It should be said that I know very little about today's "cooking altar", and it is because I am disgusted with some phenomena in the cooking field that I dare to summarize the strange phenomena that have harmed China's cooking in recent years.
one
Our motherland has a vast territory and a large population, which naturally forms a rich and colorful food culture. In order to facilitate research or appellation, we can use different expression systems for ethnic diversity and regional diversity of food culture. In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, it was roughly called "Gang Kou", which means different cooking characteristics of different gangs. In order to survive, a group of chefs spontaneously organized themselves according to the flavor genre, inherited and practiced their skills, opened up development space, and also had a strong feudal color. Since 1980s, "cooking theory" has been widely spread. First, Sichuanese, Jiangsu people, Shandong people and Cantonese people came out to promote the "four major cuisines" of Sichuan, Jiangsu, Shandong and Guangdong; Then Hunan people, Fujian people, Zhejiang people and Anhui people came out to complain, so the four major cuisines became eight major cuisines; Seeing that everyone else has become a climate, Beijingers and Shanghainese certainly can't sit still. As a result, eight cuisines have been added to the top ten cuisines. The Dictionary of China Cuisine published by China Commercial Press 1992 actually wrote the still controversial Theory of Cuisine as an academic achievement. Since then, it has laid the groundwork for the dispute over cuisines.
Shandong people want to cover the flavor of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River with Shandong cuisine. How can Henan people sit still? Just do a little research. Not only did Jiang Taigong, the ancestor of Lu people, settle in Henan to slaughter dogs and sell meat for a long time before he became rich, but even Confucius, who was insatiable, was a descendant of Shangqiu people in Henan. Jiangsu cuisine, one of the "four major cuisines", is deeply influenced by Henan; Zhejiang cuisine, the "eight major cuisines", is a descendant of Kaifeng cuisine in the Northern Song Dynasty. Is there a truth that "descendants" come first and "ancestors" come last? As a result, people in Henan refused to buy before the list of cuisines. Then Shaanxi people came out and said that the Han and Tang Dynasties were the only prosperous times in China. xi 'an also had three unique cooking places, namely, beef and mutton steamed buns, dumpling banquets and imitation Tang cuisine, but "Qin cuisine" was not among the eight "cuisines", which was puzzling! Soon, Guizhou people stood up and spoke. The food in Guizhou is several times hotter than that in Sichuan and Hunan. Shanxi people say that Shanxi cuisine is the sourest in the world; Xinjiang people say that the root of the national mutton string is in Xinjiang; Northeasters say they invented pork stewed vermicelli. At the slightest sign of trouble, people will come forward to muddle along-since everyone is reasonable, there is no need to be limited by the number of the top ten and the bottom eight, and all provinces and regions can form a system. Ever since, before the list of cuisines, the four, eight and ten famous cuisines are desperately defending their existing positions, while those unknown provinces and regions on the list are sharpening their heads and squeezing in. At that time, more than 30 provinces and autonomous regions in China proposed to establish their own "cuisines". As for Chongqing, which has just been separated from Sichuan, some people have come out to advocate the "Chongqing cuisine theory." As a result, the academic bubble of cooking theory evolved into a farce of the Great Leap Forward.
As a cultural phenomenon, it is normal for diet to show certain regional and ethnic differences. However, there is no specific space and time limit for this difference, let alone quantification. For example, the braised pork we often eat is cooked by housewives in the north and the south, but their tastes are not the same. Of course, there is no difference between good and bad. Some people insist that it belongs to Hunan cuisine, which is almost nonsense. Practice has proved that the theory of mechanically dividing "cuisines" by administrative divisions is quite stupid. This is a tailor-made expression system, which will only lead to cultural "feudal separatism" and endless debates. The people who advocated this "theory" at the beginning may just be to standardize academic terms and facilitate research. However, this "academic achievement" was used by the relevant provinces and regions, and eventually alienated into a tool for ranking and competing for the scope of catering strength among provinces and regions. In addition to fighting, those disadvantaged provinces and regions that came from behind are also scrambling to establish their own "cuisines" to highlight their regional cultural characteristics.
If the "Cuisine Theory" continues, it will definitely hinder the development of China cuisine.
two
Although China has a long history of cooking, it is a novelty to hold a cooking competition. Before 1980, there were skills competitions such as plucking live chickens and quickly cutting meat, but the impact was limited. 1983 1 1 In June, 2006, the national technical performance appraisal meeting of famous chefs was held in Beijing, which was also the earliest large-scale industry competition with national influence. As a product of cooking socialization, the competition is undoubtedly a good platform for exchanging skills, improving the level and displaying the image in the industry, which has undoubtedly promoted the cooking industry in China.
However, since the 1990s, cooking competitions have excessively pursued the external beauty of dishes and blindly praised the carving of dishes, thus falling into the quagmire of formalism. From the cultural origin, China's food culture is the product of fuzzy philosophy, and the innate deficiency of rationalism leads to China's cooking becoming perceptual cooking, which in turn leads to the tradition of taking sensory stimulation such as mouth and eyes as its aesthetic value orientation. On the producer side, due to historical reasons, the practitioners' cultural quality is relatively low, so they can't transform the old tradition by scientific means and lack sufficient rationality to establish a correct aesthetic ideology. In this case, the correct guidance of relevant industry organizations is particularly important. However, in recent ten years, although people of insight have shouted loudly for this, the formalism of various cooking competitions has intensified. Some chefs are mystifying and grandstanding in order to get good results in the competition. Foam carving dragons, human milk into the dish; The top of the head is cut, and the back of the person is an anvil; There are so many different forms.
1983 in the past 20 years, thousands of golden dishes, silver dishes and bronze dishes have been produced in national competitions, and tens of thousands of prize-winning dishes have been produced in provincial and municipal competitions. As a result, the recipes of restaurants all over the country may not be filled in, but the opposite is true. Nowadays, this award-winning dish is no longer visible on the menus of restaurants all over the country, and operators have always stayed away from this fancy and embroidered dish. Since the market doesn't buy it, what's the advantage of holding such a formalistic contest? So many industry elites gathered in one place, piled up like mountains and spent huge sums of money. Is it just for the judges of Bo Sanwu to laugh it off? The society under the market economy is a cost society, and any kind of social behavior should pursue a reasonable input-output ratio in order to reduce the invalid cost as much as possible. Every time the cooking contest "comes to a successful conclusion", the organizers always talk about how the contest surpassed the previous one in scale and grade, how many winners were added and so on. However, few people mentioned the social cost of cooking competition.
three
At present, mankind has entered the fourth year of 2 1 century, and many handicrafts are advancing with the times. Strangely, in the kitchens of star-rated hotels in metropolis, a few "stoves" dominate. Apprentices should kowtow to the master, lower their heads to wash the tooling, and the "kitchen stove" can beat and scold apprentices at will. When this happens, the giver doesn't have to blame himself, and the receiver doesn't have to feel ashamed. It seems that this is still a trivial matter, and the most fatal thing is the kitchen and bathroom system and industry monopoly. I don't know when the kitchen system originated, but one thing is certain, that is, it is full of parasitic remnants of the feudal industrial system. It is common to see this phenomenon: in a hotel kitchen, 30,000 yuan is given to the "stove", and he can safely take 20,000 yuan, and the remaining 1 10,000 is divided up by more than 30 disciples. More than 30 people share 10 thousand yuan, and everyone will never be poor or rich. Take 3000 yuan for the second stove, 2000 yuan for the third stove and the fourth stove, and divide the rest up layer by layer. Pity those novice apprentices, who have worked hard for several years and finally won't get much money. On holidays, you have to squeeze out gifts from your teeth to please your host.
The kitchen contract system has made a very small number of "kitchen stoves" accumulate a lot of wealth in a short time, laying an economic foundation for them to implement industry monopoly. Therefore, with strong economic strength as the backing, these "stoves" can easily get through the joints, lubricate the relationship and control the next kitchen they like. While expanding their control over the kitchen, they also got their hands on industry organizations, controlled important industry competitions, used cooking competitions, apprentices and other means to fight against differences, cultivated their own power, and eventually became kitchen tyrants.
It is not difficult to see that the unreasonable kitchen contract system is the soil that produces kitchen tyrants, and it is also the root of the poverty of lower-level kitchen workers. Kitchen hierarchy is the product of feudal production mode in the old society and the root of industrial inequality. Therefore, if left unchecked, it will only lead China cuisine astray.
four
Retroism is an old problem. It seems that all industries known as "national quintessence" have not been spared, and cooking in China today is no exception. Retro scholars opened the menu of the barbecue banquet and found that there was a "fish stuffed with milk", which made their eyes light up and exclaimed, "Look, Europeans are still eating blood, and our ancestors used dairy products to make fish!" I opened a dream of red mansions again and was intoxicated when I saw "eggplant". "When we cook eggplant with chicken, Americans are still eating raw steak!" Being able to rescue some national pride from ancient prescriptions is also the reason why these scholars who sort out national heritage are popular and spicy. Thanks to their unremitting efforts, our generation can eat "Confucius Cuisine" in Qufu, "Honglou Cuisine" in Beijing, "Pengzu Cuisine" in Xuzhou and "Xishi Cuisine" in Zhejiang. ...
There are two ways to restore the ancient ways of cooking culture in China. One is "focusing on old paper", such as the so-called "red chamber dish". Its developer claims that every dish of this banquet can be found in A Dream of Red Mansions, and every dish is carefully selected, beautiful in appearance, compatible with North and South, and nutritious. In fact, it is not difficult to copy this table. The problem is that I don't know what the people in suits and ties around the table want to eat from it. Form and content are always contradictory, and emphasizing form will inevitably damage content. I'm afraid it's too late to put this dish together because of its origin, shape and north-south flavor. Another kind of retro is not even old paper, it is completely invented by scholars and created by chefs out of thin air, such as Pengzu cuisine and Xishi cuisine. This kind of food is ridiculous and simply can't stand scrutiny. Cooking retro, whether it is "old paper school" or "invention school", is just the grandstanding of scholars and the gimmick of stores, and must not be taken seriously.
Ancient is not a problem, but we still eat good ancient recipes, we are still optimistic about costume dramas, and we sometimes eat good ancient meals. We are here to discuss the motives of retro cooking-scholars for the name and shopkeepers for the benefit, which are actually quite simple. If someone wants to relive the old dreams of noble lords and arouse the lofty sentiments of emperors and princes, then he or she will go astray. In reality, there are many such people.
five
It's not a day or two since the banquets of rich and powerful families have risen. The frenzy of the rich family's swallow-winged abalone feast from the developed coastal areas in the south has now rapidly infected the mainland catering market, especially the central city of the inland provincial capital. In 2002, I wrote an article entitled "Swallow-winged abalone is an evil way", and paid attention to the bad style phenomenon in Zhengzhou catering market. Another year has passed, and the abalone with swallows' wings has no intention of convergence. Judging from the current situation, abalone with swallowwings is not only distributed in large and medium-sized hotels and restaurants in Zhengzhou, but also spread from the provincial capital to the county seat, developing at such a speed. I'm afraid it will spread to villages and towns soon.
In a short time, banquets such as Swallow's Wings Castle have formed a climate in the national catering market, which reflects the general trend of specialization in the catering market to some extent. What is hidden behind this consumption phenomenon is the social reality that the income gap between different social classes has widened and the rich and the poor have been seriously stratified in recent years.
Marx criticized that the prosperity of Asian cities is entirely related to government consumption, which still sounds meaningful now, because the prosperity of rich people's banquets in real society fully applies to this law. If the feast is just a few rich people competing for money, it is harmful, but limited; Horribly, its prosperity has something to do with government consumption. Under the current system, a director is not allowed to put a dime of public funds into his pocket, but it will not happen if he eats 6.5438+0 million yuan a year. In this way, he is likely to turn his power into personal capital to enjoy life, and one of the important things is to eat and drink at grand banquets. As a result, the feast began to be alienated into a tool for corrupt elements to squander pleasure, and the essence of countless people was also in the prosperity of the feast, flowing away with the sewer.
six
I often marvel at the speed of the catering market "keeping pace with the times". Here, let's take the city where I live as an example. Yesterday, there was a hot pot contest between "Little Tail Sheep" and "Little Fat Sheep". Overnight, the hot pot of "Little Donkey" became popular in the streets. For food lovers, this is really the golden age of appetite. From 1995, braised mutton swept through Zhengzhou, and then steamed stuffed turtle, spicy and hot fish, Hangong Jiangmu duck, vermicelli dishes, abalone with swallows' wings and northeast dishes appeared in black powder one after another, and the capital was changed to a king's flag. Zhengzhou's geographical location and transportation hub characteristics determine that it can be regarded as a barometer of the national catering market to a certain extent. Therefore, the phenomenon of blindly following the trend in Zhengzhou catering market is not an isolated case, but a representative one. A dish became popular and a brand became famous. Everyone followed suit, making Li Kui jy unlike Li Kui jy and Gui Li unlike Gui Li. Then they dispersed in a hubbub and turned to look for new goals. This time and again, the Great Leap Forward-style cloning movement defiled jy in Li Kui, crossed Gui Li, and the enterprises were repeatedly built and destroyed, which made the development of the whole industry tend to be a bubble.
The fundamental reason why all kinds of blindly following the trend appear frequently is that the whole industry lacks a set of rules of the game based on modern consciousness and scientific spirit. In the market tide, many catering bosses are not inclined to strive for the openness, fairness and justice of the rules of the industry game, but are superstitious about the rules of speculation based on personal experience. Although individual catering owners may sometimes become beneficiaries of speculative rules, on the whole, when general industry rules cannot be clearly established, anyone in the industry may become a victim.
seven
There are many associations, many leaders and unhealthy competition, which was impossible 20 years ago, because many trade organizations were not established at that time, and of course there would be no contradictions and disputes. After 1987, with the establishment of more and more trade organizations, the contradictions in the fields where their businesses intersect have become increasingly prominent. As far as "national" trade organizations are concerned, there are several trade organizations related to catering cooking, such as cooking association, hotel association, tourist hotel association, cooking culture research association, food culture research association and so on. Every family claims to be authoritative and authentic, and every family can issue documents and engage in activities, which will affect the development of the industry. Due to the imperfect constraint mechanism between industry organizations and the irregular rules of the game, driven by huge industry interests, there are more and more cross-infiltration among these organizations and the conflicts are becoming more and more acute. At present, multi-party and multi-head leadership has brought a lot of confusion to the whole catering industry, and also caused some bad social consequences. Below, the author only gives two examples.
One is the proliferation of famous chefs. It was a good thing to comment on famous chefs, but Association A did it and Association B did it. National Association comments, provincial and municipal associations comment again; A batch has just been evaluated in spring, and another batch will come in autumn. Therefore, in recent one or two years, the culinary world in China has ushered in an unprecedented harvest season for masters and famous teachers. There are hundreds of "national" masters, thousands of famous teachers and tens of thousands of "provincial and municipal" masters and famous teachers every year.
Bless our masters, because they are lucky in the prosperous times, and thousands of dollars can buy several exquisite bronze medals, which not only fulfills their dreams, but also enriches the family collection.
Second, famous shops and dishes are flooding. The evaluation of famous dishes in famous shops is also a good thing, but it has gone bad again because of poor competition. A small restaurant, in order to decorate the facade and expand its influence, spent money to evaluate the famous shops and dishes of Association A, but before the signboard was hung, the documents of Association B came down again. It is not until we spend money to buy the bronze medal of Association B that we will recognize the famous shops and dishes of Association A..
Famous shops and famous dishes are flooded with disasters, and hotels and restaurants are in a dilemma, but merchants who make bronze medals are never tired of it. What's more, this short-term behavior has greatly damaged the reputation and image of the industry, undermined the unity of the national cooking industry, and is not conducive to the long-term development of our cooking in China.