Delicate+Cuisine

// Empress Cixi’s Royal Cuisine // There were two hundred chefs and servants to prepare Cixi’s meals, with more than twenty servants just to deliver the food. Each meal was prepared according to the standard of the empress dowager. Ingredients for her meal usually include fresh vegetables, seafood and meat. The food was carefully cooked and was very nutritious.

For example, mutton and venison were used in wintertime, and mushrooms were used in summer. Grains were the main staple food and grains used for porridge varied with more than ten types of rice.

The tableware was made of gold, silver, jade and porcelain. In wintertime, she would use gold and silver hot pots to keep the heat. In summer, the tableware would change to crystal, and porcelain plates. In every dish there was a small silver poison-testing plate, which would turn black if the dish contained poison. The chopsticks were made of ivory and spoons were either silver or gold.




 * Cixi’s Firm Belief in Buddhism & Empress Cixi’s Royal Cuisine Questions **
 * 1) Which type of Buddhism did Cixi believe in?
 * 2) When would CIxi request vegetarian dishes to be served?
 * 3) What do the bamboo grove, peaches, lingzhi fungus and butterflies represent?
 * 4) How many chefs and servants were needed to prepare Cixi’s meals?
 * 5) What were the small, silver plates used for?
 * 6) What ingredients were usually included in Empress Dowager Cixi’s meals?