Qianlong cuisine can actually be divided into official cuisine and folk cuisine. Official cuisine is the rare and beautiful jade presented to the emperor, such as Pingqiao Tofu, Wensi Tofu, Qinyuan Xiaolong, etc.; the other folk cuisine Most of the dishes are legends. They are common people's dishes that Qianlong tasted anonymously when he visited the lives of common people in private. Because these dishes are passed down by family descendants, they often exist in trademark stores, such as the yellow dog mentioned next. Pork head meat, wheel cakes, Laiyue moon cakes, Aozhao noodles, etc.

Huang Huangde, the tenth generation descendant of Suqian’s famous dish Yellow Dog and Pig Head Meat, is inspecting the growth conditions of the pigs at a contracted pig farm in Suqian. For a hundred years, successive generations of the descendants of Yellow Dog and Pig Head Meat have been required to He personally selected the quality of the pork and went to the market to purchase it. Now the business in the store is better. Therefore, Huang Huangde simply contracted with the pig farmer directly. And no matter how busy Huang Huangde is every day, if he is not around, this dish will never be served to the customers because he personally It is the inheritor's request to cook this dish in the kitchen, and the cooking process includes a secret family recipe.

Qianlong was still called "Master Qianlong" in Huang Jinde's mouth. He was grateful to Qianlong for giving the Huang family this meal. Originally, because his ancestor's nickname was Dagou, and since his surname was Huang, Qianlong simply named him Huang. Dog and pig head meat, this signature was given by Qianlong, and it allowed the Huang family to have enough food and clothing for hundreds of years. But in the end, in order to inherit this signature, he hated his father! The strict requirements for inheritors are no longer pure mental pressure. Frequent beatings and scoldings are commonplace. Now when Huang Jinde's sleeves are lifted, one can still see the scars that are almost self-inflicted. The hatred towards his father's forced learning is still there. After his father passed away and he really inherited the Huang family's signature, he turned to mourning with tears of gratitude. Huang Jinde's scar is not only the inheritance of Qianlong's delicious food, but also the attachment to his family.

Yellow Dog and Pig Head Meat

Due to the geographical climate in China, the general eating habit is to eat rice from the south to the north. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the transportation of rice from the south to the north by the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal made the Beijing-Tianjin region have a high demand for rice. In fact, the acceptance of rice cuisine is more acceptable than other regions in the north (except the Northeast). This also explains why Qianlong did not reject southern rice cuisine when he visited the south. The convenient transportation of a single Grand Canal broke through the geographical restrictions. , even the acceptance and integration of food culture are more mixed, which can be regarded as the added value brought by the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to Chinese food culture. However, Qianlong was still a northerner after all, and his love for noodles could not be changed.

Also with the legendary sign given by Qianlong, the Aozao Pavilion in Kunshan, Jiangsu is said to be a small noodle dish that Qianlong tasted on the roadside after he visited Yufeng Mountain in Kunshan incognito. The noodles are famous for their soft and chewy noodles, especially the traditional fried fish. Legend has it that Qianlong was so happy after tasting it that he sent his eunuch to the kitchen to ask about how to make it. However, the cook's Kunshan dialect made it difficult for the eunuch to understand, so he told Qianlong that the secret of this noodle lies on the stove. Therefore, the name of Aozao Noodles spread like wildfire. . Another theory is that the Kunshan dialect word "鏖zao" means unclean. Legend has it that the earliest noodle shop that operated Aozao noodles was small and dirty, but its noodles were extremely delicious. This noodle is named Aozao Noodle.

Another Qianlong gourmet noodle dish, the most famous one is Zhenjiang’s Pot Cover Noodles. Coincidentally, the story is the same as that of Kunshan Aozao Restaurant. It was also a snack that Qianlong came up with after passing through Zhenjiang in disguise. Legend has it that Sister-in-law Zhang, who is good at cooking noodles, was in a hurry and put the lid on the pot together with the noodles. Unexpectedly, because the noodles were under the pot lid, the water boiled around it without overflowing. There was no gap between the water and the noodles, making the noodles very chewy. , on the contrary, it was even more delicious. Qianlong praised its deliciousness, so the magical cooking method of pot cover noodles became the best spokesperson for Zhenjiang noodles. Qianlong was like promoting this local snack to gourmet food.

Pot Noodles

Zhenjiang is the last section of the Jiangnan Canal. Jinshan Temple is the Buddhist treasure temple named after this place. Since Emperor Wu of Liang held the Water and Land Dharma Assembly, Jinshan Temple has always been associated with many mysterious legends. The background of the Chinese folk tale "The Legend of the White Snake" also takes place here. Of course, it is not necessarily the White Snake who lives under the Leifeng Pagoda today, but the seven imperial steles of Qianlong's visit to Jinshan Temple are left in the temple, which proves that Jinshan Temple has great influence on Qianlong. It has incomparable charm, attracting him to keep coming. Jiaoshan, not far from Jinshan, is also Qianlong's palace. Qianlong's love for Zhenjiang is self-evident.

Every time Qianlong visited the south, except for the last one, he would come to the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum in Nanjing to worship Zhu Yuanzhang. He would also stop by Qixia Temple in Qixia Mountain to stay. Therefore, Qixia Temple is also called Qixia Qianlong Palace, which shows that Qianlong Whenever he comes to Nanjing, he must stay at Qixia Qianlong Palace. Because of this connection, after Qianlong returned to Beijing after completing his southern tour, he was given a purple cassock embroidered with 133 golden dragons. The back of the cassock was printed with the words "Five Lucky Emperor Qixia Palace Imperial Gifts of the Qing Dynasty" The words "Golden Dragon Kasaya will forever guard the mountain gate" make Qixia Temple still among all the palaces of Qianlong. Therefore, the century-old cassock makes it a particularly eye-catching ancient temple palace, and this treasure of the temple is still preserved in the temple.

Opposite Qixia Mountain and across the Yangtze River is today’s Liuhe District of Nanjing. It is not too far from Qixia Mountain. Legend has it that Qianlong once passed through Liuhe Guabu, which coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival, so he stayed at Taiping Temple to admire the moon. The abbot at that time Monk Laiyue presented homemade mooncakes for Qianlong to taste. This mooncake was different from the greasy and sticky mooncakes in the market and was refreshing. Qianlong loved it because this mooncake was only homemade by Monk Laiyue for the monks in the temple to eat. It was not named, so Qianlong The name of Laiyue was directly used on the mooncakes. After that, the Laiyue mooncakes in Liuhe Guabu became the emperor's tribute cakes and became one of the Qianlong delicacies. It is true that Qianlong admired the moon at Taiping Temple, which is still recorded in Taiping Temple. Temple records. This mooncake is huge. The special feature is that it combines Su style and Cantonese mooncake crusts to make the mooncake crust as solid and crispy as a peach cake. Today, there is only one mooncake factory in Kuah that produces Lai Yue mooncakes, and the golden ratio of the crust remains to this day. According to rumors, it is still controlled by a family named Wang in Kuah, who has been making Laiyue mooncakes for generations.

Qianlong’s Southern Inspection, from 1751 to 1784, the Communist Party of China’s six southern inspections lasted 33 years, and the routes were almost the same. For this reason, Qianlong also wrote the article "Notes on the Southern Inspection", in which, He believed that his greatest achievements in his life were the Western Army and the Southern Tour. Qianlong's Southern Tour actually had pros and cons. On the one hand, building stone embankments, promoting talented people, and reducing taxes were all benefits to the people, but the disadvantages were, There were more than 2,000 people on each southern tour. Officials along the way flattered and built palaces many times, but the people were actually miserable. Qianlong not only failed to stop it, but also rewarded the officials who built the palace with "20,000 taels of silver each for use", so that wherever Qianlong went In addition to the beautiful palaces, delicious food is also something that is bound to please. Coupled with the wealth of salt merchants, the area in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Huaihe has naturally become a gathering place for Qianlong cuisine, and this influence has not diminished to this day. Qianlong, an old man who claimed to be "perfect", probably could not imagine the impact of his southern tour, forming a food line that is good at telling stories in Chinese food culture, and this line may be true or legendary, no matter what, it is It has become a topic of conversation among people after dinner. In people's minds, in modern language, Qianlong may be a gourmet, or more vividly, a foodie!

These descendants of Qianlong’s cuisine may have secret recipes that are not passed down from their families, or they may have the custom of passing it on to sons but not daughters, or they may have gone through an arduous learning process, but in short, they represent China A diligent, simple and reserved character. The Qianlong style delicacies made hand by hand may still be the legendary emperor's delicacies in the next hundred years, and the scars on their bodies and hearts will continue to be passed on to the next generation, eventually becoming the Qianlong's way of delicacies and imperial cuisine. prove.

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