Chinese Food

Chinese food culture has a long history, it is not only a way of daily life, but also a profound art. Behind Chinese food culture lies a rich historical heritage, regional characteristics and exquisite culinary skills. We will explore the development of Chinese food culture and the profound meaning behind it.
Chinese food culture can be traced back to ancient China thousands of years ago. In those days, food was not only a means to fulfill the needs of survival, but also an expression of culture. One of the earliest Chinese cookbooks, The Book of Food, was created before the 4th century AD, which recorded the cooking methods and detailed ingredients of the time.

1. Chinese Food: Eight Major Cuisines
The climate, soil and cultural traditions of different regions create their unique culinary specialties. Chinese cuisine can be broadly categorized into eight regional cuisines, and this classification has been widely accepted. Of course, there are many other famous regional cuisines.
For example, Sichuan cuisine is known for its spiciness and numbing spices, Cantonese cuisine for its lightness and dim sum, and Shaanxi cuisine for its noodles and sauces.

-Sichuan Cuisine
Sichuan Cuisine is one of the four major cuisines in China, which mainly consists of famous local flavors and specialties from Chongqing, Chengdu, and northern and southern Sichuan. Sichuan cuisine is known for its spicy and varied flavors, with an emphasis on the use of red chili peppers. The use of peppers and Chinese prickly ash produces a classic and exciting flavor. Locals like to say "each dish has its own style; a hundred dishes have a hundred different flavors."
Sichuan cuisine is not only popular in mainland China, but its influence has spread far and wide overseas, and it has conquered many people with its unique charm
Typical Dish: Mapo Tofu, Numbing-and-hot hotpot, Kung Pao Chicken,Wonton Soup in Hot and Spicy Sauce.

-Lu Cuisine(Shandong Cuisine)

with its longest history, richest techniques, and extreme knife work, has become a representative of the culinary culture of the Yellow River Valley. Shandong cuisine/Confucian cuisine, clear, pure, and not greasy, is characterized by its emphasis on aroma, freshness, crispness and tenderness.
The ingredients of Lu Cuisine are mainly seafood, livestock, seasonal vegetables, and the original flavor of the ingredients is reflected through unique cooking methods.
Typical Dishes:  Sweet and Sour Carp, Braised Sea Cucumber with Scallion, Braised Intestines in Brown Sauce and Braised Prawns in Oil.

-Cantonese Cuisine
Cantonese cuisine is famous for its freshness, fine selection of ingredients and meticulous cooking. Cantonese cuisine emphasizes the original flavor of the ingredients and pursues a light and tender taste. Cantonese cuisine does not use chili peppers much, but rather brings out the flavor of the vegetables and meats themselves.
In terms of cooking techniques, Cantonese cuisine specializes in pan-frying, stir-frying, stewing, steaming and roasting, and it is especially good at using fire to keep the best taste and nutrition of the ingredients in the cooking process. Guangdong chefs also pay much attention to the artistic presentation of dishes.
Typical Dishes: Steamed Spare Ribs in Black Bean Sauce, Sweet-sour pork fillet with chilli, Roasted sucking pig, Crisp-skinned chicken.

-Jiangsu Cuisine
Jiangsu cuisine is well known for its careful selection of ingredients, its meticulous preparation methodology, and its not-too-spicy, not-too-bland taste. It specializes in stewing, braising, steaming, stir-frying and other cooking techniques. The flavor of Huaiyang Cuisine is light, fresh and sweet and with delicate elegance.
Jiangsu cuisine is famous for its seafood and features fine cutting and slicing skills and cooking duration. Jiangsu chefs employ slow-cooking and smoking to great effect to produce a salty and sweet flavor. Its carving techniques are delicate, of which the melon carving technique is especially well known.
Typical Dishes: Dongpo's Braised Pork， Nanjing Roast Duck，Braised meat with vegetables & wine，Sweet and Sour Mandarin Fish

-Zhejiang cuisine
Zhejiang cuisine consists of Hangzhou cuisine, Ningbo cuisine and Shaoxing cuisine. Zhejiang cuisine is famous for its six characteristics of "clear, fragrant, crispy, tender, refreshing and fresh", with a smooth and tender taste and aroma.
Hangzhou cuisine boasts great variety, and favors steam, stew, stir-fry; Ningbo cuisine is savory and tasty, cooked through steaming, roasting, braising mainly. The dishes are fresh, tender, soft and smooth; Shaoxing cuisine is famous for its river food, characterized by a strong sauce flavor, the dishes are fresh and soft, and the soup is delicious and rich, with a strong local flavor.
Typical Dishes: West Lake fish in vinegar gravy, Stewed Spring Bamboo Shoots, Longjing prawn, Dongpo pork, Beggar's chicken

-Min Cuisine

Min Cuisine is famous for cooking mountain delicacies and seafood. Especially good at making soup dishes, known as "a soup of ten changes" reputation. Its taste is sweet, sour and light, and it is good at using sugar, vinegar and other condiments, forming a fresh and elegant, sweet and sour unique flavor. The braised food of Min cuisine is also very distinctive.
Min Cuisine not only focuses on the selection of ingredients and exquisite cooking skills, but also good at integrating medicinal food into the daily diet.
Typical Dishes: Sea food and poultry in casserolef， Steamed pork roll with rice flour and lotus leaf，Saut& sea cucumber with scallions

-Hunan cuisine
Benefiting from the rich local produce and humid climate, Hunan cuisine has formed three major local flavors in the Xiangjiang Region, Dongting Lake and Xiangxi coteau. It is known for its unique spicy, fragrant, fresh and rich flavor. Using chili peppers as the main seasoning, supplemented by garlic, ginger, pepper, etc., makes the dishes spicy and appetizing. Hunan cuisine specializes in simmering, stewing, waxing, steaming, stir-frying and other cooking methods.
Typical Dishes:
Fried Pork with Peppers, Steamed Fish Head with Peppers, Steamed fried pork in black bean sauce, Chicken with cayenne pepper

-Anhui cuisin
Anhui cuisine focuses on the temperature of cooking, specializing in braise, stew, simmer, steam and smoke. Anhui Cuisine emphasizes on dietary supplements and nourishing the body with food. Anhui cuisine emphasizes the use of fire, using large, medium, small and warm fires to achieve the best taste and nutritional effect.
Often ham and sugar are added to improve the flavor of the dish. Different dishes use different fire control techniques to create a unique flavor that is crispy, tender, fragrant and fresh.
Typical Dishes: Smelly Mandarin Fish, Huangshan stewed pigeon,Crispy pork with pine nuts，Gourd duck

2. Chinese snacks

Numbing-and-hot hotpot
Sichuan Numbing-and-hot hotpot is famous for its numbness, spiciness, freshness and aroma. In front of a cauldron full of chili peppers, boiling butter and a variety of spices, people can choose from a variety of ingredients such as meat, vegetables, tofu, etc. and put them into the hot pot to cook themselves. Many restaurants now serve yuanyang hot pot so that diners can cook their ingredients in spicy or light broth.

Sichuan Malatang
Sichuan Malatang is a traditional snack originated from Leshan, famous for its spicy and fresh taste. The essence of Malatang lies in the soup with chili peppers, which makes your mouth water when you smell it and can't get enough of it when you eat it. You can add easy-to-cook meat or vegetables, and there are so many options to choose from.

Zhajiangmian, also known as“noodles with soybean paste”
When we talk about Chinese noodle culture, we have to mention Beijing noodles with soybean paste. As one of the representative cultural symbols of Beijing, if you come to Beijing without tasting it, you will be left with some regrets.
The soul of the fried noodles is the delicious fried sauce, featuring diced pancetta as the main ingredient, with soy bean sauce, sweet noodle sauce, and a variety of seasonings.

Stinky Tofu
Changsha Stinky Tofu is a very representative traditional snack. The snack is famous for its unique characteristic of "smelling bad but tasting good".
The tofu is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. With special seasonings such as chili sauce and garlic paste, it has rich layers of flavors, with a rich soybean aroma, as well as a hint of sourness and spiciness.

Steamed Cold Noodles
It is a noodle-like Chinese dish made from wheat or rice flour. Shaanxi Steamed Cold Noodles is popular for its sour and refreshing flavor. The use of vinegar and chili oil is especially important in the mixing process, as they add a unique sour and spicy flavor to the cold skin. In addition, seasonings such as garlic paste, pepper oil and sesame sauce are also key to enhancing the flavor of the cold skin. Combined with seasonal vegetables such as cucumber and bean sprouts, you can get a bowl of Steamed Cold Noodles.

Rougamo
“Rougamo” - a popular “meat burger” or “meat sandwich” consisting of chopped meat inside a pita-like bun, is one of them.
The Rougamo is also known as “the world’s oldest hamburger”(as cited in a Huffington Post report in April 2015) –it is thought to date back to the Qin Dynasty, over 2,000 years ago.
The outer is crispy, while the inner filling is carefully stewed pork, which is tender, juicy and fragrant. The stewed meat is chopped up and put into the hot bun, then drizzled with a little gravy, the crispiness of the bun and the mellow flavor of the meat are perfectly blended.

Rice Noodle Roll (Chang Fen 肠粉)
antonese rice noodle originated from Guangdong, which is famous for its unique taste.
To make rice noodle, you first need to soak rice and grind it into rice paste. Then, the rice paste is poured into a special steaming tray and fillings such as pork, beef and shrimp are added according to personal preference. Next, steam it over high heat. Finally, the rice noodle is gently scraped up, rolled into strips and drizzled with the special sauce.

Three Cannon(San Da pao ) 

It is a traditional snack unique to the Sichuan region.
The production process is full of fun, the masters will throw the glutinous rice ball into the air, it will hit the board three times in a row, making "dong dong dong dong" three times, like the sound of a cannon, so it is named "three cannons". Each time it is hit, the glutinous rice ball is coated with a thick layer of soybean flour and finally drizzled with brown sugar sauce. The main ingredients of the Three Cannons include glutinous rice, brown sugar, sesame seeds, soybeans, etc. These ingredients are made and matched to make the Three Cannons taste sweet and soft.

Jianbing Guozi,pancake rolled with crisp fritter
Jianbing Guozit is a popular traditional snack in northern China. The main ingredients of Jianbing Guozi include pancakes with mung bean flour (or other miscellaneous grains such as soybean flour, black bean flour, etc.), eggs, fritters (or crisps), and condiments such as noodle sauce, minced green onion, fermented bean curd, and chili sauce. Among them, the mung bean flour Jianbing Guozi is the foundation of the pancake fruit, with its soft texture and bean flavor; the addition of eggs increases the nutrition and texture of the Jianbing Guozi; and the crispy fritters (or thin crisps) are the soul of the Jianbing Guozi.

Tangyou Guozi
Tangyou Guozi is a famous traditional snack in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Made of glutinous rice, brown sugar and sesame seeds, the glutinous rice dough is deep-fried in oil and then coated with white sesame seeds and threaded with bamboo sticks. The finished product is round and shiny, brownish-red in color, caramelized sugar scent, and covered with fragrant white sesame seeds. It is characterized by its bright yellow color, crispy outside and glutinous inside, and sweet taste.
Baozi Stuffed with Juicy Pork/Xiao Long Bao
Xiao Long Bao, a traditional specialty originating from the Jiangnan region of China, is probably the most perfect bite-sized food ever created by mankind. It has a paper-thin skin, perfectly seasoned pork filling and a flavorful soup.
The filling of xiao long bao is the key, it needs to use top quality pork, add appropriate amount of fresh shrimp, meat jelly and other ingredients, mix well and marinate for a period of time. When steaming, you need to master the fire and time to ensure that the Xiao Long Bao are well cooked and rich in soup.

River snails rice noodle(Luosifen)
Luosifen are a specialty snack from Liuzhou, Guangxi, which is popular throughout China for its unique sour, spicy, fresh aroma and rich flavor. The soup base of Luosifen is the key to its delicious flavor. It is usually made with a variety of ingredients such as snails, pork bones, herbs and natural spices to ensure the soup base is flavorful. The rice vermicelli is smooth and elastic, and is served with rich toppings such as pickled bamboo shoots, fungus, bean curd, peanuts, and a drizzle of red chili oil and vinegar.

Hot Dry Noodles/Wuhan Hot-Dry Noodles with Sesame Paste
Hot Dry Noodles is one of the specialty snacks of Wuhan, famous for its unique production process and rich ingredients. It uses alkaline water noodles with sesame sauce, sesame oil, chili oil and other seasonings. Hot dry noodles are not only nutritious, but also can be used as a staple food or breakfast, which is very popular among local people. As one of the "Five Famous Noodles of China", Hot Noodles carries the history and culture of Wuhan, and is one of the first choices for breakfast in Wuhan.

3. Chinese Cuisine Cooking Techniques

Chinese cuisine has a wide range of techniques, including stir-frying, blasting, stir-frying, deep-frying, cooking, pan-frying, and sticking, each of which contains unique culinary wisdom. Stir-frying is to lock in freshness by stir-frying quickly over high heat. Explosion is the pursuit of quick and crispy. Buttermilk stir-fry, crispy outside and tender inside, with rich marinade. Deep frying, high temperature crispy. Cooking, seasoning flavor, color and aroma. Frying, slow frying over low heat, crispy outside and tender inside. Stick, one side of the yellow crispy side of the tender, layered. These techniques not only enrich the variety and flavor of dishes, but also highlight the depth and charm of Chinese culinary culture.

4. The History of Chinese Cuisine
Chinese cuisine has a long and profound history, with a development history of several thousand years, and Chinese culinary skills have been continuously refined, with a variety of genres. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, the difference between the flavors of northern and southern cuisines first appeared. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the southern and northern food systems were gradually formed. By the early Qing Dynasty, the four major cuisines of Shandong, Sichuan, Guangdong and Suzhou were famous, followed by the rise of the four major cuisines of Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan and Hui, which together constitute the eight major cuisines of China. Chinese cuisine is characterized by excellent color, aroma, taste, shape and meaning, a wide selection of ingredients, and a variety of techniques, forming a unique gastronomic culture that is renowned throughout the world. Its history is not only the inheritance of culinary skills, but also the epitome of Chinese culture.