China

Chinese cuisine originated from the various regions of China and has become widespread in many other parts of the world – from East Asia to North America, Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa.

Chinese cuisine is divided by geographical regions, each with distinct differences. Szechuan style cooking is spicy and redolent with chili peppers. Hunan cooking is known for fish and rice and can also be very hot. Cantonese style, the most sophisticated of these, offers ample seafood, many fresh vegetables, delicate sauces, and few fried dishes. Beijing style is China’s haute cuisine, and was the cuisine prepared for the royal family. Today, a Chinese meal from any of these regions will include rice, soup, and a variety of meat, fish, vegetables and sometimes noodle courses. Most foods are wok cooked, fried or steamed.

Cuisine

A meal in Chinese culture typically consists of two or more general components: (1) a carbohydrate source or starch, typically rice, noodles, or mantou (steamed buns), and (2) accompanying dishes of vegetables, meat, fish, or other items. This cultural conceptualization is in some ways in contrast to cuisines of Northern Europe and the USA, where meat or animal protein is often considered the main dish, and analogous to the one of most Mediterranean cuisines, based typically on wheat-derived components like pasta or cous cous.

Noodles are a critical part of much of Chinese cuisine, like, in many parts of China, particularly northern China, wheat-based products including noodles and steamed buns (such as mantou) predominate, in contrast to southern China where rice is dominant. Despite the importance of rice in Chinese cuisine, at extremely formal occasions, sometimes no rice at all will be served; in such a case, rice would only be provided when no other dishes remained, or as a token dish in the form of fried rice at the end of the meal. Soup is usually served at the start of a meal and at the end of a meal in Southern China.

In contrast to most western meals, a Chinese meal does not typically end with a dessert. However, a sweet dish is usually served at the end of a formal dinner or banquet, such as sliced fruits or a sweet soup (lit. sugar water) which is served warm.

Common dishes found on a national level

There are many dishes that are considered part of the nation’s national cuisine today. Below are lists of a few of the more common dishes available in China:

Common savory dishes found in Chinese cuisine

• Wonton (sphere-shaped dumplings usually served boiled in broth or deep-fried)
• Guotie (fried jiaozi dumplings)
• Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings) – a specialty of Shanghai
• Kung Pao chicken
• Mapo doufu
• Sweet and sour pork
• Twice Cooked Pork
• Buddha’s delight (vegetarian dish popular amongst Buddhists)
• Hot pot
• Fried pancakes (including green onion pancakes)
• Zongzi (glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, usually with a savory or sweet filling)
• Peking Duck – the trademark dish of Beijing
• Siu mei (rotisserie style of cooking meats within Cantonese cuisine)
• Char siu (Barbecued roast pork)
• Red-cooked stews (slow-cooked stews characterized by the use of soy sauce and/or caramelized sugar and various ingredients)
• Stinky tofu
• Soy egg: hard boiled egg, cooked in soy sauce
• Tea egg: hard boiled egg soaked or stewed in tea
• Congee: rice porridge
• Pickled vegetables
• Soy milk in either sweet or “salty” form
• Doufu

Common starch dishes found in Chinese cuisine

• Rice
• Fried rice
• Baozi (filled steamed buns)
• Mantou (steamed bun)
• Noodles
• Fried noodles
• Noodle soup
• Zhajiang mian
• Shaobing – a flaky baked or pan-seared dough pastry.
• Youtiao – “Cow tongue pastry”, or other fried Chinese doughfoods

Other specialties found in Chinese cuisine

• Century egg: thousand-year old
• Dim sum – a staple of Cantonese cuisine
• Hot and sour soup
• Mooncake (special cake eaten at Mid-Autumn Festival)
• Tong sui (sweet Cantonese soup or warm custard served as a dessert)
• Stir-fry – an umbrella term used to describe two fast Chinese cooking techniques: chao and bao).

Eating utensils

Chopsticks are the primary eating utensil in Chinese culture for solid foods, while soups and other liquids are enjoyed with a wide, flat-bottomed spoon (traditionally made of ceramic). It is reported that wooden chopsticks are losing their dominance due to recent logging shortfalls in China and East Asia; many Chinese eating establishments are considering a switch to a more environmentally sustainable eating utensil, such as plastic or bamboo chopsticks. More expensive materials used in the past included ivory and silver. On the other hand, disposable chopsticks made of wood/bamboo have all but replaced reusable ones in small restaurants.

Presentation

In most dishes in Chinese cuisine, food is prepared in bite-sized pieces (e.g. vegetable, meat, doufu), ready for direct picking up and eating. Traditionally, Chinese culture considered using knives and forks at the table barbaric due to fact that these implements are regarded as weapons. It was also considered ungracious to have guests work at cutting their own food. Fish are usually cooked and served whole, with diners directly pulling pieces from the fish with chopsticks to eat, unlike in some other cuisines where they are first filleted. This is because it is desired for fish to be served as fresh as possible, and more importantly, whole fish culturally signifies wholeness of things as it has a proper beginning (head) with an end (tail). It is common in many restaurant settings for the server to use a pair of spoons to divide the fish into servings at the table. Chicken is another meat popular in Chinese meals. While the chicken is cut into pieces, and similar to serving fish every single piece of the chicken is served including gizzards and head in order to signify completeness.

In a Chinese meal, each individual diner is given his or her own bowl of rice while the accompanying dishes are served in communal plates (or bowls) that are shared by everyone sitting at the table. In the Chinese meal, each diner picks food out of the communal plates on a bite-by-bite basis with their chopsticks. This is in contrast to western meals where it is customary to dole out individual servings of the dishes at the beginning of the meal. Many non-Chinese are uncomfortable with allowing a person’s individual utensils (which might have traces of saliva) to touch the communal plates; for this hygienic reason, additional serving spoons or chopsticks may be made available. In areas with increased Western influence, such as Hong Kong, diners are provided individually with a heavy metal spoon for this purpose. The food selected is often eaten together with some rice either in one bite or in alternation.

Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is not uncommon or unusual in China, though, as is the case in the West, it is only practiced by a relatively small proportion of the population. The Chinese vegetarians do not eat a lot of tofu, unlike the stereotypical impression in the West. Most Chinese vegetarians are Buddhists. Chinese vegetarian dishes often contain large varieties of vegetables (e.g. bok choy, shiitake mushroom, sprouts, corn) and some “imitated meat”. Such “imitated meat” is created mostly with soy and / or mianjin (better known as seitan in Japanese) to imitate the texture, taste, and appearance of duck, chicken, or pork. Chinese Buddhist cuisine has many true vegetarian dishes that contain no meat at all.

Beverages

In traditional Chinese culture, cold beverages are believed to be harmful to digestion of hot food, so items like ice-cold water or soft drinks are traditionally not served at meal-time. Besides soup, if any other beverages are served, they would most likely be hot tea or hot water. Tea is believed to help in the digestion of greasy foods. Despite this tradition, nowadays beer and soft drinks are popular accompaniment with meals. A popular combo in many small restaurants in parts of China is hot pot served with cold beer, a combination known as (Pinyin: leng3 dan4 bei1, literally: cold and bland cup, despite being strongly flavored), which is the very opposite of what traditional wisdom would admonish. Ideas from Chinese herbology, such as the four natures, influence the food combinations favored in traditional Chinese meals.