In this world, you have to eat and wear two things. We already know this sentence. Although people are advanced animals, they still have to "eat" like ordinary animals. As a result, a variety of dazzling foods were born, and they have been enduring since ancient times. The catering industry has also become a new business of 360 lines, and the catering industry has also formed its own unique culture. More directly, it is a culture of "eating".
China has a long history of 5,000 years, and China has a splendid, rich and profound food culture. People in China pay attention to the "harmony between man and nature", and Chinese food is characterized by expressing meaning with food and expressing expression with things. Therefore, the traditional food in China has a door to eat. For example, in The Analects of Confucius, the founder of China's food culture theory, there is a discussion about "two are not greasy, three are moderate, and ten don't eat". Even today, two thousand years later, it still has extremely high theoretical guiding significance. Lu Yu, the founder of China Tea Ceremony, believes that the status of tea ceremony in China's food culture is almost the same as that of wine. He visited famous tea producing areas and recommended the first grade, and studied the spring water and the second grade. Yuan Mei, the sage of China's food culture, spent 50 years writing a menu with the garden, which became a masterpiece in the history of China's food, and also had the reputation of "eating classics" in China's food culture. Yi Yin, the minister of governing the country by taste, combined the "color, fragrance, taste and shape" of diet with governing the country, so there is a saying that "governing the country is like cooking a little fresh".
Therefore, this has formed the "quadruple" characteristics of our traditional diet:
1, heavy food: The ancients said, "Food is the most important thing for the people", and when they meet, they often ask, "Have you eaten?" It can be seen that the status of food culture.
2. Re-feeding: feeding "six viscera" with "five grains" and paying attention to human health care in diet.
3. Emphasis on taste: China pays the most attention to the taste of food, paying attention to "color, aroma, taste and shape". The differences of various tastes form the basis of various cuisines.
4. Pay attention to management: pay attention to the collocation of various foods, and guide cooking with the rational understanding of harmony between Yin and Yang, such as mutual restraint and complementarity.
It is precisely because China pays attention to the delicacy of ingredients, cooking and eating. , its content is rich and profound, with distinctive national characteristics, both compatible and special. From ancient times to the present, it has been passed down from generation to generation, bringing forth the old and bringing forth the new.
Different eating habits have created different food cultures. China People's Congress's consistent style is that when eating, it is naturally seven big plates and eight big bowls. One is to show wealth, the other is to put on enough ostentation and extravagance; In recent years, compared with the way of eating all over the country, the whole country is competing for supremacy, and finally eight major cuisines have been formed, that is, eight different "masters" in eating methods; Although a bit vulgar, it is still very expressive.
Therefore, the deep connotation of China's food culture can be simply summarized into eight words: exquisite, pleasing to the eye, devoted and polite. These eight words reflect the unique cultural implications of food quality, aesthetic experience, emotional activities and social functions in the process of food activities, and also reflect the close relationship between food culture and Chinese excellent traditional culture.
Exquisite; When we are proud, we all like to order some exquisite dishes in pubs and restaurants, or make some exquisite dishes to treat ourselves and our relatives and friends, and then we need to eat an atmosphere, a taste, and even a culture. Since diet is a kind of culture, a kind of "eating" culture, and quality consciousness is a kind of cultural spirit, it is more and more widely and deeply infiltrated and implemented in the whole process of diet activities. The selection of materials, cooking, compatibility and even the dining environment all reflect "exquisiteness". Especially in the modern society, which attaches great importance to personal health care, it is required that our diet should be refined, so that culture can be integrated into the diet and displayed, so as to "eat" the culture and avoid and abandon the indecent behavior of "munching on the door" and bad habits harmful to health.
Pleasant to the eye; This is an advanced stage to sublimate the culture and connotation of "eating", which embodies the aesthetic characteristics of food culture. One of the important reasons why Chinese food can conquer the world lies in its beauty, which makes consumers feel "I don't know the taste of meat in March" and is more amazing and pleasing to the eye. This kind of pleasing to the eye refers to the perfect unity of the form and content of China's food activities, and refers to the aesthetic pleasure and spiritual enjoyment it brings to people, first of all, the delicious taste. Dr. Sun Yat-sen once said that "if you don't know the taste, your cooking will be poor", and regarded the aesthetics of "taste" as the first essence of cooking.
Delicious food, as the basic connotation of food culture, is the charm of China food, which runs through every link of food activities.
Fall in love; This is a summary of the social and psychological functions of China's food culture. Because there are all kinds of feelings in cooking and eating. People who cook devote themselves wholeheartedly, and people who eat taste their favorite food with gratitude and appreciation. Eating and drinking can not be simply regarded as a medium of emotional communication between people, but a unique social activity. Chatting while eating, doing business, exchanging information and interviewing. When friends leave, people are used to expressing farewell or welcome at the dinner table, and emotional turmoil is often calmed down by the dinner table. This is the regulating effect of dietary activities on social psychology. In the past, it was an excellent psychological massage for everyone to sit down and drink tea, listen to books, put on a dragon gate array or vent their dissatisfaction with the court.
The reason why China's diet has the function of "lyricism" is because of the philosophical thought of "drinking virtue, harmonizing food and enjoying all nations" and the resulting diet with national characteristics. For the emotional culture in food activities, there is a problem of guiding and improving the taste. We should advocate healthy, beautiful and enterprising cultural sentiments and pursue noble sentiments.
Politeness; Refers to the etiquette of eating activities. China is a country of etiquette, and this etiquette and the way of governing the country are also permeated in the diet. And the diet pays attention to "etiquette", which has a lot to do with our traditional culture. This is a ceremony of being born, sick, seeing off, welcoming, worshipping God and ancestors. Book of rites? Li Yun said: "As soon as the husband's ceremony began, we began to eat and drink." "Li" also pays attention to a kind of order and norms, such as the seating direction of important occasions, the placement of chopsticks and spoons, the order of serving, the symbols and origins of certain dishes, etc. All embody "courtesy".
When we talk about "etiquette", we should understand it as a kind of spirit, an internal ethical spirit, which runs through the process of food activities, thus forming the logical starting point of China's food civilization.
Exquisiteness, pleasing to the eye, devotion and courtesy in diet summarize the basic connotation of China's diet culture from different angles. In other words, these four aspects organically constitute the overall concept of China's diet culture. However, they do not exist in isolation, but are interdependent and mutually causal. They are intertwined and perfectly unified, which constitutes the highest realm of China's food culture. Chinese food is also a culture that the Chinese nation has "eaten" with its mouth since ancient times. It is a strong Chinese food culture, which has been continuously promoted, affecting ourselves, our side and the catering industry all over the world.