In the fifty-third chapter of A Dream of Red Mansions, "Wu Tiegong said' Yutian rouge rice and two stones'." Back to the seventy-fifth, "grandma asked if there was any porridge to eat. You Shi has already held a bowl, saying it is red rice porridge; Grandmother Jia took it and ate half a bowl. He also ordered someone to send this porridge to Xi-feng. In New Evidence of A Dream of Red Mansions (Zhou, Tangdi Publishing House, 1953 edition), the author made textual research on the "rouge rice" mentioned in it. The author quoted relevant records in four ancient books. These four ancient books are:
Liu's Magazine in the Garden, Zhen Wu's Collection of Yang Jizhai, Kangxi's Collection of Imperial Collection and Record of Immortals.
Qing metabolism wrote a poem in "Eating Miscellaneous Poems", praising: "All ethnic groups in the Oracle bones of Gyeonggi are worshiped, and jade species should be the first good and abundant. The near warehouse provides jade food and all treasures are collected. Spring is blue, and lotus petals are red when cooked. People know that Kunlun is in the sky, and the green essence is not there. " The blue green here is the color of polished rice, while the lotus petal red refers to rouge rice.
In the early 1970s, President Mao Zedong lived in Fengzeyuan, Zhongnanhai. When reading A Dream of Red Mansions, I saw this story about "Yutian rouge rice", which aroused great interest and ordered the Ministry of Agriculture and Hebei Province to look for this kind of rice. Later, the Hebei Provincial Party Committee found it, and Hebei Province gave the harvested rouge rice to Chairman Mao. When Chairman Mao met Nixon, he also mentioned Yutian rouge rice to American guests and asked Premier Zhou to arrange for guests to taste it at the state banquet. Because this kind of rice is rare and delicious, when former Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka visited China, he tasted this kind of rice in the VIP table and held it in his arms and read it. He actually asked Chairman Mao for this rice. According to the insider, this rice is really for Japan.