Manchu Han Imperial Feast
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| Manchu Han Imperial Feast | |||||||||||
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| The historical feast and banquet held at the Forbidden city | |||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese: | 滿漢全席 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese: | 满汉全席 | ||||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||||
| Kanji: | 満漢全席 | ||||||||||
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| Hangul: | 만한전석 | ||||||||||
| Hanja: | 満漢全席 | ||||||||||
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Manchu Han Imperial Feast or Qing Han Imperial Feast was one of the grandest meals ever documented in Manchuria and Chinese history. It consisted of at least 108 unique dishes from the Qing dynasty and Han Chinese culture. The meal was held for three whole days, across six banquets. The culinary skills consisted of cooking methods from all over Imperial China.[1]
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[edit] Names
Quite a number of English names have been used to describe the dish combinations.
- Manchu Han Imperial Feast[1]
- Qing Han Imperial Feast
- Manchu Han Feast
- Feast of Complete Manchu-Han Courses
- Man Han Quan Xi
[edit] History
[edit] Qing Dynasty
When the Manchus conquered China in the Qing dynasty, Han Chinese could only hold lower ranking posts. Qing and Han struggled for power. Kangxi emperor wanted to resolve the disputes, and held a banquet in his 66th birthday. The banquet/imperial meal consisted of Qing and Han dishes, both groups also attended the banquet together. After the Wuchang Uprising, common people learned about this royal cuisine. The original meal was served in the Forbidden city in Beijing.[1]
[edit] Preparation
The meal was prepared comprising six banquets over three days with over 300 dishes. Altogether there are said to have been 196 main dishes and 124 snack dishes, for a total of 320 dishes sampled over three days. Depending on how the dishes are counted with the samples, at the absolute minimum there were 108 dishes.[1] The emperor, after previewing the dishes, gave the feast its present name. The feast was divided into inner-palace and outer-palace banquets; only the imperial family and meritorious officials, including Han officials above the second rank, were invited into the inner-palace banquets. A book from the reign of Qianlong gives a detailed description of the feast and the dishes and ingredients.
[edit] The meal
It is said that there were "Thirty-Two Delicacies", referring to the more exotic ingredients used for the banquet. The "Eight Mountain Delicacies" includes such dishes as camel's hump, bear's paws, monkey's brains, ape's lips, leopard fetuses, rhinoceros tails and deer tendons. The "Eight Land Delicacies" includes several precious fowls and mushrooms, and the "Eight Sea Delicacies" includes sea cucumbers, shark's fin, bird's nest and others.
Some of the individual names of the dishes within:
- Snowy Palm - bear claw with sturgeon[1]
- Golden Eyes and Burning Brain - bean curd simmered in chicken, duck and cuckoo brains
- Monkey King and Shark - goat brain
- Live monkey brain[1]
- Egg tart
[edit] Utensils
The utensils, like the food, were also lavish; the majority of utensils were finely-crafted bronzeware, and porcelainware in the shape of many animals were designed with mechanisms for keeping the dishes warm throughout the meal. In general the Manchu dishes were first sampled, followed by the Han dishes.
[edit] Popular culture
The imperial meal was re-enacted in the movie The Chinese Feast.
[edit] Replicas
The cuisine is extremely rare in China today, and if offered it is by a large margin one of the most expensive meal in the entire Chinese cuisine collection. Even when served, it is done with replacement ingredients, as many of the animals are mainly endangered species. Waitors serving the replicas are required to wear upscale han fu or some form of traditional Chinese clothing.
