The Good Cheer of Eating Together
7 min readChina not only has a wide variety of cuisines and exotic fare in all its regions, even ordinary homemade cooking for three meals a day can provide for plentiful unique recipes. The Chinese stress the aesthetics of food, the refinement of dining ware, and the elegance of dining environment, so having food is a daily enjoyment. Eating, as a branch of learning and art form, not only gave birth to rich and excellent culinary techniques, also reflects the Chinese’s content and joyful nature.
Deep-fried Twisted Dough Sticks and soybean milk are a favorite kind of brealkfast for the Chinese.Many urban dwelers like to eat at breakfast stands on the street.The Chinese have had a regular dining discipline since long ago. First it was a two-meals-a-day practice.
The first meal, called zhao shi (morning food), is usually had around nine-o’ clock in the morning. The secondmeal, bu shi, is had around four in the afternoon. The Chinese sage Confucius says that “bu shi bu shi,”which translates to”meals are not to be had if it is not the appropriate time,”meaning to emphasize the punctuality of meals. At around the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), with better development of agriculture, people of everynationality group and region slowly began to adopt the “breakfast, lunch and dinner”practice. Only their dinners were had much earlier than modern men, as they believed “work starts with the break of dawn and rest is to be taken when the sun goes down.”Three meals of the day must be prepared and eaten fresh,a way of showing the Chinese’s crave and love for food. In recent years, the pace of life for urban Chinese are getting faster and faster. Dining out is becoming more and more common, especially for lunch. Most office professionals dine at nearby restaurants, or in cafeterias of schools and work units. As for dinner, female heads of households are usually very attentive in its preparation.
Mantou, or steamed bun, is one of the Chinese’s principal foods. Many families living in northern China can make it at home, but some people would rather buy ready-made steamed buns on the streets for convenience.All family members dining together around the table reflects Chinese ethics that cherish family value.Soup-filled buns, dumplings and rice dumplings all cannot be done without steam boxes.In comparison with the Western way of individually served foods, the way of shared dining is seen as a distinguishable characteristic of the Chinese. For the Chinese, no matter if it is dining with family or with friends and associates, people usually sit around the table and eat from the same served dish and the same bowlof soup. But this was not always the case, as ancient Chinese practiced individually served foods for quite some time before the switchover.
The earliest cooking and dining utensils were mostly earthenware placed on the ground. Later, supporting tools were invented, such as low, wooden tables. In the Shang Dynasty (around 17th to 1lth centuries BC)oracle bone writings, one can see the character”su.”Its image is that of banquet seat(mat) with people sitting on it. The character “xi,”is the pictograph of mat, shows that Chinese men at the time sat low on the ground.
Most seating was rectangular or square in shape with the distinction of different sizes and lengths. The longel ones could seat several people while the shorter ones can seat at most two. The square ones were called du zuo(single seat), used by the elderly or people with high status. According to the needs, single or multi-tiered small mats can be set up.A person’s status can be observed from the number of people he or she is sitting next to. At the dining seats,a strict set of proprieties exists. Elders and younglings, or the noble and the vulgar, may not sit together. There exists factual occasions after someone has broken the proprieties, where the person who was dishonored wielded his sword to cut the seat into halves so as to end the inappropriate and humiliating seating situation. Corresponding to the seating customs, the Chinese also had a small table for each eater. The practice of individual seating and servings continued until the later years of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). In Chengdu, Sichuan province, uncovered from an Eastern Han Dynasty (25 BC-220 AD) tomb site were brick paintings with scenes of banqueting. People were shown to be sitting in groups of two or three, while tables lay in front. These paintings depict the lives of people during those times.
A capable homemaker preparing holiday dinner for her familly. Scenes of women and children dining in an official’s home in southern China during the late 19th century. The ancient Chinese’s dining habit cannot be explained independently of their dining utensils. In the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), the former dining habits changed suddenly. Tall and long dining tables and chairs appeared. From the wall paintings at Dunhuang’s 473 caves, we can see illustrations depicting scenes inside a tent, where a long table sits, and tablecloth drapes from all four sides. We can see spoons, chopsticks, cups.
plates and other dining utensils and vessels depicted on the table. Long seats are placed alongside the sides of the table, on them sits a number of men and women. Using high tables and large seats for dining gradually replaced the practice of seating on the ground. Sitting on round stools or high chairs around a table in a natural posture, while sharing a table full of tasty food, is the way the Chinese eat today; it is the most characteristic of the Chinese’s dining habits. It is safe to say that the emergence of shared dining and related customs is inseparable from and based on the changes in dining utensils and seating.
The idea of having families and friends enjoying great food at the table, for the Chinese, is full of warmth and harmonious atmosphere. This may be related to the close attention the Chinese pay to blood relationships and kinship. On another level, traditional Chinese culture focuses on “he,”or harmony. When dining together, it is an important way for the Chinese to have increased interpersonal understanding and communication. This may also be the reason behind the Chinese’s preference to chat vigorously at dining banquets. Epicures are concerned for individually served foods impacting the preservation of culinary aesthetics. For example, when a whole steamed fish, with great color, taste and aroma, is to be divided into individual servings, how shall it be divided? Who gets the head and who gets the tail? This certainly is a dilemma. It is no wonder that some epicure wony about China reverting to individual servings of food, afraid that it may result in a setback of a glorious culinary tradition, losing its certain unique advantages.
In the face of the threat of SARS in 2003, whether or not to have individual food servings was an unprecedented topic actively debated by the government and the general public. For a time, forced implementation of individual servings took hold in restaurants. However, with the disease slowly being put under control, people regained their tradition of shared dining. In actuality, with the increased popularity of buffets, as well as Chinese or Western fast foods, individually served foods have righteously entered the daily lives of urban Chinese. And with even more international communications, some upscale banquets have universally adopted the practice of individual servings but with an atmosphere of shared dining.
Both for communal meals and individual eating, the Chinese cuisine is particular about matching vegetable and non-vegetable dishes, and there is a proper order for serving cold and hot dishes and savoury and sweet. Atformal banquets the sequence in which dishes are ordered and brought to the table is fully thought out. In the past, the more fastidious restaurants had a set system of courses. To take as an example the standard grand banquet in north China, generally four cold dishes were served first, mostly containing meat or seafood. These were an accompaniment to the initial rounds of wine, and keen drinkers often had eight such dishes instead of four. Next came four hot dishes from the wok, slightly greater in quantity than the cold course, with a preference for whatever was fresh and in season, not too oily, but light and pleasing to the palate. Then came four bowls of braised hot dishes, with a lot of sauce or gravy, which would remain hot and stimulate the appetite. Only after that were the main dishes properly brought in; these often contained delicacies of land or sea, and not only were the flavours wonderful, but the diners also marvelled at the skill of the chef; the vessels these main dishes were served in were out of the ordinary, in former times often being vast bowls containingenormous quantities. After the main dishes had been served it was time for sweet dishes, sweetmeats, congee or rice. In the end came soup and fruit. If the meal was Guangdong style the soup opened the meal. Nowadays, this set order of courses is only followed in formal banquets.
The Tray Level with the Eyebrows(The Behavior Between Husband and Wife) As social rituals developed, the Chinese began to use small food trays to serve food in individual portions. After at least 3000 years of development finally in Tang times ‘ assembled meals’ in the modern sense came into existence. On the subject of dishes served one by one, there is saying with a story related to it. In the Biographies of Recluses’ in the History of the Later Han we read that the recluse Liang Hong, after being employed in the Taixue(National University), gave up his public career and returned home to marry Meng Guang. Taking her with him he moved to Wu Commandery(now Suzhou), where he earned his living as a hired labourer. When he came back from work each day, Meng Guang always had a meal ready for him, and she lifted the food tray in front of her forehead and served him withdeep respect. Meng Guang’s habit of raising the tray to the level of her eyebrows has become an often repeated way of alluding to the mutual respect and affection of husband and wife.
