet as honey, so let's call it "as sweet as honey".