Chinese cuisine enjoys the reputation
for its color, scent, tast, and design, as well as its variety.
Due to the vast territory, abundant resource, varied climate and different living
habits in China, people from different places have quite different flavors of food,
for instance, southern like light food while northern are on the opposite, Szechuanese
like spicy food, but Shanxi people like sour food. As a result, many different cuisines
unique to certain areas are formed, among which that of Lu, Chuan, Huaiyang and
Yue are called the "Grand Four Categories of Chinese Cuisine".
Szechuan Cuisine
This combines the cuisines from Chengdu and Chongqing, it is famous for being spicy,
hot. As early as Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911), books had systematically recorded a
total of 38 cooking methods like to scald, wrap, bake, mix, stew, and adhere, etc.
it features pungent seasonings which were famed as:
- THREE PEPPERS
pickly ash, bell pepper and hot pepper
- THREE AROMA
shallot, ginger, and garlic
- SEVEN TASTES
sweet, sour, tingling, spicy, bitter, piquant, and salty
- EIGHT FLAVORS
refreshing, sour with spice, pepper tingling, odd flavor, tingling with spice, red
spicy oily, ginger sauce, and home cooking
Famous dishes include: fish-flavored pork threads, diced chicken with chili pepper,
multi-flavor chicken, ma po tofu, etc.
Hunan Cuisine
lays a stress on the use of dense color, and techniques that produce crispness,
softness and tenderness as well as the savory flavors and spices. Stewed fins, fried
fresh cabbage with chestnuts, Dong Anzi chicken, immortal chicken with five elements,
are of the highest reputation. Chairman Mao, with other leaders praised Hunan cuisine
in 1958.
Shandong cuisine
also known as Lu Cai for short, is characterized by quick-frying, stir-frying, braising
and deep-frying. It focuses on the confection of vegetable soup and milk soup. Famous
dishes include Dezhou stewed chicken, sweet and sour carp, etc.
Yue Cuisine
short of Cantonese Cuisine, which is famous for its wide selection of materials,
variety of designs and colors, and original forms. It features tender and refreshing
taste. Famous dishes are: juicy shrimp, roast suckling pig, golden fried crispy
chicken, etc.
Huai Yang Cuisine
represented by dishes from the places along Huaihe River and in the lower reaches
of Changjiang River like Yangzhou, Zhejiang and Huai'an. It's characterized by careful
selection of materials, timing of cooking and controlling of heat, and beautiful
appearance of dishes, Famous dishes include: Hangzhou roast chicken, salty duck,
braised meatball with stewed crab, etc.
Visitor to Beijing will, definitely have a tast of Beijing duck, which is representative
dish of Beijing. It enjoys an international reputation for its date-red, shining
with oil, but with a crisp skin and tender meat. The place that offers very good
Beijing roast duck is the Quanjude Restaurant.
Previous Next
