Ming Qing Yanjiu 22 (2018) 93–111 brill.com/mqyj The Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet: History, Myth, and Development Isaac Yue University of Hong Kong [email protected] Abstract In* terms of grandeur and extravagance, modern Chinese society tends to think of the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet 滿漢全席 as the pinnacle of China’s culi- nary heritage. Its allure is best illustrated by what happened in 1977, when the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) commissioned a Hong Kong restaurant named Kwok Bun 國賓酒樓 to recreate the banquet according to its “original” recipes. The preparation took over three months, involved more than one hundred and sixty chefs, and resulted in a meal that featured more than one hundred dishes.1 Since then, there has been no shortage of efforts made by different individuals, restaurants, and organizations to follow suit and recreate the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet in a contemporary setting. These different endeavours commonly claim that they follow the most authen- tic recipes. Little did they realise that there is no such thing as an authentic recipe. In fact, historians cannot even agree on which era saw the banquet begin, though the leading candidates all date to the Qing dynasty (1644–1911); these are the reign of the Emperor Kangxi (r. 1661–1722), the reign of the Emperor Qianlong (r. 1735–1796), and the dynasty’s last decades. This paper examines the accuracy of these claims by analyzing a sample menu for the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet recorded during Qianlong’s reign. This menu contains crucial information about the feast’s formative stages, information that * My gratitude goes to Pio Kuo, Loretta Kim, and Tang Pui Ling for their invaluable assistance. I am also grateful to the Hsu Long-sing Research Fund for its financial support which enabled me to carry out this project. All translations are mine, unless otherwise indicated. 1 A brief documentation of this event accompanied by some rare photos can be found in Chen Zhihan’s 陳植漢 book on the subject entitled A Comprehensive Account of the Manchu–Han Banquet 滿漢全席大全. This event was parodied in the 1995 Hong Kong feature film of the same name (English title: The Chinese Feast), starring Leslie Cheung, Anita Yuen, Kenny Bee, and Law Kar-ying. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/24684791-12340022Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 05:39:20AM via free access 94 Yue has not yet been properly addressed by academics researching this topic. By drawing attention to the traditional dietary customs of ethnic Manchus and Han Chinese, un- derstood in the context of contemporaneous Chinese gastronomy (to supplement the menu’s lack of contextual information), this paper provides a better understanding of the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet and of Chinese gastronomy in general, in terms of their history, development, and cultural significance. Keywords Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet – Kangxi – Qianlong – Yuan Mei – fusion cuisine One of the most popular misconceptions surrounding the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet is the attribution of its invention to the Emperor Kangxi (1654–1722, r. 1661–1722). For example, in a recent interview about the banquet’s history in Hong Kong, Yang Weixiang 楊維湘, honorary president of the Association for Hong Kong Catering Services Management (HKCSM), who has published widely on the Hong Kong culinary scene since the 1970s (often under the pen name Lufu 魯夫), reiterates this belief by stating that Manchu–Han fusion cuisine owes its invention to Kangxi and the creative staff in his imperial kitchen (Zhonghua chuyi xueyuan 54). According to this myth, the Manchu emperor, troubled by the escalating tension between his Han and Manchu ministers which threatened to tear his empire apart, created the idea of a fusion meal that made equal use of Han and Manchu ingredients and cooking methods as a gesture to signal harmony between the two ethnicities. He ordered his kitchen staff to organize the banquet and then invited officials of both ethnicities into the Imperial city to take part in his celebration. The result was a meal so grand that it lasted three full days, and it became as much a display of the Emperor’s fairness and indiscrimination as it did a testimony to China’s culinary excellence. As captivating as this story may be, no contemporaneous document has ever been found to lend credibility to this claim. It seems highly improbable, if such a banquet occurred, that none of the people who participated—from the high ranking ministers to the thousands who helped to prepare it—left any kind of textual record. Notwithstanding, this story continues to be a favorite topic in Chinese popular culture, and is perpetually repeated in contempo- rary novels, films, and television programs. Although the tale has no historical basis, it is not difficult to see how Kangxi became its central figure. The term Ming QingDownloaded Yanjiu from 22 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2018) 93–111 05:39:20AM via free access The Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet 95 “Manchu–Han Meal” 滿漢飯 first appeared in the Annals 歷年記, which was published during Kangxi’s reign, albeit without “comprehensive” and using “meal” 飯 instead of “banquet” (Yao 11). In addition, Kangxi was keenly aware of the importance of food to Chinese society, and that understanding inspired him to stage elaborate banquets as a way to enhance his reputation and con- solidate power. For example, one of the first problems he faced after his ascen- sion to the throne in 1661 was the military threat posed by scattered Mongolian clans that continued to wreak havoc on border towns along the empire’s north- ern frontier. In order to pacify these nomadic warriors, Kangxi introduced the tradition of inviting Mongolian princes to attend an annual feast within the walls of the Forbidden City. According to the Classified Collection of Notes from the Qing Dynasty 清稗類鈔: When the Mongolian princes came to the Capital City, they always brought some food back with them, saying that it will bring good for- tune back to their home. If they lack the proper vessels to carry the food, they would not hesitate to wrap the food in fine garments. They did not seem to mind the food and its juices soiling the elaborate stitches and the threads of their robes. Xu 13.6275 This practice, known among historians as the Mongolian Vassal Banquet 蒙古親藩宴, was maintained until the end of the Qing dynasty. Kangxi’s suc- cess at handling these Mongolian princes encouraged him to adopt similar strategies when dealing with the autonomous vassal clans of Outer Mongo- lia. For the Outer Jaseg princes, he organized another annual banquet, named by historians the Nine-White Banquet 九白宴 because each year these Outer Jaseg princes would bring with them one white camel and eight white horses to be presented to the Emperor as tribute.2 Historians such as Liao Yang 廖楊 believe that these banquets were instrumental to bringing peace to the north- ern regions, which allowed Kangxi to focus his attention elsewhere, bringing prosperity to the Qing empire. 2 Following the fall of the Northern Yuan regime of Inner Mongolia in 1635 and the crush- ing defeat of the Khalkha Mongolians of Outer Mongolia by the Zunghars in 1690, the Qing government assumed official rule over both regions (with boundaries extending beyond the border of present-day Mongolia to the Qalqa and Dörbed regions), a rule that lasted for the next two hundred years. To facilitate administration, the Qing government recognized the twenty-four tribes (forty-nine banners in total) based in Inner Mongolia as Inner Jaseg. The remaining tribes were designated as Outer Jaseg and allowed to retain their own lan- guage and culture, giving them a much higher degree of autonomy than the former. Ming Qing Yanjiu 22 (2018) 93–111 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 05:39:20AM via free access 96 Yue But perhaps nowhere was Kangxi’s fondness for staging grandiloquent ban- quets exhibited more prominently than in the third month of 1713, when he sent invitations to one thousand elderly persons, aged sixty or over, to gath- er at his imperial retreat for a grand feast to celebrate his sixty-first birthday. According to one report, more than three thousand elders attended this event as guests of honor, and the Emperor was so pleased that he spontaneously com- posed a poem that gave the celebration its name, the Feast of One Thousand Elders 千叟宴 (Lin and Wang 280). The event’s success caused the Emperor to host an even grander banquet in 1722 to celebrate his seventieth birthday. This gesture effectively turned the banquet into one of the longest-lasting culinary traditions of the Qing dynasty, which subsequent emperors practiced until the beginning of the Republican era. In Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, Chang Kwang-chih famously proclaimed “That Chinese cuisine is the greatest in the world is highly debatable and is essentially irrelevant. But few can take exception to the statement that few other cultures are as food oriented as the Chinese” (11). Although it is unlikely that Chang wrote this passage with Kangxi in mind, his observation offers an apt description of the political vision of the Emperor, who saw food as a means to bring people together and achieve ef- fective governance. The fact that, in his regular diet, Kangxi actually preferred vegetables over meat and simplicity over extravagance further illustrates the extent to which he understood the importance of food to his subjects, and the conscious decision he made to draw upon it as a means of consolidating his legacy.3 Based on Kangxi’s apparent understanding of the unique role of food as a cultural symbol, and on his propensity to exploit that role for political gain, it is certainly not inconceivable that he concocted the idea of a fusion meal like the Comprehensive Manchu–Han Banquet and used it as a political scheme to appease his subjects.