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Food in China

An ancient, innovative cuisine that is beloved the world over.

China has fascinated the West ever since Marco Polo's account of his travels in that unimaginably exotic land was published in the 13th century. Long before this, however, junks laden with the rich treasures of China had been heading for other countries on annual trading voyages.

Silk, gunpowder, printing and the compass are among the great Chinese inventions that have altered the course of history But of all China's contributions to modern civilization, the most popular is Chinese food, enjoyed in restaurants and homes in every corner of the globe, from Iceland to Texas to Auckland. Few people in the world, with the possible exception of the French, are as passionately devoted to food as the Chinese Meals are socially important events and special menus are presented for weddings and birthdays; important festivals also have their traditional dishes and snacks.

What is the reason for the enduring worldwide popularity of Chinese food? It begins with a cornucopia of unique ingredients, vegetables and nourishing tofu plus subtle or emphatic sauces and seasonings that are partnered with just about every creature that swims the seas, flies the air or roams the land. This astonishing variety of ingredients is transformed by the Chinese into memorable works of culinary art Every dish must meet three major criteria—appearance, fragrance and flavor; other considerations are texture, the health-giving properties of the food and its auspicious connotations.

The array of seasonings and sauces used by Chinese cooks is not vast; nor are a large range of culinary techniques employed. However, the endless interplay of one basic ingredient with another—meat with tofu, vegetables with slivers of pork, lychees with shrimp—and the transformation of these basics when combined with different seasonings, allows for almost endless variety.

Throughout its history. China has known a perpetual cycle of flood and famine. Food has always been a matter of desperate concern for its huge population (about 25 percent of the world's total population, living on just 7 percent of the world's land). The paradox of Chinese food is that this cuisine, born of hardship and frequent poverty, is not one of dull subsistence, but is arguably the most creative in the world.

You can travel throughout China and the Chinese communities of Asia and never have the same dish served in exactly the same way twice. China's vast territory, diverse population and wide range of regional cuisines provide such infinite variety that eating in this ancient and inventive country is always an enjoyable adventure.

A Rich Culinary Tradition

Early Chinese culinary techniques included boiling, steaming, roasting, stewing, pickling and drying. Stir-frying, the best known method today, probably developed later. In sum. it can be said that the basic Chinese diet and means of preparation were in place about 6,000 years ago, although many imported ingredients—some transported over the Silk Road—entered the Chinese larder and new cooking methods were adopted.

A balanced mixture of grain and cooked dishes has been the ideal of a meal in China since time immemorial The balance lies between bland, boiled or steamed grain on the one hand, and more flavorful and rich cooked dishes on the other. Further balances were sought between the yin (cooling) and yang (heating) qualities of the foods served. The notion of food as both preventative and curative medicine is deeply imbedded in the Chinese psyche. The specific proportion of grain and cooked dishes on a menu depends as much on the economic status of the diners as on the status of the occasion. Traditionally, grain would provide the bulk of the calories, with cooked dishes serving as supplementary ornamentation and nutrition. The grander the occasion, the more the cooked dishes and the less the grain. Even today, this tradition is maintained at banquets, where a small symbolic bowl of plain steamed rice is served after an extensive selection of other dishes.

Rice is perceived as something essential and almost magical This is particularly true in South China, while wheat showers its blessings over the North, although this division is not hard and fast. One reason the Grand Canal was built in the 6th century was to transport rice from the fertile Yangtze delta region to the imperial granaries in the relatively dry North. And since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). an annual crop of short-grain rice has been grown in the suburbs of Beijing, originally for the palace and today for the military leadership.

Numerous varieties of rice are produced in China today, supplemented by more expensive Thai rice, which is available at urban markets throughout the country. Southerners seem to prefer long-grained rice, which is less sticky than other varieties and has strong "wood" overtones when steaming hot. Rice is served steamed, fried (after boiling) or made into noodles by grinding raw rice into rice flour It is also cooked with a lot of water to produce congee or zhou (rice gruel), a popular breakfast food and late-night snack eaten with a number of savory side dishes.

In early times, wheat was boiled like rice, but by the Han Dynasty (220 B.C.-A.D. 200), the grain was ground into flour and made into noodles, pancakes and various forms of dumplings, some of the recipes having possibly been imported from Central Asia. It is unlikely that Marco Polo brought spaghetti. Iinguine and pizza to Italy from China. Although their prototypes existed in China centuries before he was born, there is written evidence of the existence of pasta in Italy before Marco Polo left home for the East.

A noted connoisseur of French food complained some forty years ago that all Chinese food tasted "half-cooked." Today, food that is half-raw or half-cooked (the terminology is subjective and interchangeable) seems to be more acceptable, even fashionable, inspired by considerations of health But who needs the pursuit of longevity as an excuse to enjoy Chinese food?

Diverse Regional Cuisines

It was not so long ago that many Westerners thought of "Chinese food" as a single, homogenous cuisine. However, a country as large and as geographically and climatically varied as China naturally has a wide range of regional cuisines. There is an immense amount of debate, confusion and error about just how many regional cuisines there are. but most knowledgeable gourmets agree that at least four major Chinese regional styles exist: Cantonese, centered on southern Guangdong Province and Hong Kong; Sichuan, based on the cooking of this western province's two largest cities, Chengdu and Chongqing; Huaiyang, the cooking of eastern China—Jiangsu. Zhejiang and Shanghai—an area of lakes, rivers and seashore; and Beijing or "Northern" food, with its major inspiration from the coastal province of Shandong. Some would add a fifth cuisine from the southeastern coastal province of Fujian.

What distinguishes these regional styles is not only their recipes but also the particular types of soy sauce, garlic, fish, oil, pork or other basic ingredients used in preparing the signature dishes, as well as the proportions of the various ingredients. Timing and temperature are also critical factors. All regions use various forms of ginger, garlic, spring onions, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and bean paste, but generally combine them in highly distinctive ways.

Inexpensive and delicious street food. such as these dumplings being tried in a Shanghai lane, is enjoyed at least once a day by most Chinese living in towns and cities.

Delicate Flavors of Cantonese Cooking

Guangdong Province has benefitted from its family ties with freewheeling Hong Kong. The province's fertile soils permit intensive agricultural production and its lengthy shoreline supports a vigorous fishing industry. In a longstanding rivalry with Shanghai. Guangzhou (the provincial capital, once better known to Westerners as Canton) cedes first place in fashion, but is the unchallenged leader when it comes to food.

The earliest Chinese cuisine to be introduced in the West. Cantonese cuisine is often disparagingly identified with egg rolls, chop suey, chow mein, sweet and sour pork and fortune cookies. With the exception of chop suey and fortune cookies, which were invented in the United States, the dishes mentioned above are orthodox Cantonese creations, and sweet and sour pork is just as popular among Chinese as foreigners. But Cantonese cooking has much more to offer than this, and indeed is considered to be the most refined of Chinese cooking styles. Cantonese food is characterized by its extraordinary range and freshness of ingredients, a light touch with sauces and the readiness of its cooks to incorporate "exotic" imported flavorings, such as lemon, curry, Worcestershire sauce and mayonnaise.

Cantonese chefs excel in preparing roast and barbecued meats (duck, goose, chicken and pork), which are never prepared at home (only restaurant kitchens have ovens) and are bought from special roast meat shops.

Cantonese chefs are also famous for dim sum. a cooking style in its own right. Dim sum refers to snacks taken with tea for either breakfast or lunch Dim sum, which can be sweet, salty, steamed, fried, baked, boiled or stewed, each served in their own individual bamboo steamer or on a plate.

In Cantonese, eating dim sum is referred to as yum cha, "drinking tea." In traditional yum cha establishments, restaurant staff walk about the room pushing a cart or carrying a tray strung around their neck and offer their goods. The mildly competitive shouting only adds to the atmosphere of hustle and bustle. In Hong Kong and Guangzhou, dim sum restaurants are important institutions where the locals go to discuss business, read newspapers, raise their children and socialize. At noon and on weekends, getting seats can be difficult as many of them are occupied by "regulars."

Mongolian Lamb Hotpot is popular in winter time and as a reunion dinner, with everyone sitting around in a cozy, warm circle, cooking their own portions of food in the bubbling pot.

One of China's most famous dishes. Peking Duck, is traditionally enjoyed three ways the crisp skin tucked into a pancake smeared with sauce, the meat stir-fried with vegetables, and the carcass made into soup.

Fiery Sichuan Cooking

Sichuan, the home of spicy food, is a landlocked province with remarkably fertile soil and a population of more than 100 million. But despite the province's incendiary reputation, many of the most famous dishes are not spicy at all. For example, the famous duck dish, Camphor and Tea-smoked Duck, is made by smoking a steamed duck over a mixture of tea and camphor leaves.

But it is the mouth-burners (all of them relying on chili peppers for their heat) that have made Sichuan's name known all over the world, dishes like Ma Po Tofu (see page 69), stewed tofu and minced meat in a hot sauce; Hui Guo Rou (see page 82). twice-cooked (boiled and stir-fried) pork with cabbage in a piquant bean sauce; Yu Xiang Qiezi (see page 60), eggplant in "fish flavor" sauce; and fish in hot bean sauce.

Chilies were a relatively late addition to the Sichuan palate, having been imported by Spanish traders in the late Ming or early Qing Dynasty (ca. 1600) from Mexico via the Philippines. The chili's journey on the Pacific Spice Route is a reminder of how plants, as well as ideas, can cross oceans and enrich the lives of the recipients. Sichuan's own taste-tingling spice. Sichuan pepper (the dried berry of an ash tree) still adds its distinctive flavor to many of the province's dishes.

The taste for piquant food is sometimes explained by Sichuan's climate. The fertile agricultural basin is covered with clouds much of the year and there is enough rain to permit two crops of rice in many places. Strong spices provide a pick-me-up in cold and humid weather and are a useful preservative for meat and fish.

When the Grand Canal was built in the Sui Dynasty (A.D. 581-618), it gave rise to several great commercial cities at its southern terminus, including Huaian and Yangzhou. after which this regional cuisine (Huaiyang) is named. The region's location on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China's "land of fish and rice" (synonymous with the Western "milk and honey") gave it a distinct advantage in terms of agricultural products, and it was renowned for aquatic delicacies such as fish, shrimp, eel and crab, which were shipped up the canal to the imperial court in Beijing. The cooking of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai generally falls into the category of Huaiyang cuisine, which was developed by the great families of the imperially appointed salt merchants living in Yangzhou.

Huaiyang cuisine is not well known outside of China, perhaps because it rejects all extremes and strives for the "Middle Way." Freshness (xian) is a key concept in the food of this region, but xian means more than just fresh. For example, for a dish of steamed fish to be xian, the fish must have been swimming in the tank one hour ago. it must exude its own natural flavor, and must be tender yet slightly chewy.

Xian also implies that the natural flavor of the original ingredients should take precedence over the sauce, and Huaiyang chefs achieve this by careful cutting and paying close attention to the heat of the wok. which is. after all. merely a thin and sensitive membrane of cast iron separating the ingredients from the flames of the stove. Chinese chefs, and Huaiyang chefs in particular, have an uncanny ability to control the flames of their stoves. Some of the best-known Huaiyang dishes are steamed or stewed and thus require less heat and a longer cooking time than most fried dishes; examples include chicken with chestnuts, pork steamed in lotus leaves, duck with an eight-ingredient stuffing, and "lion head" meatballs.

Beijing and the North

The cuisine of Beijing has perhaps been subjected to more outside influences than any other major cuisine in China First came the once-nomadic Mongols, who made Beijing their capital in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). They brought with them a preference for mutton, the chief ingredient in Mongolian Lamb Hotpot (see page 85), one of Beijing's most popular dishes in the autumn and winter.

And then there were the Manchus, who, as the rulers of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), introduced numerous ways of cooking pork. As the capital of China for the last eight centuries, Beijing became the home of government officials who brought their chefs with them when they came from the wealthy southern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang But the most important influence comes from nearby Shandong Province; in the 19th century, the restaurant industry in Beijing was monopolized by entrepreneurs from Shandong.

Chicken, duck and pork are roasted in wood-fired ovens in specialty shops and restaurants

Three generations sit down to a meal in the courtyard of an old house in Fujian Province, southern China.

Shandong food has a pedigree that goes back to the days of Confucius, who was a Shandong native. Shandong cuisine features the seafood found along China's eastern seaboard: scallops and squid, both dry and fresh, sea cucumber, conch, crabs, bird's nests and shark's fins. Shandong cuisine is also famous for its use of spring onions and leeks, both raw and cooked.

Beijing's most famous dish, Beijing Roast Duck, owes as much to the culinary traditions of other parts of China as to the capital itself. The ducks, now raised in the western suburbs of Beijing, are said to have swum up the Grand Canal in the wake of imperial grain barges, dining on rice that blew off the boats The method of roasting the duck is drawn from Huaiyang cuisine, while the pancakes, raw leek and salty sauce that accompany the meat are typical of Shandong.

Beijing is also famous for its steamed and boiled dumplings (jiaozi), which are filled with a mixture of pork and cabbage or leeks, or a combination of eggs and vegetables. Dipped in vinegar and soy sauce and accompanied with a nibble of raw garlic, they are one of the simplest but finest pleasures of Chinese cuisine.

Regional cuisine is so popular in China today that in Beijing and Shanghai, for example, there are many more restaurants serving Cantonese and Sichuan food—or advertising that they do—than there are establishments serving local cuisine. Western fast food restaurants have made an impact, but more as a novelty than as a staple of the diet. Chinese food, in all its glory, is here to stay.