MUZIChinese Matrix
In a lantern-lit banquet hall at blue hour, a round table holds a whole fish, roast duck, braised dishes, prawns and lotus root as attendants ladle soup and carry trays of dim sum.
Imperial cuisine, official-household cooking, set-course banquets and family and village feasts: how a banquet's dishes are put together, the order of courses and the scale of the meal, which often vary with the occasion, the host's standing and local custom.
Imperial CuisineThe kitchens, meals and banquets of the emperor and the court.
Mansion CuisineThe cooking of the household cooks of officials and distinguished families.
Set-Course BanquetsBanquets served as a fixed sequence of many courses.
Family and Village BanquetsThe family meal at home, and the banquet held for the neighbours of a village.A banquet is a gathering at which many dishes are set on the table in a certain order and on a certain scale. It is both a meal and an arrangement: how the dishes are combined, when they are served and on what scale all matter. This class covers imperial cuisine, the kitchens and meals of the court; official-household cooking, the home cooks and entertaining dishes of officials' families; set-course banquets, great feasts served in a fixed pattern; and family and village feasts, those held by households and neighbourhoods. The scale and dishes of one kind of banquet often vary with the occasion, the host's standing and local custom.
The arrangement of feasts was recorded early. The Offices of Heaven in the Rites of Zhou, describing the Zhou system, place stewards and food physicians in charge of the king's meals and speak of twelve ding cauldrons at his daily meal, showing that royal dining had fixed rules. The Rites of Zhou already name the eight treasures, and the Neize chapter of the Book of Rites sets out how to make them, such as the rice with fried sauce, roast suckling pig and pounded meat. Banquets could already be hired out in the Song: Northern Song Bianjing had the "four offices" of tea-and-wine, kitchen and others, and Southern Song Lin'an the "four departments and six bureaus", as the Ducheng jisheng and the Mengliang lu record, so a banquet could be arranged by hiring specialists. Li Dou's Yangzhou huafang lu of the Qing gives a menu for a Manchu-Han banquet, a detailed written record of a set-course grand feast.
In arranging a banquet the host first fixes the scale, then the dishes, then the order. The scale follows the occasion and the host's standing, the dishes follow the season, local produce and custom, and the order follows the kinds of dish and the occasion. One kind of banquet is written up differently in different places and ages, so this class takes types only and does not set a standard menu.
Today large banquets are still arranged by occasion and by the host's standing, and local banquets keep local customs. Banquet Traditions deals with menus and service, not with seating and manners, which belong to Table Etiquette; particular feasts, famous dishes and long-established houses are recorded separately as entries.
Banquet Traditions is the class for banquets in the chapter on the Cuisine. It covers imperial cuisine, the cooking of official households, set-course banquets and family and village feasts, and shows how different groups arranged dishes, the order of courses and the scale of the meal at large gatherings. The scale and dishes of one kind of banquet often vary with the occasion, the host's standing and local custom. Seating and manners belong to Table Etiquette, and the meaning of an occasion to Food Customs.
Banquet Traditions records the dishes and arrangement of banquets, not a particular feast.
The Offices of Heaven in the Rites of Zhou, describing the Zhou system, place stewards and food physicians in charge of the king's meals and speak of twelve ding cauldrons at his daily meal, showing that royal dining had fixed rules. What is recorded here is the king's daily meal, not yet a banquet, but it already shows dishes and scale following rules.
The Rites of Zhou already name the eight treasures, and the Neize chapter of the Book of Rites sets out how to make them, such as the rice with fried sauce, roast suckling pig and pounded meat, so prized dishes had written methods to follow early on.
Around 709 Wei Juyuan offered the shaowei feast, and his account of the dishes is preserved in Tao Gu's Qingyi lu of the Northern Song, which copied out only fifty-eight banquet dishes.
Banquets could already be hired out in the Song: in Northern Song Bianjing a family feast could be handed to hired "four offices", so that "the host only paid"; in Southern Song Lin'an the work was split into four departments (furnishings, tea and wine, kitchen, serving) and six bureaus (fruit, candied fruit, vegetables, lamps, incense and arrangements), as the Ducheng jisheng (1235) and the Mengliang lu record. Giving a banquet had thus become a trade of its own.
Li Dou's Yangzhou huafang lu of the Qing (preface dated 1796) gives a menu for a Manchu-Han banquet, a detailed written record of a set-course grand feast. It writes down the order of dishes of one great banquet, so later readers can see what a set-course feast looked like.
Afterwards imperial cuisine, the cooking of official households and the family and village feasts of each place continued along this thread, varying in scale and dishes with the occasion and the place.
In Lin'an a man wanted to hold a great feast but did not want to prepare the tables, tea and wine, vegetables and lamps himself.
Someone told him: just hire the people who run banquets; each takes one part, and you only need to invite the guests. He was half doubtful but went and hired them.
On the day the one in charge of tables set the seats out early, the one in charge of tea and wine had every pot and cup ready, the one in charge of serving brought the dishes in on time one after another, and the one in charge of lamps lit them as it grew dark. The guests felt only that it went smoothly, not knowing how much division of work lay behind it. The host stood at the door welcoming them and thought: so a banquet is the work of this many people.
When the feast was over and the guests gone, the host went to the back yard to watch the hired helpers clear the tables, and asked whether they had another household's feast tomorrow. They said yes, another house, with different dishes and a different scale, and it would all have to be laid out again.
Later he gave two more feasts and each time first went to the same people. By the third time he no longer asked how they would arrange it; he only gave the number of guests and the day, left everything else to them, and kept only to inviting and keeping company.
Behind the dishes and the order of courses at a banquet lie a division of work and a set of rules. This class is about that arrangement, not about any one feast; it sets no fixed menu and only shows what types of banquet there are. (This is an illustrative story, not a historical account.)
