Han cuisine, on the other hand, “prided itself on flavoring food with a wide range of staple ingredients and a great variety of condiments,” writes Dr.

Northern Manchu fare was typified by communal “meat gatherings.” In one scene from the Unofficial History of the Qing Dynasty “anyone who shouted ‘more meat’ repeatedly would be greeted by immense gratitude” and “anyone who failed to finish at least one plate of meat would be met with contempt.” The three-day feast’s political effectiveness came from fusing two disparate cuisines. He planned his 66th birthday feast accordingly. As the story goes, Kangxi, himself a Manchu, turned to a proven solution: food. When members of the Manchu ethnic group began taking over ministry positions long-held by the ethnic Han, tension gripped the country. Later in life, he invited 3,000 of Beijing’s septuagenarians to his 61st birthday party for an event dubbed “The Feast of a Thousand Elders.” Emperor Kangxi is credited with holding the inaugural “Manchu-Han Imperial Banquet,” among a host of other momentous dinner parties. He neutralized the Mongolian threat to China’s northern border early in his reign by holding a series of “Mongolian Vassal Banquets” in the Forbidden City, famously sending his princely guests home with leftovers. The Qing Dynasty Emperor Kangxi (1654–1722) was no stranger to opulent dinner parties. Instead, a misrepresented episode from Chinese history is today an enduring national symbol of ethnic harmony and reconciliation, reenacted time and time again in restaurants throughout the country. It was also a feast that probably never happened. Rather than a modern gastronomic undertaking, the menu hearkens back to a legendary feast from Chinese history–one so magnificent, of such grandiose proportions, that it pacified sworn rivals and stabilized a nation. Highlights from the “Manchu-Han Imperial Feast” include sea cucumber, wild goose, pigeon egg, leg of water turtle, and bird’s nest soup. A special menu is currently on offer at the Macau restaurant Fook Lam Moon.

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