This document discusses food and rituals during the Mongol rule and Ming Dynasty in China. During the Mongol rule, the Mongols primarily ate mutton, dairy products, and drank koumiss (fermented mare's milk). Mutton was cooked whole or in thin slices. Ritual sacrifices to ancestors featured Mongol traditions like sprinkling milk and sacrificing horses. Under the Ming Dynasty, the emperor restored Chinese rituals and banned Mongol practices. Precise rules governed procuring, preparing, and offering sacrificial foods and drinks to imperial ancestors. Offerings changed daily and included cakes, sugar, tea, fish and other foods.

1. Usman ABUBAKAR
(Student No: 2190014)
Food In Chinese Culture
Anthropological and Historical Perspectives
The Period of Mongol Rule and Ming Dynasty
1

2. Outline
• Food in Ritual and Ceremonial Contexts:
• The Mongol Rule
• Food in Ceremonial Contexts:
• Hausa Fulani of Northeastern Nigeria
• Food in Ritual and Ceremonial Contexts:
• The Ming Dynasty
• Summary and Conclusion
2

3. Food in Ritual and Ceremonial Contexts:
The Mongol Rule
3

4. Food of rituals and feasts
• The evidence from Chinese sources strongly suggests that the Mongols in
China ate steppe food served in the steppe manner most of the time, not only in
their feasts and on the ceremonial occasions.
• Thus, their food groups were predominantly milk products and a variety of
meats.
• Mostly they ate mutton and milk from the sheep they herded
4

5. • The Mongols surely did use a larger proportion of mutton to other meats than
did the Chinese.
• Thirteenth and fourteenth century travellers agree in describing meals
consisting primarily mutton cooked by boiling the sheep whole and cut up in
the presence of the guests, so that meat with the bone was served to each
person.
• In the Yuan dynasty, in the preparation of food for the imperial table it has
been the regular practice to use five sheep each day.
Mutton
5

6. Mutton
• In the last decade of Mongol rule in China, the last Mongol ruler reduce the
number of sheep by one each day.
• The slaughter of five sheep each day for the emperor's table has something of
the quality of a ceremonial usage, and the imperial order to reduce that number
to four sheep each day in the interests of economy is purely a ceremonial act.
• Therefore Mutton was looked upon as the main food of the Mongol rulers in
their palaces at Peking
6

7. Mode of cooking mutton
• Sheep cooked whole
7

8. Mode of cooking mutton
• Paper-thin slices of mutton cooked quickly in a boiling pot (called "Genghis
Khan fire pot" in Japanese restaurants today)
8

9. Mode of cooking mutton
• thin slices of mutton cooked on an iron grill over an open fire
Thin slices of Mutton on an iron grill
over an open fire. Are ways of eating
mutton that are associated with
Moslem restaurants in twentieth
century China, especially in Peking and
the north.
9

10. Beverage of rituals and feasts
Koumiss
• Koumiss was one of the most popular Mongol drinks and was typically made
from fermented mare's milk.
• Ceremonial drinking at the great banquets offered by the rulers to their court
officials.
10

11. Koumiss
• That of the best quality, made from "the milk of young mares which have not
conceived" and specially manufactured for the imperial table.
• Thirteenth century travelers from Europe described Koumiss as similar in
colour and quality to good white grape wine.
• The Mongols made mare's milk and koumiss a new element in the life of
China during the Yuan dynasty and the existence of a special building in the
palace complex to house the extensive preparation of the drink must be
counted an innovation of the times.
11

12. Other Drinks
• Beyond the consumption of koumiss which was both their standard drink and
the drink of ceremonial significance, the Mongols and the Chinese of the
Mongol era also drank:
• Grape wine
12

13. Other Drinks
• Honey wine
13

14. Other Drinks
• Rice wine
14

15. Other Drinks
• Distilled Liquor
New in China about the time of the alien
incursions against the Sung in the twelfth
or thirteenth century, is referred to in
certain Chinese texts of the time as ha-la-
chi (from the Arabic 'araq’ "arrack")
15

16. Other Drinks
• William of Rubruck, who was in China in the
middle of the thirteenth century names the above
alcoholic beverages (grape wine, honey wine,
rice wine, and distilled Liquor) as the ones used
at the Mongol courts he had visited.
16

17. Mongols' ritual
• Even as rulers of China for a century or more, the Mongols retained a deep
attachment to their own civilization while adapting superficially to the Chinese
political forms necessary for governing the Chinese state.
• Chinese found them to have remained more or less apart from Chinese ritual
except in the area of the sacrifices.
• Those were of considerable political significance; the great sacrifices of the
state in particular to display legitimacy in possession of the mandate and to
embellish their rulership in the eyes of the Chinese.
17

18. Sacrifices to clan ancetors
• When the Mongols engaged in their traditional sacrifices to their clan
ancetors, employed their own shamans as masters of ritual and using
the Mongol tongue
18

19. Sacrifices to clan ancestors
• They stressed such typical steppe
cultural elements as:
• Sprinkling the sacrificial ground
with mare's milk
• Making offerings of mare's milk or
koumiss
• Meat dried in the steppe fashion
• Sacrificing of horses.
19

20. Sacrifices to clan ancestors
• They stressed such typical steppe
cultural elements as:
• Sprinkling the sacrificial ground
with mare's milk
• Making offerings of mare's milk
or koumiss
• Meat dried in the steppe fashion
• Sacrificing of horses.
20

21. Sacrifices to clan ancestors
• They stressed such typical steppe
cultural elements as:
• Sprinkling the sacrificial ground
with mare's milk
• Making offerings of mare's milk or
koumiss
• Meat dried in the steppe fashion
• Sacrificing of horses.
21

22. Sacrifices to clan ancestors
• They stressed such typical steppe
cultural elements as:
• Sprinkling the sacrificial ground
with mare's milk
• Making offerings of mare's milk or
koumiss
• Meat dried in the steppe fashion
• Sacrificing of horses.
22

23. Banquets / Feast During Mongol Rule
23

24. Banquets / Feast During Mongol Rule
Koumiss Feasts
• The banquets of the highest dignity were familiarly called "koumiss feasts,"
and more formally jisun, or "one colour," banquets, because at those all the
guests wore garments of the same colour.
• These usually went on for three or more days, the colour being changed with
each day.
24

25. Banquets / Feast During Mongol Rule
Koumiss Feasts
• Such banquets started with parades, races, and feats of horsemanship, and
normally seem to have ended in a drunken rout.
• In the eyes of both Chinese and Western observers, the Mongols drank to
excess, and several of the Mongol rulers of China died of alcoholism.
25

26. Lucullian Banquets
or Wine Banquest
• The royal court of Yuan Dynasty attached importance to drinking and
consumed a large quantity of wine in important festivals.
• Within seven days after the Mongke Khan ascending the throne, the feasts in
royal court were held continuously with innumerable wine and meat, which
can be called “Lucullian banquets”.
26

27. Lucullian Banquets
• According to rulers of Yuan Dynasty, wine banquet is the way to be connected
to courtiers and the reward to subjects from the court which is significant for
sustaining the rule with the aid of connection between emperors and courtiers.
• In addition, wine feast is also an important part of national ceremonies and the
manifestation of court etiquette.
27

28. Lucullian Banquets
• Therefore, since the beginning of Yuan Dynasty, wine feast has gradually
become a tradition and an indispensable part of festivals with special meaning
such as:
• Ascending the throne,
• All kinds of ceremonies,
• Diplomacy and etc.,
28

29. 29
Marco Polo
These dual accounts give
readers a different perspective of
the Mongol’s way of life, their
social hierarchy, and their
method of commerce.
William of Rubruck

30. Impact of Mongols Food culture on Chinese
civilization
30

31. Impact of Mongols Food culture
• The Chinese appear to have been little attracted to Mongol cuisine or to Inner
and Western Asian element present in China during the Mongol period.
• Still less were they won over to the Mongol banqueting style.
• The Chinese recognized that there was a ritualized pattern of procedures at a
state feast, yet even the learned Chinese associates of the Mongol rulers appear
to have remained apart from and somewhat ignorant of those Mongol rituals
31

32. Impact of Mongols Food culture
• More specifically, there seem to be no reasons to believe that significant
numbers of new foods or new ways of preparing foods for ordinary use, much
less for the ritually prescribed ones, resulted from the century-long contact
with the Mongols.
32

33. Food in Ceremonial Contexts –
Hausa Fulani of Northeastern Nigeria
33

34. Meat
Balangu Stire
34

35. Meat
Kilishi 35

36. Drinks
36

37. Food
Tuwon Masara (Maize) Tuwon Shinkafa (Rice)
37

38. Food in Ritual and Ceremonial Contexts
The Ming Dynasty
38

39. Introduction
• When the founder of the Ming Dynasty, assumed the throne:
• He accused the Mongols of destroying the norms of conduct and
damaging the principles of father and son, ruler and servitor, husband
and wife, and senior and junior.
• He stressed, “Rites and principles form the great defence (of
civilization) in governing the world;” failing to observe them led to the
fall of the Yuan Dynasty.
39

40. Introduction
• His aim was “to rescue the people from the sufferings and to restore the
authoritative rituals of the Han officials.”
• This message clearly indicates the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty,
sought vigorously to restore the ideals and form of Chinese life which he felt
the long period of Mongol Rule had undermined.
40

41. Introduction
• The strong-minded emperor set commissions of scholars to work drawing up
compendiums of ceremonial usage for his new government.
• More than a dozen works on aspects of ritual were produced during the thirty
years of his reign.
41

42. Introduction
• In many of the ritual regulations established at the Ming court during the last
quarter of the fourteenth century, one can perceive some details of the close
relationship that existed between
• The imperial table.
• The offerings regularly prescribed for ancestral and state shrines, and
• The ceremonial state banqueting that was resumed on traditional
Chinese models.
• Regulations for procuring and preparing and serving food in the
imperial household.
42

43. Kitchen
• The Ming Court was housed in a city within the capital city.
• Foods for all imperial purposes and needs-including the emperor's daily fare
and that of his vast household and court, as well as his ritual sacrifices and his
great banquets of state were procured, prepared, and served by three group of
palace workers:
• Kitchen servants
• Eunuchs
• Palace Women
43

44. Kitchen
kitchen servants
• The first group were the ch'u-i or "kitchen servants"
• Were the principal group, designated to manage all food matters.
• Those under the administration of the Court of Imperial Entertainments provide
the foods for the imperial table.
• Those under the Court of Imperial Sacrifices prepare the sacrificial offerings.
44

45. Kitchen
Eunuchs
• The second group were those eunuchs specially detailed to the management of
foods and wines and the procurement of materials.
• Each eunuch staff was designated for maintaining one of the several palace and
state shrines, and other bureaus.
45

46. Kitchen
Eunuchs
• Those bureaus included the following, which bore upon the problem of food
and drink :
• The palace pharmacy
• The imperial wine bureau (to oversee the production of wine and of soybean
meal. bean curd, etc.)
• The imperial flour mill (to supervise the milling of flour for the palace and to
prepare gluten);
46

47. Kitchen
Eunuchs
• The imperial vinegar works;
• Directorate of Imperial Foodstuffs (To provide the offerings of food for the
Temple for Offerings to the Imperial Forebear)
47

48. Kitchen
Palace Women
• The third group were "palace women" to whom were assigned specific duties in
connection with food.
• Provide most of the services in attendance upon the ruler, including preparing and
managing his food and clothing.
48

49. Foodstuffs
49

50. Foodstuffs
• Food procurement of an elaborate cuisine was done more or less uniformly,
whether the ultimate use was to be:
• Food for the living
• Sacrificial offering to the dead.
• Grand Commandant and the Directorate of Foodstuffs
50

51. Foodstuffs
First Category
• The procurement of:
• animals, fish, fowl, ice, cooking pots, dishes, vegetables and fruits, grains and
condiments oil.
51

52. Foodstuffs
Second Category
• Food under refrigeration:
• fresh plums, loquats, the fruit of the strawberry tree, fresh bamboo shoots, and
shad.
52

53. Foodstuffs
Third category
• Things not requiring ice, namely:
• kan-lan, new tea, cassia [flowers for seasoning], pomegranates, persimmons,
and tangerines.
53

54. Foodstuffs
Fourth category
• Items not requiring ice, namely :
• swans, pickled vegetables, bamboo shoots, cherries preserved in honey [mi-
ying], Su kao ["Su-cbou cakes"?], cormorants.
54

55. Foodstuffs
Fifth category
• The fifth category was assigned to the Bureau of Gardens [of the eunuch
bureaucracy] and was for:
• water chesnuts, taro, ginger, lotus root, and fruits.
55

56. Foodstuffs
Sixth category
• The sixth category was for supplies sent to the palace warehouses,
such as fragrant rice and ginger roots.
56

57. Sacrificial Animals
• The sacrificial animals are a small proportion of the total, but they were
selected according to rigorous standards and were precisely cared for on the
palace grounds, in preparation for being sacrificed on the appropriate
occasions.
• The principal difference was that sacrificial animals were required to be free
of blemish and must be of one colour, unmarked by spots or patches.
• 160 sacrificial swine; 250 sacrificial sheep; 40 young bullocks of one
colour; 18,900 fat swine; 17,500 fat sheep; 32,040 geese; 37,900 chickens.
57

58. Sacrifices to the imperial ancestors
58

59. Sacrifices to the imperial ancestors
T'ai miao (shrine to the imperial ancestors)
• On assuming imperial dignity, the
Ming Founder conformed to tradition
in building a t'ai miao, or shrine to the
imperial ancestors, in which were
placed the spirit tablets of his paternal
ancestors for four generations.
• Offerings of prepared foods and fresh
produce appropriate to the season
were made there on the first of each
lunar month.
59

60. Sacrifices to the imperial ancestors
Feng Hsien Tien (Temple for Offerings to the Imperial Forebears)
• The Ming Founder decided that the conventional sacrifices to his ancestors,
maintained by officials of the state at a shrine outside the palace precincts,
were "inadequate to reveal filial consciousness.
• Therefore, he ordered that a second temple to his ancestors be built inside the
palace area, calling it the Feng Hsien Tien, or Temple for Offerings to the
Imperial Forebears.
• He said that "the T'ai Miao symbolized the Outer Court ; the Feng Hsien Tien
symbolized the Inner Court.
60

61. Sacrifices to the imperial ancestors
Feng Hsien Tien (Temple for Offerings to the Imperial Forebears)
• At the inner temple, the emperor or males of his line performed ritual
observances morning and evening.
• while the empress led the imperial consorts in making daily offerings of
prepared foods.
• On special festivals, anniversaries, and the first of each moon, fresh products
of the season were offered.
61

62. 62

63. Sacrificial offerings at both the T’ai Miao and the Feng
Hsien Tien
Daily Offering
• lists of the conventionally prescribed sacrificial offerings at both the T’ai Miao
and the Feng Hsien Tien: The regular offerings are changed each day.
• On the first day [of each moon] - rolled fried cakes
• On the second day - finely granulated sugar
• On the third day - tea from Pa [eastern Szechwan]
• On the fourth day - sugared butter cookies
• On the fifth day - twice-cooked fish
• On the sixth day - steamed rolls with steamed mutton
• On the seventh day - clover honey biscuits
63

64. Sacrificial offerings at both the T’ai Miao and the Feng
Hsien Tien
Daily Offering
• On the eighth day - sugared steamed biscuits
• On the ninth day - pork fryings
• On the tenth day - sugared jujube cakes
• On the eleventh day - open-oven baked breads [shao-ping]
• On the twelfth day - sugar-filled steamed breads
• On the thirteenth day - muttonfilled steamed breads
• On the fourteenth day - rice-flour cakes
• On the fifteenth day - fat-filled pastries;
64

65. Sacrificial offerings at both the T’ai Miao and the Feng
Hsien Tien
Daily Offering
• On the sixteenth day - honey cakes
• On the seventeenth day - puff-paste baked breads
• On the eighteenth day - "elephant eye" [i.e., rhomboid shaped] cakes
• On the nineteenth day - flaky filled pastries
• On the twentieth day - marrow cakes
• On the twenty-first day - rolled cookies
• On the twenty-second day - crisp honey biscuits
• On the twenty-third day - scalded-dough baked breads
• On the twenty-fourth day - sesame-oil noodles
• On the twenty-fifth day - Chinese pepper-and-salt breads
65

66. Sacrificial offerings at both the T’ai Miao and the Feng
Hsien Tien
Daily Offering
• on the twenty-fifth day - Chinese pepper-and-salt breads
• On the twenty-sixth day - waterreed shoots [chiao-pai; Zizania latifolia]
• On the twenty-seventh day - sesame-sugar-filled baked breads
• On the twenty-eighth day - smartweed flowers
• On the twenty-ninth day - sour cream [lo]
• On the thirtieth day - thousand-layer baked breads
• If the month has twenty-nine days, the offering for the thirtieth is offered on
the first, along with the offering for that day.
66

67. Sacrificial offerings at both the T’ai Miao and the Feng
Hsien Tien
Fresh offerings of the season
• The fresh offerings of the season (chien, hsin) are changed each moon.
• One: Chives, romaine lettuce, chicken, and duck
• Two: Celery, liver mosses, artemisia vulgaris, and goose
• Three: Tea, bamboo shoots, and carp
• Four: Cherry, apricot, green plum, cucumber, and pheasant
• Six: Lotus seedpod, sweet melon, watermelon, and wax gourd (winter melon)
• Seven: Date, grape, fresh water chestnut, amaranth, and pear
• Eight: Lotus roots, young taro plant, wild rice stem, tender ginger, semi –
glutimous rice, millet, broomcorn, and Mandarin fish
67

68. Sacrificial offerings at both the T’ai Miao and the Feng
Hsien Tien
Fresh offerings of the season
• Nine: Orange, chestnut, small red beans, granulated sugar, and bream
• Ten: Mandarin orange, tangerine, Chinese yam, rabbit and honey
• Eleven: Sugar cane, buckwheat flour, red bean, deer, and rabbit
• Twelve: Spinach, leaf mustard, golden carp, and whitefish
68

69. Offering of Food to households
• Quite similarly, offerings of ordinary daily foods were made in the
households of officials and commoners, in front of the spirit tablets of
the ancestor usually on the first and the fifteenth of the lunar month as
well as on special festivals and on anniversary occasions.
• Food so offered was not wasted; after being placed before the spirit
tablets of the deceased family member for an appropriate time, it was
taken away and used by the Uving family.
69

70. Banquet in the Ming Dynasty
70

71. Imperial Banquets
• To begin with, they distinguish: imperial banquets on four levels :
• The Great Banquet
• The Medial Banquet
• The Normal Banquet
• The Minor Banquet
71

72. Imperial Banquets
• Unfortunately, the food actually to be served at this state banquets is not
prescribed in detail and is not so described in any memoir.
72

73. Conclusion
• The food of the Mongols rulers of China are meat (mutton) and wines
(notable Kumis).
• In contrast, In the Ming Palace, more vegetables and fruits were eaten
than meat and fish. Among the meat and fish eaten were chicken,
pheasant, goose, duck, carp, golden carp, Mandarin fish, bream, rabbit,
and deer.
73

74. References
• Anderson, E. N. (1994). Food and health at the Mongol court. eds EH
Kaplan and.
• Liu, X. (2010). Clothing, food and travel: Ming material culture as
reflected in Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan. The University of Arizona.
• Simoons, F. J. (2014). Food in China: a cultural and historical inquiry.
CRC Press.
• Wang, J. (2018). The Collapse of Yuan Dynasty from the Drinking Habit
of the Mongolian. 2nd International Conference on Social Sciences, Arts
and Humanities. Francis Academic Press, UK
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