Luoyang water banquet has eight cold dishes and sixteen hot dishes! What are the names of the eight cold dishes with themes of service, etiquette, Tao, desire, art, literature, Zen, and politics? The sixteen hot dishes are divided into four themes: table preparation, eight major dishes, and four finishing touches.
"Service": Use egg yolk to make an egg coat and tie it to the vegetables. The egg coat is as thin as transparent paper, golden and without any impurities. Edible red and green silk is embellished with dragon and phoenix patterns on the egg coat, which also means that the emperor's yellow robe is added to the body. .
"Li": Remove the deer sinews and wash them into white hooks, like a bow. (Other ingredients may also be used instead.) It looks white and crystal clear. It is placed in an orderly manner on the plate, reflecting politeness.
"Tao": roll up the fragrant stuffing with five-spice bean curd sheets (taken from the soil ears and fungi that grow in the mugwort bushes on the bank of Luohe River after the rain. The best one is called "Diquan'er" in the local dialect.) The outside doesn't know what's inside, and the inside doesn't know its taste. When you eat it, it has an indescribable deliciousness in your mouth.
"Desire": Cut the outer waist flower of a three-year-old dog into slices, open the middle, and insert the inner waist of a full-year-old rooster to shape it. Decorate it with wolfberry, and surround it with cordyceps. It looks majestic and colorful. Food strengthens yang and replenishes deficiency.
"Art": In the past, crispy lotus tongue was used as a dish. The lotus is like a painting and the sparrows are chirping in spring, which means the mountains and rivers are like a painting, and people are singing and dancing to bring peace. Of course, today we have to protect birds, and the tongue has been replaced.
"文": Use green bamboo shoots to cook carp into a dish. Bamboo shoots are the soul of bamboo, bamboo is the friend of literature, and literature is the principle of the world (carp).
"Zen": Wu Zetian was a monk and was related to Zen Buddhism. This dish is vegetarian without any oil or meat.
"Zheng": made of goose breast and goose paws. Geese know the warmth and cold and migrate, and geese float on the water with their bodies on their paws. It is a metaphor that those in power should know whether the world is warm or not, and how public opinion can prevail. Today, wild goose breast has been replaced by goose breast.
Four Town Tables
1. Agar-agar. Nowadays, agar-agar in Luoyang is often called "peony agar-agar". Because in October 1973, Premier Zhou Enlai accompanied Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau to visit Luoyang, and the leaders of Luoyang City entertained him with water mats. The celebrity chef carefully crafted a peony flower out of eggs and placed it on top of agar-agar. Premier Zhou was very happy to see it and said: "Luoyang peonies are the best in the world, and peonies are also blooming in vegetables." From then on, the agar-agar was renamed as "peony agar-agar".
2. Tiger head carp grilled with green onions. The long-bearded carp from the Mengjin Yellow River is the top quality carp. Now, the direction of the fish head must be to the distinguished person, elder, or noble friend sitting on the table. The person sitting on the table moves the chopsticks first, which shows a kind of respect and courtesy.
3. When the bean curd meat is covered with clouds, the person sitting at the bottom of the table uses chopsticks first. According to legend, Wu Zetian was dissatisfied with all the four sons she gave birth to, but she was the only one who liked Princess Taiping. Later, Taiping married Xue Shao. When sending her daughter off for marriage, Wu put her own milk on the meat and asked her daughter to eat it, so that her daughter would not forget her mother's heart.
4. Sea rice is called "Baicai", which means sea rice stewed with cabbage. It is called "Baicai" because it is auspicious and pleasing to the heart. Cabbage is sometimes served as a vegetarian dish, but it is actually used to sharpen the taste of the two previous meat dishes.
Eight major items
The "eight major items" are divided into the first five and the last three.
The top five are "Quick Three Samples", "Five Fillet Fish", "Fish Kernel", "Dinged Chicken", and "Exploded Crane Breast".
The last three are three sweet dishes, usually eight-treasure rice, sweet shredded pork, and sweet and sour pork.
The four endings
The order is "Shark's Fin Flower Arrangement", "Golden Monkey Exploring the Sea", "Opening Squids for Spring", and "Bibo Umbrella Pills".
"Bibo Umbrella Pills" is "balls", but because it sounds like "Wanzhi", when Wu Zetian was ill, when she ate the last dish, it sounded like "Wanzhi", and she sighed in despair. With a sound, I realized it at this time, but everything was too late. Then he shouted, "I am also dying on the water table." For this reason, it will be a bit disappointing for people in the future to eat water, and they will always think of a woman's death. It is said that from the Northern Song Dynasty, this last dish was changed into a bowl of sour and refreshing egg soup, which has been preserved to this day.
One thing is very interesting. Even if the name of the last dish is changed, it is always rare for people to get together. It is a bit ironic that the last dish is called "egg soup". .
In fact, every dish in the water banquet has a legend, and no one will eat all the water banquets now. These stories are waiting for you to discover one by one~~
If you come to Luoyang, I would like to recommend a hotel to you. One is the Zhendong Hotel located in the old town of Luoyang. It is a time-honored restaurant that sells water seats. Remember to go to the second floor or above. Although it is more expensive than the first floor, the service attitude is much better than the first floor! ! ! There is almost no one on the first floor to care about you. In order to have a happy meal, it is recommended that you go up more stairs and spend an extra two bucks~~
There is another one which is much better, it is on Jiudu Road in Luoyang City Shen Chu Hotel, the water seats inside are not bad either.
If you want to understand Chinese culture, then please come to Luoyang. Ouyang Xiu once said, "If you ask about the rise and fall of ancient and modern times, please just look at Luoyang City."