Let’s find out what’s on the menu of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
Referring to the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Minh Thai To Chu Nguyen Chuong , many people will deeply admire him for his thrifty and simple lifestyle that few kings can compare.
Even in terms of eating, Chu Nguyen Chuong’s menu also makes posterity wonder at its humility, simplicity or even austerity to an unimaginable extent.
So what is the reason why the founder of the Ming dynasty had to eat so hard?
In films set in ancient times, viewers are often familiar with royal meals that are not lacking in flavors and dishes with the number of dishes up to hundreds.
Portrait painting of Minh Thai To Chu Nguyen Chuong.
Many people even believe that the Emperor of China has 108 different dishes each meal.
Compared to this luxury, the meal of Minh Thai To Chu Nguyen Chuong is different from heaven and earth.
According to the record of “Nan Kinh Quang Loc self-determination” in June of the 17th year of Hong Vu, this king’s lunch and breakfast menu will include the following dishes:
Breakfast will have dishes such as: Stir-fried goat meat, fried goose meat, fried pork with yellow cabbage, steamed pork intestines, rice noodles, fragrant rice rice, bean soup, tea…
Lunch will have a larger number of dishes, including dishes such as: Fresh shrimp in vinegar and pepper, roasted goose, grilled goat meat, dried goose meat, lymph soup, steamed chicken with five spices, lamb with sauce, kidney pickled in spicy vinegar , steamed fish, five-spice noodles, goat meat dumplings, goose soup, Tam Tien soup, green bean noodles, minced lamb, fragrant rice, bean soup, tea…
From the above menu, it can be seen that Minh Thai To Chu Nguyen Chuong’s meal is made from most of the popular ingredients such as goat meat, goose meat, and pork.
Before he built a great career, Chu Nguyen Chuong went through extremely difficult years when he had to leave home and go for alms. (Illustration image: Internet source).
From the point of view of historical analysis site Qulishi, if the number of dishes is not taken into account, this processing ingredient is not much more advanced than that of modern people’s meals.
Also from Qulishi’s point of view, the reason why Chu Nguyen Chuong’s dish menu did not have many rich flavors, even more miserable than other Emperors, was because his career was built. had to go through hundreds of thousands of bitterness.
During his lifetime, Chu Nguyen Chuong grew up in a family that was not well off, his parents both died of starvation.
After that, he had to work as a monk, and sometimes even had to go on begging to be able to preserve his life to build a career in the midst of turmoil.
Because of that, after becoming Emperor, Chu Nguyen Chuong still maintained the habit of living a thrifty and simple life. Therefore, his dishes are rarely cooked from precious and expensive ingredients.
Not stopping there, this Emperor also set a rule that all later Ming kings had to follow. It was on the king’s table that there must be some wild vegetables commonly found in folklore.
The reason why Chu Nguyen Chuong set this law for his descendants was because he wanted to reduce the burden on the people, and at the same time wanted the emperors to succeed in the future to remember the hardships of their ancestors.
From that, it can be seen that not every Emperor often enjoys delicious dishes with the number of dishes up to hundreds as posterity thinks.
And the fact is that before being brought to the king’s table, these dishes have gone through the process of testing and poisoning, and have cooled down somewhat, of course, no longer as delicious and hot as when they came out of the oven.