takes the position of the ascetic gourmet, in his gastronomic work the Suiyuan shidan, he wrote: I always say that chicken, pork, fish and duck are the original geniuses of the board, each with a flavor of its own, each with its distinctive style; whereas sea-slug and swallows-nest (despite their costliness) are commonplace fellows, with no character – in fact, mere hangers-on. I was once asked to a party by a certain Governor, who gave us plain boiled swallows-nest, served in enormous vases, like flower pots. It had no taste at all.... If our host’s object was simply to impress, it would have been better to put a hundred pearls into each bowl. Then we would have known that the meal had cost him tens of thousands, without the unpleasantness of being expected to eat what was uneatable." After such a meal, Yuan said, he would return home and make himself a bowl of congee. The records of the Imperial Banqueting Court () published in the late Qing period showed there were several levels of Manchu banquets () and Chinese banquets (). The royal Manchu Han Imperial Feast is one that combined both traditions. The specialty dish Dazhu gansi was highly commended by the Qing emperor Qianglong. Post-Dynastic China After the end of the Qing dynasty, the cook previously employed by the Imperial Kitchens opened-up restaurants which allowed the people to experience many of the formerly inaccessible foods eaten by the Emperor and his court. However, with the beginning of the Chinese Civil War, many of the cooks and individuals knowledgeable in the cuisines of the period in China left for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States. Among them were the likes of Irene Kuo who was an ambassador to the culinary heritage of China, teaching the Western of the more refined aspects of Chinese cuisine. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the nation has suffered from a series of major food supply problems under the Chinese Communist Party. Poor, countryside provinces like Henan and Gansu experienced the worst. By January 1959 the food supply for residents in Beijing was reduced to 1 cabbage per household per day. Many peasants suffered from malnutrition, and at the same time increasing the amount they handed over to the state. Beginning in 1960, the Great Chinese Famine contributed to more problems due to bad government policies. During this time