Background
Yuan Mei was born in Qiantang (錢塘, in modern Hangzhou), Zhejiang province, to a cultured family who had never before attained high office.
袁枚
Yuan Mei was born in Qiantang (錢塘, in modern Hangzhou), Zhejiang province, to a cultured family who had never before attained high office.
Then, from 1742 to 1748, Yuan Mei served as a magistrate in four different provinces in Jiangsu. However, in 1748, shortly after being assigned to administer part of Nanjing, he resigned his post and returned to his hometown to pursue his literary interest. Literary career
In the decades before his death, Yuan Mei produced a large body of poetry, essays and paintings.
Yuan is most famous for his poetry, which has been described as possessing "unusually clear and elegant language".
His views on poetry as expressed in the Suiyuan shihua (隨園詩話) stressed the importance of personal feeling and technical perfection. In his later years, Yuan Mei came to be called "Mister Suiyuan" (隨園先生).
Among his other collected works are treatises on passing the imperial examinations and food. On some of those visits, Yuan kept journal entries, representative of which is the You Guilin zhu shan ji ("Record of tours of the mountains of Guilin").
He also accepted students.
The food writer Fuchsia Dunlop has described Yuan as "China’s Brillat-Savarin," and he is called one of the four classical gastronomes. In a time when the taste among his contemporaries was for opulence and exotic display, Yuan stood for the "orthodox" style. "Nowadays," he wrote, "at the start of the feast the menu is about a hundred feet lougitude" This is "mere display, not gastronomy." After such a dinner Yuan returned home and cooked congee to appease his hunger.
He instructed cooks "do not fuss with the natural state of the food just to show that you are a clever cook.
Bird"s nest is beautiful -- why shape it into balls?" Yuan criticized his contemporary Li Liweng"s magnolia pudding as "created by artifice." Yuan also resented what he regarded as the corruption of Chinese food by Manchu cooks. The appeal of Manchu cooking was in their stews and roasts, while Chinese cooked broths and soups, but when Manchus serve Chinese dinners and Chinese serve Manchu food, "we lose our originality" and we "toady to each other."
Yuan"s recipes and thoughts on cooking were published in his 1792 gastronomic manual and cookbook the Suiyuan Shidan (隨園食單 / 随园食单).