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Confucious said, ‘Give a man a fish and he will live for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will live forever.’ He also said, although he, of course, said a lot of things, ‘Eating is the utmost important part of life.’ I don’t have to hand any of his quotations on the art of lovemaking.

The celebrated food writer and gastronaught, although I fear she would disapprove of that term, Jane Grigson, who, along with Elizabeth David, was one of the best food writers in the English language, said that cooking is a very simple art, you apply heat to raw food and keep it as simple as possible.

In Britain we are blessed with a multicultural, culinary society and can enjoy the world’s food cooked by Thais, Italians, French, Spanish, Indians and, of course, the likes of home-grown British talent such as Gary Rhodes, Gordon Ramsay, Antony Worrall Thompson, et al. There is not a town in the land that does not have a Chinese takeaway. It is popular food and invariably it is often not very good. It is so Westernized – that is to say it does not have the ‘umph’ of real Eastern cooking and it has actually become a bit of a joke. Stir-fried bean sprouts with a bit of chicken and no real seasoning, no real spice, no real passion behind it is quite frankly a disaster. However, there are good restaurants around in places like Manchester, Soho and, indeed, in Brighton, where the excellent China Garden serves unctuous, sticky rice in lotus leaves and curried whelks, which are as good as anything you can find anywhere in the world, although I do acknowledge that Hong Kong and Taiwan are pretty good too! In Hong Kong there is a restaurant that serves dim sum – it seats 1,000 people and the waiters and waitresses endlessly push trollies to your table with delectable compositions, be it prawns, pork, chicken, frog’s legs, sea snakes, sea cucumbers, or whatever. Brilliant dumplings, excellent concoctions of noodles.

So what then is Chinese food? It is not a little box of quickly fried red and green peppers, a bit of beef and black bean sauce purchased after 10 pints of lager at 11.00 at night. Chinese food is the result of thousands of years of civilization. The vast country of China has suffered from poor harvests and during those lean years, to stay alive, the Chinese would explore anything edible. As a consequence, many wonderful and slightly incredible ingredients, such as lily buds, wood ears, vegetable peels and shark’s fins, were incorporated into the exquisite richness and variety of Chinese food. You may not want to eat sea cucumbers (a kind of a slug), you may not want a piece of grilled snakeskin or a brochette of strange insects. I think I don’t either, but the sheer volume and variety of food is gastronomically mind boggling – particularly, for me, the noodles. There are so many – egg noodles, wheat noodles, rice flour noodles. Wheat noodles are common in Shanghai. These are thick and when cooked and stir-fried with a savoury sauce of chicken, pork or shrimp are delicious. Rice flour noodles, often known as Singapore style, use thin, vermicelli noodles seasoned with curry powder and mixed with shrimp or barbequed pork or ham.

Basically there are two types of noodle dish. One is a plate of boiled noodles with pork or duck and some vegetables and accompanied with a cup of soup; the other, what we know as chow mein, are pan- or wok-fried noodles mixed with stir-fried meat, vegetables or seafood. But, most importantly, and this is why it is hard to really re-create Chinese food in a Western kitchen, especially if you happen to have a halogen hob electric cooker, the Chinese cookers and the woks that sit on them have such intense, instant, volcanic heat that things can be cooked very quickly, thus maintaining the flavours, vitamins and the healthiness of this food. If you enjoy stir-frying dishes, for an authentic flavour you may well be advised to buy a powerful camping gaz-type stove, a bottle of gas and cook it outside.

The Chinese love food – love buying it, discussing it and love to eat communally, whether at home or in a restaurant. Not for them a table for two – large round tables for 10, 15 or 20 are quite common. They also mostly use fresh ingredients, which can mean two trips a day to the market. And nothing is wasted – you name it, the Chinese will find a way to cook it, be it chicken’s feet, jellyfish or sea slugs. Not to mention the grilled insects, bird, frogs and snakes.

The cuisine is built around the five tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent and salty, and on the techniques of steaming, braising, stir-frying, deep-frying, boiling and roasting. Fermentation is also used to produce sauces such as soy sauce – that quintessentially Chinese seasoning – and pickled ginger, salted black beans, and many more. Add to the equation a grain food – usually boiled or steamed rice – and you have the foundation for your Chinese meal.

Not surprisingly in a country as vast as China, there are four distinct regions, each with its own cooking style – northern/Peking; western/Sichuan; Eastern/Shanghai; and southern/Canton.

Back here, we have our Peking, Cantonese and Sichuan restaurants. Very broadly speaking, we have only to add Shanghai cuisine and we have the four gastronomic regions of China, each with its own peculiarities.

I started my journey in Beijing, or Peking as it was known, and Peking cuisine is that of the north. The main staple here is wheat – steamed bread and noodles are the most common produce, as well as the popular breakfast street food ‘youtiao’, mentioned earlier. An equally popular dish in the north is dumplings, stuffed with a variety of fillings, and eaten with a vinegar dip, soy sauce or what you fancy. The most famous dish has to be Peking Duck, so called because it was originally made with the special ducks bred near Peking. Other specialities of the north include chestnuts, Chinese cabbage, seafood (in Shandong province), offal and noodles, while the Chinese Muslims of the area are lovers of lamb and beef – the Mongolian beef hotpot on is a particular favourite. Oh yes, and they brew a very good beer called Tsingtao – great with dumplings!

To the east we find Shanghai cuisine. A land of lakes, canals and rivers, the region is abundant in both fresh- and seawater fish, as well as rice, wheat and corn. It’s where they make the famous Shaoxing (Shaohsing) rice wine, and wine features in many dishes of the area, as does oil, fat and sugar, giving the cuisine a style of its own. Red-braised dishes are a well-known speciality, as are stir-fried eel and crab, shrimp, prawn and fish dishes.

Cantonese, or southern cuisine, is the most versatile of the four, as well as the lightest – less oil, sugar, garlic, chilli and seasoning are used than in the other cuisines. But what it lacks in strong flavours, it makes up for in subtleness of flavour and texture – crisp is very crispy, smooth is very smooth. Stir-frying excels here, and we have this region to thank for dim sum – that vast variety of Chinese ‘hors d’oeuvres’ enjoyed at breakfast and lunch. Each area throughout this region has its own specialities, be it chicken, tripe, mustard greens, seafood or soups, but given their sub-tropical climate, they all enjoy a wide variety of tropical fruits, the lychee being the most abundant. And by the way, if you like snake, this is the place to come to eat it.

Lastly, we have Sichuan, or western cuisine, whose food is mainly hot and spicy. Sichuan peppercorns and red chillies are used extensively to add intensity to the dishes, as are garlic, ginger and salt. The west is a landlocked area and to compensate for the lack of fresh fish, a fermented fish sauce is added to many dishes, which also feature a variety of shapes and tastes. Here is to be found more varieties of edible fungi than in any other province of China. It’s also the home of Maotai wine – not a wine, in fact, but a potent distilled spirit. And believe you me, Maotai wine is terrifying! Take it from one who has dedicated his life to food, drink and the enjoyment of cooking, go easy on that one. You have been warned.

And finally (excluding the Japanese), the joy of cooking Chinese food is that you can take pleasure in cutting your vegetables, your squid or your scallops into artistic and mouthwatering shapes. But most importantly, and again I emphasize, you need a lot of heat, the ingredients cut into small pieces and then cooked quickly. Fast food, fine food.