Chinese cuisine has a
long history, and is one of the Chinese cultural treasures. It is as
famous all over the world as French cuisine. Chinese cookery has
developed and matured over the centuries, forming a rich cultural
content. It is characterized by fine selection of ingredients, precise
processing, particular care to the amount of fire, and substantial
nourishment. Local flavours and snacks and special dishes have formed
according to regions, local products, climate, historical factors, and
eating habits.
1. Major Chinese Local Cuisine
Each local cuisine has its own characteristics, but Chinese cuisine as a
whole is divided into four major schools-Shandong, Sichuan, huaiyang,
and Guangdong (Cantonese). Four more can be added: Hunan, Fuijian,
Anhui, and Zhejiang. Sometimes Beijing and Shanghai cuisine are also
counted.
Guangdong Cuisine (Yue Cuisine): Guangdong cuisine uses a
great variety of ingredients such as birds, freshwater fish, snakes, and
saltwater fish. It emphasizes freshness and tenderness. Representative
dishes of the Guangdong cuisine are three snake dragon tiger meeting,
dragon tiger phoenix snake soup, stir-fried shrimp, eight-treasure
lotus-seed glutinous rice, fresh mushrooms in oyster sauce, pot-cooked
soft-shelled turtle, and crisp-skin roast piglet.
Shandong Cuisine (Lu Cuisine): This cuisine uses a wide
and fine selection of ingredients. The plentiful dishes are cooked in
many ways. Shandong soups are most famous, and green onion is commonly
used as a seasoning. Shandong cuisine is best represented by its variety
of seafood dishes, such as sea cucumber braised with green onion,
braised snake-head egg, crab eggs with shark's fin, Dezhou roast
chicken, and walnuts in butter soup.
Sichuan Cuisine (Chuan Cuisine): Sichuan cuisine dishes
are famous in China and abroad for their spicy-hot taste and the flavour
of Chinese prickly ash. Sichuan cooks select their ingredients with
great care, use a variety of seasonings and cook each dishes are
differently. Thus Sichuan dishes are known as a hundred dishes with a
hundred tastes. Most common flavour include hot and spicy, five
fragrances, mixed spices, chilli and Chinese prickly ash, and sweet and
sour. Famous Sichuan dishes include spicy pork shreds, diced chicken
with peanuts and vegetables, bear's paw, chicken cubes in mixed spices,
bean curd with chilli and Chinese prickly ash and fried carp.
Huaiyang Cuisine (Huaiyang Cuisine): Huaiyang cuisine
includes dishes from Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, and Huai'an in Jiangsu
Province. It focuses on the freshness of ingredients. Huaiyang dishes
have a light flavour, retaining the original tastes of ingredients. They
also have pleasant colors and pretty shapes. Famous dishes include
beggar's chicken, sweet and sour mandarin fish, chicken pieces with egg
white, boiled salted duck deep-boiled crab meat in clear soup and
steamed shad.
2. Special Cuisine:
Palace, vegetarian, and medicinal dishes are categorized a special
cuisine. Palace cuisine originated from the imperial kitchens, where
dishes for emperors and empresses were cooked. Palace dishes are made
from carefully selected ingredients and cooked with great care.
Different dishes are made for different seasons. Cutting methods are
exquisite. Diners eat according to traditional procedures.
Vegetarian Cuisine: Vegetarian cuisine became popular in
the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and developed further in the Ming and
Qing(1368-1911) dynasties. Three divisions of vegetarian cuisine—temple,
palace, and folk- appeared during that time.
Made of green vegetables, fruits, edible fungi, and bean products, and
cooked in vegetable oil, vegetarian dishes are tasty, nourishing, and
highly digestible, and they help the body resist cancer. They are cooked
in various ways, and some taste like meat. Famous dishes include
"chicken", mushrooms and gluten, "meat" braised in soy sauce and spices,
"ham" with mixed vegetables, hot and sour spices, "fish" with Chinese
toon, "shrimp," and dried "meat" strips.
Muslim Dishes (Qing Zhen Cuisine) became popular at the
time when Islam spread to China, inheriting the cooking tradition of the
nomadic peoples in ancient north-western and north-eastern China. The
most representative dishes include instant-boiled mutton, fried rice
with mutton, dumplings with filling of mutton, cakes braised with
mutton, and beef-entrails soup.
Medicinal Cuisine (Yao Shan): Also called therapeutic
food, medicinal cuisine is an important part of Chinese cooking. Master
Chefs have developed many food therapies by combining cookery and
traditional Chinese medicine. Famous medicinal dishes include lily and
chicken soup, shrimp meat with pearl powder, tianfu carp, duck braised
with soy sauce and orange peel, and steamed dumplings stuffed with
minced meat and podia cocoas, a medicinal plant.
Other famous cuisine includes Confucian dishes, Tan's dishes and full
formal banquet cuisine, combining Manchurian and Chinese delicacies.
3. Local Flavors and Snacks
China has many local flavors and snacks. The southerners prefer rice,
while the northerners prefer noodles. Beijing flavour is famous for
sweetness, Guangdong snacks are more Western, and Suzhou snacks have
pleasant colors and beautiful shapes. The most famous Chinese local
flavours and snacks include bean curd jelly in Beijing; Guobuli steamed
dumplings in Tianjin, small steamed soup dumplings with the ovaries and
digestive organs of crabs in Zhenjiang, small steamed pork dumplings
served in the steamer tray in Shanghai, dumplings stuffed with crab meat
sesame paste and pea sprouts.
In recent years, fast food, such as Mcdonald's hamburgers, Kuntucky
Fried Chicken, and pizza have become popular in China. |
Old Beijing Eats