BEIJING (AP) 鈥� It is said that once dreamed of a pastry during the final decades of .
The same treat was served to her at breakfast the following morning. Delighted, she summoned her chef and rewarded him with a silver ingot.
鈥淚t was originally called 鈥榤inced pork pancake,鈥� but because it had fulfilled her dream, it later became known as 鈥榙ream pastry,鈥欌�� said Zhou Tong, a chef at Fangshan Restaurant in .
Fangshan specializes in cuisine, preserving dishes like the one associated with Cixi and other culinary traditions from imperial court. The restaurant was founded in 1925 by former chefs from the Qing Dynasty at Beihai Park, a garden where royals from several dynasties rested, handled government affairs and performed ritual sacrifices.
鈥淭he name Fangshan literally means 鈥榠mitating the imperial cuisine,鈥欌�� said assistant general manager Di Xin.
A handful of other Beijing restaurants also serve versions of imperial cuisine, while the Palace Museum preserves Qing-dynasty objects tied to court dining, including pastry molds.
Every meal comes with its own rules
Imperial cuisine encompasses the meals emperors ate daily and the feasts their courts held throughout the year.
Each had its own rituals. Drinking milk tea, for instance, was an important first step at Qing-dynasty banquets, said Teng Deyong, a researcher at 颁丑颈苍补鈥檚 Palace Museum.
During the banquet, the emperor bestowed wine or food on princes and officials. Recipients performed rites and paid their respects to him before they ate or drank.
Aside from banquets, sacrificial rituals were held. They followed a separate system and could involve meat offerings.
鈥淎t the Palace of Earthly Tranquillity, there was the eating of sacrificial pork, which we know was one of the most important rituals of the Qing imperial court,鈥� Teng said.
In that ritual, fatty pork was boiled without salt. After the ceremony, it was distributed among guests, and receiving the sacrificial meat was considered a great honor.
Unseasoned food also appears in earlier Chinese ritual traditions. Wandi Wang, a professor of Chinese at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, said the 鈥淏ook of Rites,鈥� a classical work on rites and ceremonies, describes a meat broth known as 鈥済rand stew鈥� that was served without seasoning during sacrificial ceremonies.
鈥淭he absence of added flavoring was itself meaningful: the unseasoned dish evoked an earlier and simpler way of cooking and thus expressed a ritual ideal of honoring antiquity and remembering cultural origins,鈥� Wang said.
Traditional techniques keep imperial pastry-making alive
Pastries were key to imperial cuisine, and the court had an institution specialized in making them.
Sweets made at Fangshan by Zhou include Cixi鈥檚 dream pastry and a small steamed corn bun. Their recipes are rooted in the imperial court.
鈥淲hen customers visit, our servers often tell them the stories behind these dishes,鈥� Zhou said. 鈥淧eople enjoy them even more because they carry such meaningful history.鈥�
He learned his pastry-making technique from a master who had also learned from a mentor. It鈥檚 a craft that has been passed from one generation to the next.
Traditional imperial methods mean cooking must be done by hand 鈥� no blenders or food processors are allowed. Ingredients like beans are pulverized using sieves and certain flours are handled in custom-made copper pots.
鈥淎 machine may be more convenient, but the texture is completely different,鈥� Zhou said. 鈥淵ou lose the delicate graininess and sandy mouthfeel that handcrafted pastries are supposed to have.鈥�
Among Fangshan鈥檚 bestselling delicacies are the pea flour cake and the red bean roll. During the busy season, customers order more than 200 of the cakes per day.
Balancing ancient cooking methods with a changing world
When he joined Fangshan as a kitchen apprentice, now-executive chef Fan Liangliang had to relearn everything he was taught at culinary school. Rather than employing techniques that allowed him to work quickly, he embraced slower processes he had never heard of.
One of them is 鈥淣izihuo,鈥� which Fan said involves mincing ingredients such as fish, shrimp or chicken into a smooth paste. It is then reshaped into decorative forms such as frogs, birds and flowers.
鈥淭his is one of the hallmarks of imperial cuisine,鈥� Fan said. 鈥淓very dish had to be innovative, visually beautiful, nutritious and worthy of presentation on the imperial dining table.鈥�
Rare ingredients such as bear paws are no longer served. Fan said adaptations are made to retain the spirit of each dish.
Chinese cuisine has long reflected cultural values, politics and ideals
A celebrated Chinese poet once wrote about cold noodles made with pagoda-tree leaves.
鈥淭he poem is not simply a description of a dish,鈥� Wang said. 鈥淒u Fu turns the verdant, fresh, yet modest dish into an expression of his political loyalty and thwarted ambition to serve the emperor.鈥�
She added that Chinese cuisine has historically carried meaning beyond food, reflecting broader ideas about politics, culture and aesthetics that have evolved as circumstances changed.
鈥淧reserving a culinary tradition begins with taking its history seriously,鈥� Wang said. 鈥淐ulinary heritage tells us not only how people ate in the past, but also how people in the present choose to remember and give meaning to that past.鈥�
Chef Fan said that at the heart of Fangshan鈥檚 imperial cuisine is a fusion of Manchu and Han culinary traditions, bringing together the culture of the Qing rulers and that of 颁丑颈苍补鈥檚 majority population.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not simply a collection of dishes from the two cultures,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t represents the blending of their different approaches to food into a unified cuisine.鈥�
Some inherited techniques such as stir-frying, braising and stewing have survived. And while some ingredients have been substituted both for availability reasons and to suit modern tastes, Fan said his team鈥檚 commitment to Chinese heritage remains strong.
鈥淲hen people dine at Fangshan Restaurant, I hope they experience more than just a meal,鈥� Fan said. 鈥淭hey experience the weight of history.鈥�
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AP video journalist Wu Jia contributed to this report.
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