{"id":1184,"date":"2009-01-14T11:09:50","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T11:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.com\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2009-01-14T11:09:50","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T11:09:50","slug":"top_ten_chefs_of_ancient_china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/?p=1184","title":{"rendered":"Top Ten Chefs of Ancient China"},"content":{"rendered":"

I came across this article about Chinese food history that I thought may be interesting to translate for those of you who want to learn more about the subject. This gives a list of the ten most famous chefs in ancient China. Please note that romanisation of names are given in Hanyu Pinyin and the number indicates the tone.
\n1. \u4f0a\u5c39 (Yi1 Yin3)\uff0cwas the advisor to \u5546\u6c64 (Shang1 Tang1), King of the Shang dynasty (1600 \u2013 1046 BC). Yi Yin enjoyed the accolade of the ‘King of Cookery’ and his famous herbal soup, \u4f0a\u5c39\u6c64\u6db2, that’s named after him remains popular till this day.
\n2. \u6613\u7259 (Yi4 Ya2) also known as \u72c4\u7259 (Di2 Ya2)\uff0cwas a renowned chef during the Spring-Autumn Period (722 – 481 BC) which corresponds to the first half of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. He was well versed in the techniques of frying, brewing, roasting, broiling\uff0cand was an expert in flavouring. Thus, he was well liked and much favoured by the Duke Huan of Qi who reigned from 685 – 643 BC.
\n3. \u592a\u548c\u516c (Tai4 He2 Gong1) lived during the tail end of the Spring Autumn Period and was a chef in the state of Wu (\u5434\u56fd). He was skilled in the cooking of seafood and was famous for his broiled fish.
\n4. \u81b3\u7956 (Shan4 Zu3) was a famous female chef in the Tang dynasty (618 – 907). She managed to cook all the famous dishes mentioned in a famous literary work called \u300a\u9149\u9633\u6742\u4fce\u300bby Tang dynasty novelist Duan Chengshi (\u6bb5\u6210\u5f0f).
\n5. \u68b5\u6b63 (Fan4 Zheng4) was a nun and famous female chef during the Five Dynasties period (907 – 960) who made a name for herself after she made a platter of food to look like a scenery akin to a piece of artwork. She used food sculpturing techniques to make her dishes evoke beautiful images of flowing streams in the mountains accompanied by song and poetry.
\n6. \u5218\u5a18\u5b50 (Liu2 Niang2 Zi3) was a female chef in the palace during the Southern Song dynasty. She was Chinese history’s first female palace chef and was given the nickname ‘\u5c1a\u98df\u5218\u5a18\u5b50’ meaning ‘Trendy Gourmet’.
\n7. \u5b8b\u4e94\u5ac2 (Song4 Wu3 Sao3) was a civilian cum female chef in the Southern Song dynasty. She was famed for her fish soup and fish dishes.
\n8. \u8463\u5c0f\u5b9b (Dong3 Xiao3 Wan3) was a famous prostitute who lived during the late Ming and early Qing dynasty in the district of Qinhuai in Nanjing city. Her specialties were vegetables, cakes and snacks. She was especially good with peach and melon pastes, and pickled vegetables. Her fame spread throughout Jiangnan which refers to the part of China that is south of the Yangtze River. She was the originator of the famous Yangzhou snacks \u704c\u9999\u8463\u7cd6 and \u5377\u9165\u8463\u7cd6 both of which are like a kind of sugary biscuit.
\n9. \u8427\u7f8e\u4eba (Xiao1 Mei3 Ren2) was a well-known dimsum chef in the Qing dynasty. She was famous for her steamed buns (mantou<\/i>\u9992\u5934), cakes, and dumplings. Famous Qing dynasty poet, food critic and gourmet Yuan Mei (\u8881\u679a) praised her in his book \u300a\u968f\u56ed\u98df\u5355\u300b<\/a> – calling her dimsum delicate and exquisite, and they were as light and pure as snow. \u300a\u968f\u56ed\u98df\u5355\u300b was published in 1792 and is considered to be one of the most authoritative books on traditional Chinese cuisine and cooking techniques. It is ironic, though, that Yuan Mei himself never knew how to cook.
\n10. \u738b\u5c0f\u4f59 (Wang2 Xiao3 Yu2) was a famous chef during Qing Emperor Qianlong’s (\u4e7e\u9686) reign from 1736 to 1795. Her culinary skills were superb and she was very knowledgeable about food. Yuan Mei’s book ,\u300a\u968f\u56ed\u98df\u5355\u300b, owes much of its content to insights provided by her.
\nGo here<\/a> for the original Chinese text.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came across this article about Chinese food history that I thought may be interesting to translate for those of you who want to learn more about the subject. This gives a list of the ten most famous chefs in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}