Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century

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by Ying-shih Yü


  Xiang Zhuang.31

  There can be no doubt that the scene depicts a feast held in a military camp.

  It is debatable, however, whether it is a description of the Banquet at Hong

  100 f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e

  Men. A full and lively account of the banquet is given by the Grand Historian in

  Rec ords of the Grand Historian, as follows:

  Xiang Yu invited Liu Bang to stay for a banquet. He and Xiang Bo sat fac-

  ing east, the patriarch Fan Zeng faced south, Liu Bang faced north, and

  Zhang Liang, who was in attendance upon him, faced west. Several times

  Fan Zeng shot Xiang Yu meaningful glances and three times, as a hint,

  raised his jade que. But Xiang Yu did not respond. Fi nally Fan Zeng rose

  and went out. Summoning Xiang Zhuang, he said:

  “Our lord is too kindhearted. Go in, drink a toast, and off er to perform

  a sword dance. Then strike the Lord of Bei [Liu Bang] down where he sits.

  If you don’t do this, we will all end up his captives.”

  Xiang Zhuang went in to off er a toast, after which he said, “Our prince

  is drinking with the Lord of Bei, but we have no entertainers in the army.

  May I perform a sword dance?”

  “Very well,” said Xiang Yu.

  Xiang Zhuang drew his sword and began the dance, and Xiang Bo fol-

  lowed suit, shielding Liu Bang with his body so that Xiang Zhuang could

  not strike him.

  Zhang Liang went out to the gate of the camp to see Fan Kuai, who

  asked, “How are things in there?”

  “Touch and go,” replied Zhang Liang. “Xiang Zhuang has drawn his

  sword to dance. He means to kill the Lord of Bei.”

  “This is serious!” said Fan Kuai. “Let me go in and have it out with

  him.”

  Sword and shield in hand he entered the gate. Guards with crossed

  halberds tried to bar the way, but he charged and knocked them down

  with his tilted shield. Bursting into the tent, he lifted the curtain and

  stood facing west, glaring at Xiang Yu. His hair bristled; his eyes nearly

  started from his head. Xiang Yu raised himself on one knee and reached

  for his sword.

  “Who is this stranger?” he asked.

  “This is the lord of Bei’s bodyguard, Fan Kuai,” answered Zhang

  Liang. “Stout fellow!” said Xiang Yu. “Give him a stoup of wine.”

  Wine was poured and presented to Fan Kuai, who bowed his thanks

  and straightened up to drink it standing.

  “Give him a leg of pork,” directed Xiang Yu.

  A raw leg of pork was given to Fan Kuai, who set his shield upside

  down on the ground, placed the pork on it, carved it with his sword, and

  began to eat.

  “Stout fellow!” cried Xiang Yu. “Can you drink any more?”

  “I am not afraid of death; why should I refuse a drink?” retorted Fan

  Kuai. . . . Xiang Yu could not answer.

  f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e 101

  “Sit down,” he said.

  Fan Kuai took a seat next to Zhang Liang. Presently Liu Bang got up

  and went out to the privy, beckoning Fan Kuai to go with him.32

  Checking this account against the mural painting, we immediately fi nd that

  there are more discrepancies than correspondences between the two pieces.

  The seating arrangement and the absence of Fan Kuai in the painting are very

  diffi

  cult to explain if the story is about the Banquet at Hong Men. The fi erce

  man at the left end whom Guo takes to be Xiang Zhuang looks more like Fan

  Kuai in the Grand Historian’s description. But then, Xiang Zhuang would be

  missing from the scene. Moreover, both Xiang Zhuang and Xiang Bo are sup-

  posed to be performing a sword dance together in the banquet.

  Identifi cation of the feast scene in the Luoyang mural painting is not our

  main concern here, however. What particularly interests us is the light the

  Banquet at Hong Men throws on our understanding of a Han feast. The fi rst

  thing to be noted is the seating arrangement of the banquet, which is recorded

  in Rec ords of the Grand Historian but not in the History of the Former Han Dy-

  nasty. As we have seen above, in this banquet, Xiang Yu and his uncle, Xiang

  Bo, sat facing east. Xiang Yu thus shared the seat of honor with his uncle. Evi-

  dence reveals beyond a doubt that the seat facing east was the place of honor at

  a Han feast. Take the following case of Tian Fen, prime minister under Em-

  peror Wu’s reign, as an example: One day, Tian Fen invited guests to a drinking

  party and made his elder brother, the marquis of Kai, sit facing south while he

  took the place of honor facing east. He explained that family etiquette must not

  be allowed to detract from the prime minister’s dignity.33 Moreover, in 32 b.c.e.,

  Prime Minister Kuang Heng was also accused of having violated the rules of

  propriety by assigning the east- facing seat of honor to one of his subordinates

  during an offi

  cial banquet ( HS, 76.25a). It must be pointed out that this par tic-

  u lar rule was not a Han invention but traceable to at least the late Zhou Pe-

  riod.34 The seating arrangement at the Banquet at Hong Men was therefore defi -

  nitely a meaningful one. It conveys the impor tant message that Liu Bang had

  actually accepted Xiang Yu as his superior. This perhaps explains why Xiang Yu

  no longer had the heart to do away with Liu Bang after every one had taken his

  seat at the banquet. Indeed, the way of eating could also become a subtle po liti-

  cal art.

  Another observation I wish to make about this historical banquet concerns

  the cooking of meat. The feast scene from the Luoyang mural- painted tomb

  shows a man broiling (or roasting) a joint of beef on a stove. The rectangular-

  shaped four- legged stove was possibly painted after the model of an iron one as

  was found in the immediately neighboring Han cemetery at Shaogou.35 Inter-

  estingly enough, the whole operation in the painting strikes the modern eye

  very much as a scene of an outdoor open- fi re barbecue. But perhaps it would not

  be too farfetched if we take this portion of the mural painting to be suggestive of

  102 f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e

  the way meat was cooked for the Banquet at Hong Men. It may be recalled that

  Fan Kuai had been given a raw, uncut leg of pork to eat. It is not inconceivable

  that the “raw” pork leg was but a halfway, or even less than halfway, broiled piece

  of meat not ready for serving. Xiang Yu’s order was given so suddenly that the

  cook simply had no time to fi nish the broiling. A careful reader of the textual

  account would agree that the chain of events, from Xiang Yu’s giving the order

  to Fan Kuai’s eating the leg of pork, makes much better sense if the food was

  prepared right in the feasting place, as shown in the aforementioned painting.

  After all, we must remember, the banquet took place in a war time military

  camp. Furthermore, broiled or roasted meat was a prized dish for the Han

  Chinese. Jia Yi (d. 169 b.c.e.), for instance, included it in his proposed menu

  for Han restaurants on the border to attract the Xiongnu to China’s side. In his

  optimistic estimation, “When the Xiongnu have developed a craving for our

  cooked rice, geng stew, roasted meats, and wine, this will have becom
e their

  fatal weakness.”36 Roasted or broiled meat also has been found in a mural-

  painted tomb of late Later Han date at Jiayu Guan, Gansu. In this case, how-

  ever, the meat is cut into small pieces skewered on a three- pronged fork, ready

  for serving.37

  Fi nally, in the Banquet of Hong Men, Xiang Zhuang made the excuse to

  perform a sword dance by saying, “We have no entertainment in the army.”

  Thus, he introduces us to another component of a Han feast: entertainment. A

  formal Han feast was often, though not always, accompanied by amusements

  of vari ous kinds, including music, dance, and acrobatics. As a matter of fact,

  in many of the Han mural paintings and stone reliefs, the feast scene includes

  diversions of some sort as an integral part. Archaeologically, this point can be

  vividly illustrated by the recent discovery of a whole set of fi gurines in an earlier

  Han tomb at Wuying Shan, Jinan. The fi gurines may be con ve niently divided

  into four diff er ent groups: two girls dancing face to face, four men performing

  acrobatics, two girls and fi ve men playing music, and three gentlemen drinking

  together while enjoying the show.38 Ordinarily, however, it was music and

  dance that went together with a feast in Han times. In lit er a ture, both Fu Yi’s

  and Zhang Heng’s fu entitled “Dance” clearly indicate that a formal banquet is

  usually accompanied by music and dance.39 Zhang Heng (78–139 c.e.) provides

  us with even more specifi c information about the order of such per for mances

  in a feast. According to him, when music begins, wine will be served, and when

  the drinkers become intoxicated, beautiful girls will then rise to perform

  dances. Even at an informal dinner party, musical entertainment was some-

  times pres ent. Zhang Yu (d. 5 b.c.e.) often brought his favorite student, Dai

  Chong, to the inner hall for drink and food in the com pany of a band ( HS,

  81.14a).

  Feast scenes in Han mural paintings can only provide us with a skeleton of

  a Han feast in real life. Historical rec ords are also, as a rule, silent about the

  sorts of food and drink that were off ered and how. Therefore, for the fl esh and

  blood, so to speak, of a Han feast, we must turn to the descriptive literary

  f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e 103

  pieces. Here we run into diffi

  culties of another nature, however: many of the

  foods mentioned in such literary pieces are only names to us today. This is the

  case with names from about a dozen or so fu by Han writers from Mei Cheng

  (second century b.c.e.) to Xu Gan (early third century c.e.).

  I have found that, among the recognizable items, the following are often

  mentioned as foodstuff s or prepared dishes in a Han feast:

  me at s: beef fl ank, fatted dog, bear’s paw, panther’s breast, suckling pig,

  deer meat, lamb shoulder.

  birds: baked owl, wild duck stew, sparrow broth, roasted wild goose,

  chicken, snow goose, crane.

  fish: fi nely minced fresh carp, perch (from Lake Dongting), turtle stew,

  boiled turtle.

  v ege ta bles: bamboo shoots, edible rush shoots, leeks, turnips.

  spices: ginger, cinnamon, fagara.

  frui t s: lychee, pear, hazelnuts, melon, orange, apricot.

  se a sonings: peony sauce, salt, plum sauce, meat sauce, sugar, honey,

  vinegar.40

  Needless to say, the above list is by no means an exhaustive one, but it does give

  us some idea of the sorts of foods the Han Chinese usually enjoyed at a feast.

  A few supplementary remarks are necessary to make the list more meaning-

  ful, however. First, cooking methods mentioned include stewing, boiling, fry-

  ing, roasting, baking, steaming, and pickling. The mixture of the “fi ve fl avors”

  ( bitter, sour, hot, salty, sweet) to achieve “harmony” was also considered to be

  fundamental to the art of cooking. In this re spect, cooking in Han China was

  more traditional than innovative. However, the art of cutting seems to have

  been stressed more emphatically than in previous periods. Several Later Han

  writers speak of mincing and slicing fi sh and meat to the thinnest degree as a

  built-in feature of fi ne food. In fact, as we shall see later, there were also signifi -

  cant new developments in the history of food and cooking during the Han

  Period. It would be wrong to assume that Han Chinese simply followed the

  eating tradition of classical antiquity.

  Second, as always, grain food is ever pres ent in the Han literary descriptions

  of a feast. Rice (both ordinary and glutinous) and millet (especially liang

  ,

  Setaria italica Beauv. var. maxima) are particularly praised as being delicious.

  We can therefore assume that they were preferred to other kinds of grains

  available.

  Third, wine was by defi nition an indispensable part of the feast. A second

  century b.c.e. writer, Zou Yang, in his fu on wine distinguishes between the

  two alcoholic beverages li

  and jiu

  and, further, says that wines are manu-

  factured from rice and wheat.41 The li and jiu contrast is also found in Zhang

  Heng’s “Qi bian,” where we are told that jiu is dark in color whereas li is white.42

  In the early Earlier Han dynasty, a Confucian scholar named Mu, at the court of

  104 f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e

  Prince Yuan of Chu, did not like jiu, so the prince always prepared li for him at

  a feast. According to the Tang commentator Yan Shigu, li tastes sweet. It is

  manufactured with less “starter” ( qu ) and more rice than are required for the

  preparation of jiu ( HS, 36.26). Since antiquity, both li and jiu were put in two

  separate zun beakers during a feast ( Yili [Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial],

  “Xiangyin jiu li” [Rites of the District Symposium]). This practice was still fol-

  lowed during the Han Period. As a Later Han song says, “[For] entertaining

  guests in the north hall . . . there are two zun

  containers, one for clear ( jiu),

  and the other for white ( li).” 43 On the other hand, jiu (or qingjiu

  , “clear

  wine”) seems to have been a more popu lar beverage. Conceivably, jiu is much

  stronger than li. The Later Han dictionary Shiming

  (Explaining Words)

  tells us that li could be made overnight,44 whereas according to Jia Sixie of the

  sixth century, the fermentation of clear wine is a very complicated pro cess and

  therefore takes a much longer time.45

  In the two Mancheng tombs (in Hebei) of Earlier Han date, altogether thirty-

  three pottery wine jars were found in 1968. Several of the jars bear inscriptions

  describing such wines as “Shu [glutinous panicled millet] wine,” “Sweet lao ,”

  “Rice wine,” and “Shu wine of shangzun

  quality.” 46 Li wine made from

  wheat is also mentioned in Cai Yong’s letter to Yuan Shao in the early third

  century c.e.47 Thus, we know that wines in Han times were made from virtu-

  ally all kinds of grain, including rice, millet, and wheat.48

  The term shangzun needs a word of explanation. According to a Han law

  quoted by Rushun, wine made from rice is classifi ed as shangzun (upper grade),

  wine made from ji

  ( Setaria italica Beauv. var.
maxima) is zhongzun

  ( middle grade), and wine made from su

  ( P. miliaceum) is xiazun

  (lower

  grade). However, Yan Shigu believes that the grade of wine had nothing to do

  with the kind of cereal from which it was made. Rather, the grade of wine in

  Han times was determined by the degree of its thickness: the thicker the wine,

  the better its quality ( HS, 71.12b). Now, with the discovery of the inscription

  “Shu wine of shangzun quality” from tombs of none other than Prince [Liu]

  Sheng of Zhongshan and his wife, it seems that Yan Shigu’s theory is correct

  after all.

  We have found out, above, what sorts of food and drink were commonly

  available at a Han feast. It is now time that we try to reconstruct the relative or-

  der in which food and drink were served to the guests. First, wine would be

  off ered to the guests. This is shown not only in the above- quoted song of the

  Later Han Period but also in the Banquet at Hong Men. It may be recalled that

  Fan Kuai was fi rst given a cup of wine and then a leg of pork. After this initial

  wine serving, geng (stew) would be the opening dish of the feast. The Book of

  Etiquette and Ceremonial says, “When geng is ready, then the host asks the

  guests to take their seats.” 49 Ying Shao of the second century c.e. also reports

  that in his day, shu- meat stew was always the fi rst dish presented to the guests

  at a feast.50 After geng, other dishes, if any, would follow. We are reasonably sure

  that grain food was the last to be served. The Later Han song quoted above

  f o od in c h ine s e c ul t ur e 105

  further reveals that toward the end of the feast, the host would hurry the kitchen

  to prepare grain food (lit. “rice”) so that guests might not be detained too long.51

  Han Chinese, like their descendants today, considered a meal incomplete if

  grain food of some kind were not off ered. Thus, Ge Gong of the early second

  century c.e. found it necessary to write apologetically to a friend about the fact

  that when the latter visited him some eve ning before he had only shrimp to off er

  and no grain food.52

  Fi nally, at the end of the meal, fruit would be presented to the guests, per-

  haps not as a part of the meal, but in the sense of the Western dessert. Wang

  Chong, for instance, considers it the correct order of eating when he comments

  on the story that Confucius had eaten millet fi rst and peach later.53 Fu Yi (early

 

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