Muslim food Culture Papers in Beijing

halal, (Arabic:, English: Halaal, halāl, halal), which means "legal" in Arabic. The following is a paper on muslim food culture in Beijing that I brought for you. Welcome to read it.

the Tang dynasty (618-97) was a unified dynasty in China's history, following the Sui dynasty, which lasted for 21 emperors and enjoyed the country for 289 years. The following is a brief analysis of the food culture in the Tang Dynasty, which I brought to you. Welcome to read.

1. What is "muslim food"

"muslim food"? It refers to the food that conforms to the Islamic teachings and customs of ethnic minorities who believe in Islam, and is produced, processed and managed according to such teachings and customs. In fact, the name "muslim food" is not a transliteration of Arabic, nor did it exist at the beginning of the introduction of Islam, but the result of the long-term integration of China culture and Islamic teachings, which is unique to China. In Arabic, Islamic food is called "HALALI", which is borrowed from the Jewish word Kosher[1], meaning "legal" and means food that conforms to Islamic law.

in the 6th century ad, the word "halal" first appeared in Liu Yiqing's Shi Shuo Xin Yu in the Southern Dynasties ―― "halal desires, and nothing can be moved". After that, until the Qing Dynasty, the word "halal" frequently appeared in the poems and songs of literati, which meant "pure, elegant, simple and natural". For example, in the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai's Five Ancient Books? There is a beautiful sentence in "I wish to get this way, even if I keep halal" in "Avoiding the Land and Talking about the Original", which is used to express my simple and indifferent ideal of "purity"; In the Song Dynasty, Lu You's "Appreciating Plums in the Garden" chanted "Read thousands of flowers and flowers in spring, and this flower has a unique halal flavor" to praise the pure and simple character of plum blossoms; In Xue Xue's Poems in the Qing Dynasty, there is a sentence that "the prose is elegant and the poetry is plain" to show that the article is true and natural ... Since the Yuan Dynasty, Islamic scholars and religious professionals in China have gradually used the words "Qing", "Zhen" and "Jing" to describe worship temples. In the first year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1368), "halal" was used as a word to indicate things related to Islam. Wang Daiyu, an Islamic sinologist at the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, gave a purely Islamic interpretation of the word "halal" with the words "purity means purity, honesty means truth" in his True Interpretation of the Orthodox Church. Subsequently, many Islamic scholars have islamized the word "halal" on the basis of its original meaning, making it a special term for Muslims in China. Muslim food, China, not only has the necessary factors of Arab-Islamic food culture standards, but also refers to and absorbs the experience of Chinese food culture in cooking technology, thus forming a unique food variety with the characteristics of two cultural systems, which is mainly reflected in strict taboo, long history, distinctive regionality, variety diversity and extensive consumption.

Second, the development history and present situation of muslim food in Beijing

In general, "Beijing cuisine" actually consists of Shandong cuisine, Qingzhen cuisine and court official cuisine. As an important part of Beijing cuisine, Muslim cuisine has a very long history: in the second year of Tang Yonghui (651), the first Arab envoy met with Tang Gaozong, opening the door for both sides to exchange needed goods; The word "Hui" appeared for the first time in Shen Kuo's Meng Xi Bi Tan in the Northern Song Dynasty, which generally refers to Muslims who believe in Islam. During the Yuan Dynasty, "Hui" flooded into Beijing, and later generations said that "Hui traveled all over the world in Yuan Dynasty", and halal food began to appear in the food market. At that time, halal food was mainly set up stalls along the street, or walked around the streets, carrying baskets and selling them in small quantities; In the Ming Dynasty, the professional kitchen line in muslim food was formally formed. In the late Qing dynasty, Muslim restaurants began to appear; During the Republic of China, Muslim cuisine has become a very perfect catering flavor and an important branch of Beijing cuisine. At the end of 1956, Muslim snack bars were reorganized and implemented public-private partnership, and finally merged into 17 large-scale Muslim snack bars, including Jiaochangkou snack bar, Dashilan snack bar and Nanlaishun snack bar. The author once saw a group of files of the Adjustment Planning Drawings of Qianmen Street and Dashilan Commercial Street in the Early Years of the People's Republic of China, which were collected by Xicheng District Archives. The files were formed in 1957, reflecting the adjustment of all shops including halal snack bars in Qianmen Street and Dashilan Commercial Street at that time. It is through such years of development that Beijing Qingzhen cuisine, which combines the advantages of crisp texture, mellow taste, rich juice and original flavor, has gradually formed.

Because of Beijing's unique geographical advantages, people from all walks of life in the world have gathered since Liao and Jin Dynasties. Therefore, a variety of food cultures are reflected in Beijing, and muslim food is very good at learning from others and absorbing other cooking techniques. Therefore, in order to meet the different needs of different customers, Beijing's Qingzhen cuisine is eclectic on the basis of traditional Qingzhen cuisine, which combines the essence of different flavors of dishes in Kyushu: from fried dumplings with western customs, to instant-boiled mutton revealing nomadic people's frank personality, to eight-treasure lotus seed porridge saturated with delicate warmth in the south of the Yangtze River ... it can be described as all-encompassing; From the all-sheep banquet which pays attention to imposing manner, to the pot-fried mutton offal which is never tired of eating, and then to the affordable inby and bean juice, it can be said that it has taken care of the customers from all walks of life, from the embroidered households in Zhumen to the poor households in Baiwu, and has made it rich and frugal.

according to the data of the sixth national census, there are about 256, ethnic minorities with muslim food habits in Beijing, mainly distributed in Jiaozi Hutong, Madian, Daxing and Miyun. As the capital, political center and cultural center of China, many national political, economic and cultural activities are held in Beijing every year, which have effectively promoted the development of Beijing's catering industry. Moreover, as one of the most tourist cities in China, Beijing's catering industry has also benefited from tourism. In addition, with the improvement of China's international status, Beijing, as China's international exchange center, has more and more foreign embassies, headquarters, branches or Beijing offices of multinational corporations. Among them, there are more than 4 countries with Islam as their main religious belief. The continuous warming of international exchanges and business contacts has stimulated the rapid development of Beijing's catering industry, thus forming a very considerable consumption space. There are more than 5 Muslim restaurants listed in the Beijing Restaurant Guide, China Muslim Food Map and China Time-honored Brands. Among them, some time-honored Muslim catering enterprises are deeply loved by customers. For example, Hongbinlou Restaurant, which is known as the "first floor of Muslim catering in Beijing", is the only Muslim restaurant with Tianjin flavor in Beijing. Qing Xianfeng was founded in Tianjin in 1853, and moved to Beijing's Litie Guaijie Street in 1955 and West Chang 'an Street in 1963. After a meal, Guo Moruo was full of praise for the Hongbin Building, and wrote a Tibetan poem: "When the Hongyan came, the wind sent warmth, and the guests were full to persuade them to add more meals. The red flag of the tower is red in fire, and the hero never fears difficulties. " Every word in the poem is linked together, that is, "Hong Bin Lou Hao". There are hundreds of dishes in Hongbinlou, among which representative ones such as "shark's fin with chicken", "braised oxtail" and "braised camel's paw" have always been popular with diners.

In the past, the catering industry in Beijing was called "diligent". "Diligence" includes not only the above-mentioned high-,medium-and low-grade physical restaurants, but also a kind of "kitchen" that specializes in hosting folk banquets. At that time, there was no shortage of good Muslim restaurants in Beijing, but before the founding of New China, there was a rule: Muslim restaurants should only fit in, not accept banquets, and the running water seats for weddings and funerals should be undertaken by twenty or thirty families of chefs in Beijing at that time, which were mainly distributed in niujie, Deshengmen, Wangfujing and other places. There are no physical stores in the kitchen, but simple tents are set up in the open air at the home of the waiter, and several to dozens of tables are placed according to the needs of the waiter. At that time, there was a rule in the kitchen industry, which called "no strings of films", that is, the cooks in niujie did not go north, the cooks in Deshengmen did not go south, and the cooks everywhere did not easily do business across regions. Generally speaking, there are about 15 standing dishes in each kitchen line, which are all passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and memorized by rote. ? Because there are many taboo requirements in the use of materials for Muslim cuisine, this kind of mobile family banquet is a great test for the chef, who is hands-on from ordering and preparing materials to cooking. Generally speaking, the order of the dishes served at the Muslim banquet is: pressing the table, deducting the dishes, cooking the soup, and cooking. Usually, "from sitting down to sitting up, a halal banquet takes only more than 2 minutes. After this group of people has finished eating, it is necessary to change to the next group. Generally, there are twenty or thirty dishes to be served at a banquet, and the chef has to cook steamed, stewed, fried, buckled and fried dishes continuously, and there is almost no time to talk. If you want to hold more than 1 tables at the same time, there is still a great demand for the amount of food. Therefore, it is necessary for the chef to be fully prepared and focused, otherwise it will be impossible to cope. " [2]

With the changes of society, there are fewer and fewer bungalows and courtyards in cities, and all kinds of large-scale Muslim restaurants have set up banquets. The "kitchen line" in Beijing has gradually declined, leaving only one "cook house". In order to preserve this craft, after the Cook House was rated as "intangible cultural heritage", its fifth-generation successor, She Zengtai, took her daughter and nephew as disciples and wanted to cultivate the sixth-generation successor of the Cook House. However, after all, great changes have taken place in family structure, people's ideas and external environment. Therefore, the kitchen line may not be restored to its former glory, and may eventually be classified as a precious civilian memory, but this will not affect its former glory, nor will it affect people's recognition of the industry spirit and civilian culture behind it. And this kind of spiritual and cultural essence can penetrate into society and daily life through people's emotions, thus being passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, from this perspective, the kitchen line as an industry has declined, but as a part of Beijing muslim food culture and urban culture, the kitchen line culture is still full of vigor and vitality.

Third, the "Muslim catering" with rich meanings

Many scholars have argued that food culture can be used as an explicit symbol to define "my family" and "other families". However, the author believes that food culture will actually change with the changes of scenes and meanings, and it cannot be fixed as an explicit sign that a nation or ethnic group is different from other ethnic groups. Many people are used to using muslim food as an explicit symbol to distinguish "Muslims" from "non-Muslims", but in fact, people with different identities and roles may have the same dietary choices for different reasons. Muslims, ethnic believers, and ordinary residents will take muslim food as the normal state of their daily life out of consideration of their roles, identities, interests, etc., thus making the behavior of "habitually using muslim food" meaningless to distinguish between "Muslims" and "non-Muslims". Therefore, food and its accompanying eating behavior can only be regarded as an important medium for the subject to express his concept and psychological state, rather than a specific symbol to distinguish "my family" from "other families".

"Muslim catering" seems to be a business, but it is full of human feelings, and what is created and written with this "human feelings" is urban history and urban culture. Muslim food in Beijing is a part of Beijing's urban history, and it is also a part of the continuation and development of urban culture. It is preserved through the inheritance of the ingredients used and the production skills, and the wisdom and spirit contained in it are conveyed through artificial power, thus arousing people's emotions. Therefore, when some "time-honored brands" are forced to move due to urban development planning and other reasons, many people would rather go through some twists and turns and spend some time to find them again. Because these "time-honored brands" not only satisfy the appetite of diners, but also help people regain their taste memories of the city and integrate them into urban life with peace of mind. Because of this, many "old Beijingers" will feel sad and sad when the once-popular kitchen line inevitably declines in the course of social changes and urban development. Maybe, John? S? Allen was right: "People who don't need to live in a state of food shortage are lucky. For them, simple food is the source of potential good memories. It should be remembered that all kinds of forces, individual and collective, are involved in shaping our food-related memories. Maybe this will help us put bad things aside and create more memories about food and good times. " [3]

Notes and references:

[1] Bai Zhongjian. Legend of Beijing Time-honored Brand [M]. Beijing: China Tourism Publishing House, 1993.

[2] Yang Yonghe's dictation, Ma Jinghai's collation. Beijing halal menu [M]. Beijing: Beijing Publishing House, 1984.

[3] S? Allen. Translated by Tao Lingyin. Intestines, brains and cooks: the evolutionary relationship between human beings and food [M]. Beijing: Tsinghua University Publishing House, 213.