Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Real Chinese Food
Because the nation so skilfully exported it cuisine overseas, your very first im-
pressions of China were probably via your taste buds. Chinatowns the world
over teem with the aromas of Chinese cuisine, ferried overseas by China's
versatile and hard-working cooks.
But what you see - and taste - at home is usually just a wafer-thin slice of a
very hefty and good-looking pie. Chinese cuisine in the West is culled from the
cookbook of an emigrant community largely drawn from China's southern sea-
board. So although you may be hard pressed to avoid dim sum and
cha siu
in
your local Chinatown, discovering more 'obscure' specialities from Yunnan, the
northeast or Xinjiang can be a tough (fortune) cookie.
Remember that China is not that much smaller than Europe. Although
Europe is a patchwork of different nation states, languages, cultural traditions
and climates, China is also a smorgasbord of dialects, languages, ethnic
minorities and often dramatic geographic and climatic differences. Eating your
way around China is one of the best ways to journey the land, so pack a sense
of culinary adventure along with your travelling boots!
Regional Cooking
The development of China's varied regional cuisines has been influenced by
the climate, abundance of certain crops and animals, the type of terrain, prox-
imity to the sea and last, but not least, the influence of neighbouring nations
and the importation of ingredients and aromas. Naturally fish and seafood is
prevalent in coastal regions of China, while in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang
there is a dependence on meat such as beef and lamb.
Many Chinese regions proudly lay claim to their own culinary conventions,
which may overlap and cross-fertilise each other. The cooking traditions of Ch-
ina's ethnic minorities aside, Han cooking has traditionally been divided into
eight schools
(
zhonghua badacaixi
):
Chuan
(Sichuan cuisine)
Hui
(Anhui cuisine)
Lu
(Shandong cuisine)
Min
(Fujian cuisine)
