"zhou Li" Diet System Study

Zhouli is a book of rites for the Zhou Dynasty, is one of the important Confucian classics, and it is also a pioneering work on the institutional system in our country. Although there were thousand-year-long arguments, even lawsuits, about the truth of Zhouli in classics history, as one of the Confucian classics, the lofty position of Zhouli has never been shakable in the ideological and cultural fields. The book exerted deeper and broader impact on the construction of rites systems of all following dynasties. Even at the present time importance of the book has still be attached by researchers.By setting up an unwieldy food-serving officials organization and defining their duties, Zhouli constituted a complete and systematic series of food-serving rules and regulations, including a strictly integrated food-serving officials regulation, a rite-stipulated royal food structure, a clearly-graded regulation of food utensil use and a dietetic rite showing the difference of the monarch from his subjects and the difference of the honorable from the humble. Food-serving rules and regulations recorded in Zhouli should be considered as the source of Chinese ancient dietetic rules and regulations. The dietetic ideology and concepts contained in them have been playing unneglectable guiding role in the development of Chinese dietetic culture.Taking the literature of Zhouli as an main object of study, the paper focused its efforts on the classification and connotation of the dietetic regulations of Zhouli. The study was conducted according to the duties and functions of food-serving officials on the basis of sorting out the data relating to food. Viewing from the academic angles, the paper made an exploration of food-serving official regulations, food structure and food-supply regulations, the regulations on food utensil use, food rites and so on. All corresponding regulations have been defined, explained, observed and investigated in combination with Pre-Qin literature studies and archaeological studies. Comparison and connection of the experience gained in areas and at points are the main way in which the study was conducted. The results of the study demonstrate the full outlook of food rules and regulations of Zhouli. Zhouli had a huge contingent of food-serving officials with 50kinds of different ranks and 3794catering technicians the functions of which covered the whole range of food-serving activities. The comparison and analysis of food-serving officials written in Pre-Qin literature indicated the kinds of food-serving officials in Zhouli could find their corresponding official posts recorded in the inscriptions on bronze ware and their duties and functions referred to all key links of food cooking process, thus showing that the food-serving regulations in Zhouli, to some extent, reached an uniformity with those in the West Zhou Dynasty. The power of food management stipulations of Zhouli attached itself to administrative rules. Food and politics blended as well as water and milk at that time. Apart from the above, food-serving officials duties were inseparable from sacrificial activities, and therefore, food-serving officials took on double duties: royal court food supply and sacrificial food supply. Food-serving officials were arranged in the forefront of the official system of Heaven ------the first of"Six Official Systems"and occupied considerably important position in the official structure of Zhouli. The diet for the royal court in Zhouli was composed of food, drink, cooked meats and different flavor dishes. Among them the main food was rice and other five cereals. Drink concluded three kinds of wine and six kinds of beverages. Dishes consisted of cooked meats, cuisines of different flavors and thick soup. Judging from the cooking materials processing methods and the way of eating it has been proved that Pre-Qin thick soup wasn't what we have today. It was a kind of food with a certain amount of juice and meat cubes. Taking the sumptuousness and luxury of food and its fine processing in Zhouli into account, we realized that cuisine wasn't only food eaten with rice. Its significance was equal and maybe overweighed that of main food. The dietetic structure in Zhouli changed and differed from what we called in the Pre-Qin society basic style or ordinary style food structure in which rice was more important than dishes. This structure gained some new characteristics which obscured the relationship between main food and dished and made it hard to differentiate what was the primary and what was the secondary. The food structure embodied the political position and noble social stratum of food eaters.It has been found that"harmony", a term usually considered as a conception in politics and philosophy, has something direct and original to do with the appropriate proportion of five flavors in cuisine. The"harmony"pointed out in food rites of Zhouli does not only mean the right proportion of five flavors (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, pungent), but also the balance of natural tastes of food, the coordination and unison of food with four seasons in a year, and the harmony and unification of food with human body. The regulations concerning the choice and use of cooking materials in Zhouli aimed at obtaining top quality cooking materials. However, at the same time the regulations also paid attention to the protection of animal and plant resources, reflecting a kind of dim consciousness that human beings and nature should live in harmony. As is stipulated in the regulation of Zhouli, the royal court had a diet of three meals a day, which says a regulation of three meals a day emerged in the Pre-Qin society in China. Zhouli established an official post called"Shijiyan"in charge of the proper use of bamboo mats and tea tables when various eating and drinking activities were held. Just for that,"Yanxi"(a bamboo mat spread on the floor for people to sit) has developed into a substitute term for today's banquet.Another distinct characteristics for Zhouli is that food utensils were not only used for cooking, they were also looked upon as ritual vessels. Zhouli kept a detailed record of rigidly stratified food utensil use regulations with"Ding"at the core. (an ancient cooking vessel with two loop handles and three or four legs). There were a lot of regulations in Zhouli concerning the use of food utensils, such as the use of"Ding", the combination and grouping of"Ding","Gui","Zu","Huo"and (bowls, pot, stove, dinning table and etc), the use of"Bian"and"Dou"( a kind of vessels for dish-filling ), the use of wine-drinking vessels showing the difference between the honorable and the humble, the use of six larger and six smaller wine pots, the use of wine-drawing instruments for the emperor. The idea that Zhou people thought highly of food found the expression in the series of regulations mentioned above with"Ding"and"Gui"at the core. Zhouli divided the combination of food utensils into four classes in accordance with the ranks of nobility. The emperor and the dukes or princes under him enjoyed"12 Dings and Guis", which was East Zhou regulation overstepping the rite vessel regulation of West Zhou. The use of food utensils in an appropriate combination described in Zhouli, in fact, has become a symbol of the political power and social position of royal court and nobles, and therefore, it is an implement by which food embodies polities.Food rite regulations are measures stipulating the procedures, protocol, sacrificial vessels and food kinds used for different dietetic activities. The stylization and institutionization of dietetic activities found their expression in the protocol of "Laoli"( cow, sheep, pig), the food rite of"Yongsun"(different amounts of food), and the rite of"Xiangshiyan"(Scales of grand occasions). The"Laoli"stipulated the amounts and grades of draught animals, stored foodstuff, poultry and other dishes and also the occasions of their use when the emperor went to a sacred place, had an interview, invited important people or entertained his guests.Zhouli was the law-main key link for food rite regulations. The difference between"Yong"and"Sun"lies in the amount of food given by the monarch to his guests. Grand food was called"Yong", in contrast, decreased amount of food was called"Sun". The rite of"Xiang"in Zhouli took the guests as visitors and its objects. Judging from the whole process of the rite of"Xiang"was not only giving salute to the guests and visitors through performing the grand rite as was considered by the scholars of ancient times. It included giving a grand banquet to entertain them. In Zhouli, the duties of"Daxingren","Zhangke"required that the rites of"Yong","Sun","Xiang'',"Shi"and"Yan"be divided into three classes in the light of dukes and marquises. The clear definition of gift grades and the performance of a certain ceremony during the dietetic activities in Zhouli aimed at the expression of courtesy and loyalty and full play of political social function of rites so that the political formation of higher and lower orders could be ensured and the harmony among the monarch, his subjects and the people and the state peace could last forever.