Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century
Page 22
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