Serves: 5
Total Calories: 2,134

Here are samples of two actual banquet menus:
__Menu Formal I
__Menu Formal II

THE FAMILY MEAL
There are no separate courses: the entire meal is set out all at once in serving dishes at the center of the table. Each diner can see exactly how much food there is and pace himself accordingly. Once the food is served, the cook can remain seated like everyone else throughout the entire meal.

The beginning of the meal is signaled when the head of the family or host raises his chopsticks. Then host or hostess ladles out the soup (served in a large tureen), and the diners at the same time may help themselves from the central serving dishes. All these dishes are shared. Rice, however, is not shared: each diner receives his own rice bowl, which he can have refilled whenever he wishes. (Rice in a bowl not only keeps hot, but is easier to manage with chopsticks.) Using his chopsticks, the diner takes a small quantity of food from a central serving dish and either eats it directly or transfers it to his rice bowl. En route, he may dip it in hot mustard or plum sauce. He continues serving himself in this manner from each central dish until he's had enough to eat.

NOTE: Sometimes informal family dining is described as village-style or dinner-style. This distinction is based on the dishes served. Village-style is peasant-style and characterized by such simple and hearty fare as mustard cabbage soup, minced pork steamed with salt fish and various bean curd dishes. Dinner-style is characterized by the dishes served in most Chinese restaurants.

THE FORMAL MEAL
Feasts and banquets are held on very special occasions: to observe holidays, honor guests or celebrate weddings and birthdays. On such occasions, anywhere from ten to thirty-two dishes, served as separate courses, follow each other one at a time, in opulent progression. (Such banquets, obviously too big and elaborate for the home cook, are usually given in restaurants.)

The sequence of the banquet reverses the classic Western pattern of soup to nuts. The Chinese feast literally runs from nuts to soup. The nuts (almonds, salted peanuts, etc.), along with dishes of fresh fruit, appear on the table before the guests are seated. The soup, a sweet, hot liquid made with oranges, almonds or walnuts, is served in a large bowl, and takes the place of dessert at the end of the meal.

The guests begin by nibbling at the nuts and fruit until the appetizers appear. (Sometimes these too are set out on the table before the guests are seated.) There are usually four or five of these appetizers, including cold meats, preserved eggs, shrimp toast, smoked fish and vegetable relishes, all beautifully arranged either on separate dishes or on one large platter. The appetizers are accompanied by yellow rice wine, similar to a medium-dry sherry but rougher in taste and served warm. The host then proposes a toast which in effect says: Drink up. The guests in turn express appreciation for his generous hospitality.

At some banquets, the appetizers are followed by a series of stir-fried dishes, or by several hot and delicate dishes such as shrimp, fish and chicken. At other meals, the principal or prestige dish, such as Bird's Nest Soup, takes precedence. Other prestige dishes include Peking Duck and Shark's Fin Soup (which, like the Bird's Nest, is more of a stew than a soup). These represent the high point of the feast. A number of braised and slow-cooked foods are also served. These include whole ham, roast suckling pig, and duck or chicken m soup.

Because of the abundance of food, rice is eaten in relatively small quantities. (In family-style meals, the dishes are considered an accompaniment to rice. In banquet-style, it's the other way around.) When rice appears midway through the meal (served either plain or as congee) it comes as a welcome change after a series of heavy or highly seasoned dishes. Other changes of pace, served throughout the meal to stimulate flagging appetites, include dainty sweet dishes and salty pastries, clear and delicate soups and hot tea. All of these act to clear the palate and prepare the diner for the more filling foods to follow.

See above for samples of two actual banquet menus.

Seating arrangements:
The Chinese prefer round tables to rectangular ones for both social and practical reasons: Everyone is literally gathered around and conversation is much easier. The food at family meals does not have to be passed since each person is the same distance from the central serving dishes and all can reach them with equal ease. (In Imperial China, however, square tables seating eight were traditional at banquets. The custom now at banquets is to seat ten people at a round table.) Seating arrangements follow this pattern: The host and hostess sit side by side, with their backs to the door. (These seats are considered the lowliest.) Directly opposite, across the table from them, sits the guest of honor. (His is the highest, being the exact reverse of the lowliest.) On his left is the second-highest seat on his right, the third and so on, alternating around the entire table. Thus, those seated closest to the guest of honor occupy the highest seats those nearest the host and hostess occupy the lowliest.

Etiquette:
Chinese etiquette requires that each person finish the food in his bowl before reaching for any more of the same dish. (It's considered greedy to put a quantity of food on your plate at once.) Also, you never should take the most tender or delicate morsels for yourself. Someone else at the table, however, may pick up a dainty morsel and put it on your plate for you. Sometimes the host and hostess will have an extra-long pair of chopsticks with which to pass such delicacies to their guests. Sometimes they will simply turn their own chopsticks around, using the square ends to serve food to others. Good manners also require that the diner eat every last grain of rice in his bowl. When he finishes eating, he indicates this by placing his chopsticks across the top of his rice bowl.

NOTE: Often at the end of the meal, each diner is handed a small, white, steaming hot towel, similar to a terry washcloth. This has been dipped in boiling water (to which a slight fragrance has been added), then wrung out. The towel, used for wiping hands as well as face, is particularly refreshing when anything sticky has been eaten.

The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook. ©1994 by Gloria Bley Miller.

Nutritional Facts:

Serves: 5
Total Calories: 2,134
Calories from Fat: 643

More Recipes from the Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook Cookbook:
13- Preparing a Complete Meal
14- Serving a Chinese Meal
15- Setting a Chinese Table
16- Chopsticks and How to Use Them
17- Guide to Stir-Frying
18- Chinese Teas
19- Chinese Wines
20- Glossary of Chinese Ingredients: A-K
20- Glossary of Chinese Ingredients: L-S
20- Glossary of Chinese Ingredients: T-Z
21- Substitutions
22- Storing Information
23- Soaking Information
24- Chinese Terminology
25- Mail Order Sources