After the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, more than 600 guests attended a reception at the Beijing Hotel. Huaiyang cooks recruited for the occasion prepared food intended to accommodate diners from across the country without excessive heat, sweetness or richness. Later reconstructions of the lost menu include red-braised lion’s-head meatballs: large, tender pork spheres slowly cooked with vegetables and sauce. The dish belonged to the refined cuisine of Yangzhou and the lower Yangtze, where precise chopping and gentle cooking transformed fatty pork into a soft, cohesive texture. Its appearance at the new government’s first major banquet helped establish Huaiyang cuisine as a language of Chinese state hospitality. The story also shows how a regional dish associated with canal commerce, salt merchants and elaborate banquets was recast for a modern national ceremony.
Braised Lion’s Head at China’s Founding Banquet
AD 1949
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