If you live in the Tang Dynasty, you are "drifting north"-the table manners of the Tang people.

Politeness is very important if you want to gain a foothold in Chang 'an and mix up some tricks. This "gift" can cover all aspects of work and life, and "eating" is no exception. We have said a lot about what to eat before, and this time we will talk about how to eat-what are the etiquette rules about eating.

Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, everyone has followed various etiquette norms and codes of conduct in Zhou Li. Of course, banquets and parties have a set of procedures. It doesn't mean that you go outside and shout to take a group of people home, say hello to your wife or servant and prepare a table of dishes. It's ok to eat and drink together when the meal arrives. If you really do this, it's a very rude thing. If your friends are proud, they will "cut the robe" with you.

So what should we do? To sum up briefly: first of all, as the host, you should prepare an invitation and send it to the guest's home, saying the time and place of the party and so on. On the day of the party, you should greet the guests outside the door, greet each other when they arrive, and then take them to the hall to sit down and make a toast. Don't guide the guests to the table until all the guests have arrived.

There is also a set of rules about seating. For the drinking ceremony in Yili Township, the seats in the class are arranged as follows: the host sits east-west, the guests sit south, and the guests sit east. Here, the guest of honor is the first, the host is the second, and the guest is the second. Ok, the seats are arranged. It's time to serve. How to set the dishes? There is a passage in the Book of Rites Quli about how to arrange dishes: for example, dishes with bones are placed on the left and pure meat is placed on the right. Dry food and vegetables are on people's left hand side and soup is on their right hand side. Fine-cut barbecue should be placed in the distance, and vinegar and sauce should be placed nearby. Steamed onions and other condiments are placed next to them, and drinks such as wine pulp and soup are also placed in the same direction. If you want to divide dried meat, breast meat, etc. It is curved on the left, straight on the right and so on.

It's not over yet. I also pay attention to serving. Take it with your right hand and your left hand when serving. When serving fish dishes, if you cook fish, face the guests with the tail of the fish; In winter, the fish belly faces the right side of the guest, and in summer, the fish ridge faces the right side of the guest. The food is served. Do you think you can finally eat it safely? How naive! As a qualified host, you must always stare at all directions when eating! If the guest is mixing vegetable soup, you should apologize and say that the food is not well done; If the guest drinks pickles, you should also apologize and say that the prepared dishes are not enough; After eating, guests need to get up and clean up the dishes with pickles on the table and give them to the people waiting next to them. You should also get up and tell the guests not to work, and then the guests will sit down.

Ah, you said, it's so complicated to invite friends to dinner, so I'd better go back to my hometown to farm, because Chang 'an is not easy to mix. Unfortunately, you are blessed. I am already very good in Datang. At least two points have been greatly improved compared with previous dynasties. First, as we all know, before the Tang Dynasty, China people used to sit on the floor and eat separately. Later, with the introduction and popularity of high-legged furniture, from the Tang Dynasty, eating together gradually appeared. So, you see, your knees and legs have escaped.

One more thing, before the Tang Dynasty, most families had a two-meal system. From morning till night, they have a meal in the morning and a meal in the afternoon. At other times, they are hungry and can only eat snacks to satisfy their hunger. But in the Tang dynasty, the three-meal system became popular, and you can eat something in the morning, noon and evening. You also invented "Guifeihong", "Zi Long Cake" and "Mantianxing" and other "dim sum" categories, which really improved the living standard.

Of course, as a common people, if your family population is relatively simple or you are the only one in single dog, it is no problem to have dinner at home casually, just invite you to dinner. Even if something disrespectful really happened, it would be laughed at at at most. But if you want to take a career in the future, you should seriously study the table manners of court officials. After all, making mistakes and losing face is a trivial matter. If you are not careful, you will be impeached or even lose your job. Let me give you a brief overview first, so that you can be prepared when you really become an official in the future.

The Tang government practiced the "yamen dining system", or simply put, the gathering system. Government agencies at all levels in prefectures and counties have public canteens, so civil servants of relevant departments can enjoy working meals provided by the government. However, the public food is not so delicious, and there are many etiquette rules. Everyone's seat is fixed, so you can't walk around or make noise at will. However, there are exceptions. If the discussion is about business, such as what suspicious and controversial cases have been encountered, corruption has not been eradicated, chronic diseases have not been eliminated, etc., we can still discuss each other. Through the catering system, everyone can improve work efficiency and enhance the friendship between colleagues.

However, some things are not handled carefully, and you may also offend people. For example, there is a story in the Book of the New Tang Dynasty, which happened in the most advanced canteen in the Tang Dynasty-when the prime minister could eat. Once, your prime minister had a dinner together in Zhongshu Province. Wang came to Wei Zhiyi to talk about something. Wei Zhiyi got up and went out. The rest of the prime ministers stopped eating and planned to wait for him to come back and eat together. After a while, a small official came to report: "Wei Xianggong and Wang had dinner together." .

This suddenly stirred up a hornet's nest, and everyone suddenly felt that they were ignored. In particular, one of them named blx was particularly uncomfortable and said, "I can live here again!" " After that, I got up and went home I didn't come out to do business for seven days, so I took a photo casually. Of course, the reason for the strike is not as simple as a meal, but it is definitely a fuse. So, you see, if you want to get along well in officialdom, you have to suffer for a long time, or you will accidentally step on a mine.