Cultural flavor

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-03 16:28

The Beijing Qianmen Quanjude roast duck restaurant is presenting a weeklong cultural feast to celebrate the New Year.

Under the theme "promotion of intangible cultural heritage", the feast showcases not only the procedure for oven-hung, roast duck cooking, but also introduces such old techniques as making clay figurines, paper-cutting, glass ware, cloisonne enamel ware, swallow kites and Beijing silk figurines.

As the first restaurant of the famous brand, the Qianmen Quanjude has a history of more than 140 years. Now the brand has been developed to cover more than 500 duck dishes.

This year sees the iconic Peking roast duck being granted State-level intangible cultural heritage status, approved by the State Council in June.

During the opening ceremony of the event on Dec 29, inheritors of the family techniques were invited to displaying their skills and representative works.

Zhang Hongyue, the fifth generation of a family that has created clay figurines, made a model of a roast duck chef. Xu Yang, who has been called one of the 10 top paper-cutting artisans in China, produced a work extolling the Quanjude brand.

The restaurant has also prepared an all-duck banquet at which diners can find both traditional dishes and newly developed cuisines.

32 Qianmen Dajie, 6511-2418

前门大街32号

Story by Wu Liping, photo by Jiang Dong