Different emperors have different tastes and like different foods. At the same time, with the consolidation of political power in various dynasties, the emperor's diet was simple in the early stage and extravagant in the middle and late stage. Li Shimin's recipe of Emperor Taizong is relatively simple, with a bowl of rice, stewed bamboo shoots, tremella and ginkgo soup, and the same meat. With the development of the dynasty and the gradual improvement of the court system, the emperor's diet in the court had a set of etiquette and rules. In the Tang Dynasty, there was a specialized organization in charge of imperial meals-Commercial Food Bureau, which was subordinate to the palace province, and had officials such as imperial meals, vertical meals, staple foods, main meals, food doctors, etc., and was served by eunuchs. The court in the Tang Dynasty attached great importance to the rich, fresh, hygienic and health-preserving functions of diet. Not only can delicious food from all over the world be supplied at any time, but food doctors will prepare all kinds of suitable food for the emperor to enjoy according to the climate and season. But on the whole, the emperors of the Tang Dynasty did not pursue the luxury of food excessively, because they all liked alchemy at that time and wanted to live a long life.
Although the Tang emperor didn't eat it on purpose, as an emperor, it was not a piece of cake for him to want to eat luxurious meals. For example, the recipes for barbecue banquets recorded by Tao in the Qing and Five Dynasties, also known as Wei Juyuan's recipes, are amazing. The ingredients used in it are all kinds of delicacies, flying from the sky to the water, and the production method is complicated and changeable. According to textual research, there were 128 kinds of delicious food presented by Wei Juyuan, the prime minister at that time, to Li Xian, Tang Zhongzong, including large dishes, soups, pastries and shortcakes. These dishes are mostly made of beef, mutton, fish, sheep oil, goat milk, sheep offal and so on. There are also Hu foods, such as smallpox from the western regions. Some dishes in the barbecue are difficult to reproduce so far, so they are regarded as the highest level of China banquet. There are also nectar soup and camel hoof soup that Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei love to eat, and they are still operated in some high-end hotels in Xi and Beijing.
Let's look at the Ming Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang put forward the requirement of "no banquet in Shang Hua". As the founding emperor, he often ate green vegetables, tofu and braised pork, without changing the true colors of civilians. Because Zhu Yuanzhang and many generals are mostly from Jianghuai and Huaiyang areas, the common dishes in the court are roasted mushrooms, longevity dishes and hairy tofu.
With the development of economy, the diet has become diversified. On the 15th day of the first month, there are winter bamboo shoots, pigeon eggs, fish and shrimp, and soft-shelled turtles. There are cool cakes in spring and purslane in summer solstice. Eat crabs in autumn, eat rabbits and drink chrysanthemum wine on the Double Ninth Festival ... By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the simple way of eating disappeared, and the tofu in the court was no longer made of soybeans, but made of the brains of hundreds of birds, which was extremely extravagant. For banquets, you should use famous products from all over the country, such as Taizhou duck eggs, Liaodong golden shrimp, Zhuji fragrant beaver, Taihu hairy crabs, and so on.
The most famous in the court is "barbecue", which is extremely rich. Barbecue banquets include: stir-fried Admiralty, stir-fried prawns, tender beef intestines, raw twenty-four gas wonton, raw duck flower soup cake, Tongxin raw breast, cold toad soup, Tang 'an soup, sliced honeysuckle, flame mouth, crystal dragon and phoenix cake, double-mixed broken cake, high curative value ball, Han Palace chess and cards, longevity porridge and so on.