At the Shang royal table, there is neither appetizer nor dessert: there are bronze vessels, each with its own office. The gui (簋) holds millet and rice, the foundation of every meal; the ding (鼎) sits at the center, heavy with boiled or roasted meats reserved for the gods, ancestors, and the king; the zun and jue pour millet wine, without which no feast is complete. Daily life is a bowl of grain; the banquet piles bronzes in sacred ranks — the higher one's status, the more dings one has. The meal follows the hierarchy of heaven, not the order of flavors.

No rite, no Shang feast can be conceived without jiǔ, a cloudy and sweet millet alcohol offered to the ancestors before touching one's lips. Legend says King Zhou and Daji had a pond of wine dug, surrounded by a forest of hanging meats: it was through this excess that the dynasty fell. The ferment (qū) remains China's great culinary invention — it is what transforms grain into intoxication.