The origins are disputed, but by the nineteenth century, the style became popular and was emulated in twentieth and twenty-first-century restaurants.

The new style of cooking included Shandong, southern, and Manchu elements, and resulted in what was called a "Manchu-Han banquet" (Man Han quanxi).

[3] There is also another theory that this kind of feast never existed in the history, but was a xiangsheng sketch comedy instead, which included a long list of various dishes.

The "Eight Mountain Delicacies" includes such dishes as camel's hump, bear's paws, monkey's brains, ape's lips, leopard fetuses, rhinoceros tails, and deer tendons.

The dishes themselves involved exotic ingredients and a variety of cooking techniques from every part of Imperial China.

In modern times, the Chinese term "Manhan Quanxi" can be used as an idiomatic expression to represent any feast of significant proportions.

An abridged version of the Cantonese version of the imperial meal was depicted in Mister Ajikko, where the dessert: Almond Tofu dessert is used as a contest against the expert in the dish: A corrupt monk in the Cuisine Temple.