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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 flavors and snacks, and special dishes have formed
according to regions, local products, climate, historical factors, and
eating habits.
1.Local Cuisine
Each local cuisine has its own characteristics, but Chinese cuisine as a
whole is divided into four major schools--Shading, Sichuan, Huaiyang, and
Guangdong (Cantonese). To these can be added four more: Hunan, Fujian,
Anhui, and Zheijiang. Sometimes Beijing and Shanghai cuisine are also
counted.
Guangdong 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: 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 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: Sichuan dishes are famous in China and abroad for their
spicy-hot taste and the flavor of
Chinese prickly ash. Sichuan cooks select their ingredients with great care,
use a variety of seasonings, and
cook each dish differently. Thus Sichuan dishes are known as a hundred
dishes with a hundred tastes. Most
common flavors include hot and spicy, five fragrances, mixed spices, chili
and Chinese prickly ash, and sweet
and sour. Famous Sichuan dishes include spicy pork shreds, diced chicken
cubes in mixed spices, bean curd
with chili and Chinese prickly ash, and fried carp.
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 flavor, retaining the original
taste of the 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 as 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 became popular at the time when Islam spread to China. The
most representative dishes include instant-boiled mutton, fried mutton pieces, mutton shashlik, fried
rice with mutton, dumplings with fillings of mutton, cakes braised with mutton, and beef-entrails soup.
Medicinal cuisine: Also called therapeutic food, medicinal cuisine is an
important part of Chinese cooking. Master chefs have developed may 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 poria coccos, a medicinal plant.
Other famous cuisine include 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 refer noodles. Beijing flavor is famous for sweetness,
Guangdong snacks are more Western, and Suzhou snacks have pleasant colors
and beautiful shapes. The most famous Chinese local flavors and snacks
include bean curd jelly in Beijing;Goubuli 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 in Guangzhou, and noodles with
sesame paste and pea sprouts.
In recent years, fast food, such as McDonald’s hamburgers, Kentucky Fried
Chicken, and pizza have become popular in China.
To let more foreigners know more about Chinese cuisine, many travel agencies
have opened special services for enjoying Chinese food.
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