{"id":4626,"date":"2026-08-30T21:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T21:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/4626\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T21:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T21:30:18","slug":"once-shaped-by-court-rituals-chinas-imperial-cuisine-lives-on-today-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/4626\/","title":{"rendered":"Once shaped by court rituals, China\u2019s imperial cuisine lives on today"},"content":{"rendered":"

By MAR\u00cdA TERESA HERN\u00c1NDEZ<\/p>\n

BEIJING (AP) \u2014 It is said that Empress Dowager Cixi once dreamed of a pastry during the final decades of imperial China.<\/p>\n

The same treat was served to her at breakfast the following morning. Delighted, she summoned her chef and rewarded him with a silver ingot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was originally called \u2018minced pork pancake,\u2019 but because it had fulfilled her dream, it later became known as \u2018dream pastry,\u2019\u201d said Zhou Tong, a chef at Fangshan Restaurant in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Fangshan specializes in imperial cuisine, preserving dishes like the one associated with Cixi and other culinary traditions from China\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name Fangshan literally means \u2018imitating the imperial cuisine,\u2019\u201d said assistant general manager Di Xin.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"ChefChef Zhou Tong prepares the minced pork pancake at Fangshan Restaurant inside Beihai Park in Beijing on July 23, 2026. (AP Photo\/Andy Wong)
\nEvery meal comes with its own rules<\/p>\n

Imperial cuisine encompasses the meals emperors ate daily and the feasts their courts held throughout the year.<\/p>\n

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 China\u2019s Palace Museum.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Aside from banquets, sacrificial rituals were held. They followed a separate system and could involve meat offerings.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 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,\u201d Teng said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Unseasoned food also appears in earlier Chinese ritual traditions. Wandi Wang, a professor of Chinese at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, said the \u201cBook of Rites,\u201d a classical work on rites and ceremonies, describes a meat broth known as \u201cgrand stew\u201d that was served without seasoning during sacrificial ceremonies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n

\"ChefChef Fan Liangliang demonstrates making a dish at Fangshan Restaurant inside Beihai Park in Beijing on July 23, 2026. (AP Photo\/Andy Wong)
\nTraditional techniques keep imperial pastry-making alive<\/p>\n

Pastries were key to imperial cuisine, and the court had an institution specialized in making them.<\/p>\n

Sweets made at Fangshan by Zhou include Cixi\u2019s dream pastry and a small steamed corn bun. Their recipes are rooted in the imperial court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen customers visit, our servers often tell them the stories behind these dishes,\u201d Zhou said. \u201cPeople enjoy them even more because they carry such meaningful history.\u201d<\/p>\n

He learned his pastry-making technique from a master who had also learned from a mentor. It\u2019s a craft that has been passed from one generation to the next.<\/p>\n

Traditional imperial methods mean cooking must be done by hand \u2014 no blenders or food processors are allowed. Ingredients like beans are pulverized using sieves and certain flours are handled in custom-made copper pots.<\/p>\n

\u201cA machine may be more convenient, but the texture is completely different,\u201d Zhou said. \u201cYou lose the delicate graininess and sandy mouthfeel that handcrafted pastries are supposed to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among Fangshan\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"ChefsChefs prepare dishes inside a kitchen of Fangshan Restaurant in Beijing on July 23, 2026. (AP Photo\/Andy Wong)
\nBalancing ancient cooking methods with a changing world<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

One of them is \u201cNizihuo,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the hallmarks of imperial cuisine,\u201d Fan said. \u201cEvery dish had to be innovative, visually beautiful, nutritious and worthy of presentation on the imperial dining table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rare ingredients such as bear paws are no longer served. Fan said adaptations are made to retain the spirit of each dish.<\/p>\n

\"AA waiter prepares to serve dishes for customers at Fangshan Restaurant in Beijing on July 23, 2026. (AP Photo\/Andy Wong)
\nChinese cuisine has long reflected cultural values, politics and ideals<\/p>\n

A celebrated Chinese poet once wrote about cold noodles made with pagoda-tree leaves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe poem is not simply a description of a dish,\u201d Wang said. \u201cDu Fu turns the verdant, fresh, yet modest dish into an expression of his political loyalty and thwarted ambition to serve the emperor.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreserving a culinary tradition begins with taking its history seriously,\u201d Wang said. \u201cCulinary 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chef Fan said that at the heart of Fangshan\u2019s imperial cuisine is a fusion of Manchu and Han culinary traditions, bringing together the culture of the Qing rulers and that of China\u2019s majority population.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not simply a collection of dishes from the two cultures,\u201d he said. \u201cIt represents the blending of their different approaches to food into a unified cuisine.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s commitment to Chinese heritage remains strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people dine at Fangshan Restaurant, I hope they experience more than just a meal,\u201d Fan said. \u201cThey experience the weight of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

AP video journalist Wu Jia contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By MAR\u00cdA TERESA HERN\u00c1NDEZ BEIJING (AP) \u2014 It is said that Empress Dowager Cixi once dreamed of a pastry during the final decades of imperial China. The same treat was served to her at breakfast the following morning. Delighted, she summoned her chef and rewarded him with a silver ingot. \u201cIt was originally called \u2018minced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,3479,5080,5081],"class_list":["post-4626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chefs","tag-chef","tag-china-imperial-cuisine","tag-imperial-cuisine","tag-imperial-cuisine-in-china"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dnc\/117186594286326095","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/chefs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}