2. Chinese Cuisine Customs

Laotse, the famous Chinese philosopher, once said: “Governing a great nation is much like cooking a small fish”, which clearly illustrates the importance of food in Chinese culture.

（1）Staple Food（Fan）and Prepared Dishes（Cai）

China, a vast land with abundant resources, produces different regional staple food. Generally speaking, the staple food in the North includes wheat, rice, corn, soybeans, millet, beans and peas. And people in the South traditionally take dry cooked rice or rice porridge as their staple food since rice mainly grows in the south. One type of rice called glutinous rice is usually used to make traditional Chinese rice-pudding, eight treasures congee and various types of desserts.

Wheat flour and rice were generally regarded as food for the upper classes since ancient times while coarse cereals or side crops are consumed by common people. Gradually wheat flour and rice were considered as“refined grains”and maize, sorghum and millet as“coarse grains”. The latter being their daily staple food, ordinary families eat rice food or meat dumplings on the rare occasion such as festivals.

China implemented the planned economy after the foundation of People's Republic of China. The food coupons and ration booklets were distributed to urban household in 1955. A grain ration book was monthly issued by 50 percent in wheat flour, 20 percent in rice, and the rest for buying kitchen goods such as bowls or noodles in restaurants. In rural areas, for example, in northwestern China, farmers usually had more wheat-flour-made food after a summer wheat harvest. In the second half of a year the other types of autumn grains like maize and soybeans are more consumed in place of wheat.

Such a situation lasted until earlier 1990s after China started carrying out the policies of the domestic reform and market economy, which led to the abundant supply of“refined grains”and“coarse grains”in food markets, supermarkets, and department stores across the country. At present, people either in cities or rural areas have a diverse choice of staple food according to their daily menu.

Along with fan, staple food, cai, prepared dishes of supplementary meat or vegetable is also consumed. But all in all, fan is more fundamental since Chinese are more accustomed to the habit of eating more of this food and less of nonstaple dishes. A person's caloric intake mostly comes from grains consumption and a grown-up usually has two small bowls of rice or a large bowl of noodles. Individuals have their own bowl of fan at the daily dining table; but if a lot of cai dishes are served, some may refer not to eat any additional fan.

When preparing cai, people use multiple ingredients and several flavors. These dishes are usually placed at the center of the table to be shared by all, an occasion conductive to family unity and togetherness. In restaurants,“public”chopsticks or spoons are used to take food from the dishes for the sake of hygiene.

（2）Classification

Various standards lead to different outcome of classification.

①Regions

This refers to a class of dishes with very strong local flavors that came into existence in line with history, cooking features, geography, climate, resources and life styles. Roughly it falls into northern and southern styles. In general, the former is oily without being cloying and the flavors of vinegar and garlic tend to be stronger.

Food made from wheat is an indispensable part in northern cooking, with noodles, ravioli-like dumplings, steamed stuffed buns, fried meat dumplings, and steamed buns being the most common flour-based foods. However, representative southern cooking styles include rice products such as rice noodles, rice cakes, and rice congee. Among all the regions, the most influential and typical cuisine are Shandong, Guangdong, Sichuan and Yangzhou.

·Shandong

Shandong cuisine, Lu Cai for short, possesses a long history and exerts strong influence as a significant part of Chinese culinary arts. Shandong cuisine can find its origin in the Spring and Autumn Period. Quickly developed in the South and North dynasty, it was recognized as an important style of cooking in the Qing dynasty. Its techniques have been widely applied in northeast China, thus Shandong cuisine is undoubtedly a representative of northern China's cooking.

Shandong cuisine gradually spread to Beijing, Tianjin, Northeast China, and strongly influenced the imperial food. It is regarded as one of the most influential part of Chinese cuisine since most of the culinary styles in China having evolved from it. Also, the typical dishes in most North China households' meals are simplified version of Shandong methods.

With the Yellow River meandering through the center, Shandong is a large peninsula surrounded by the sea. Therefore, seafood constitutes a major component of the cuisine, including scallops, prawns, clams, sea cucumbers and squids, all of which are well-known in Shandong as local ingredients of exemplary quality. The most famous and truly authentic dish is the sweet and sour carp coming from the Yellow River. In addition, typical courses in the cuisine include braised abalone with shells, fried sea cucumber with chinese onion, fragrant calamus in milk soup, quick-fried double fats（a very traditional dish consisting of pork tripe and chicken gizzards）. Dezhou stewed chicken is known nationwide as well. The chicken is so well cooked that the meat easily separates from the bone while the chicken shape is perfectly preserved.

Apart from the seafood, Shandong is somewhat special for its wide use of corn, a local cash crop that is not commonly planted elsewhere. With a grassy aroma, Shandong corn is chewy and starchy, unlike the sweet corn of North America. It can be served simply as boiled or steamed cobs, or lightly fried without cobs.

Another distinct feature of Shandong cuisine lies in its wide use of a variety of small grains. Millet, wheat, oat and barley can be found in the local diet, often eaten as porridge, or milled and cooked into one of the many varieties of steamed, baked and fried breads or buns, pancakes, crisp cakes, and big cakes stuffed with minced meats.

Despite its rich agricultural output, a variety of vegetables which are often seen in many southern Chinese cooking are traditionally used in Shandong cuisine. Potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, mushrooms, onions, garlic and eggplants make up the major vegetables in the Shandong diet. Grassy greens, sea grasses, and bell peppers are also not uncommon. The large, sweet cabbages grown in central Shandong are renowned for their delicate flavor and hardiness. As has been the case for generations, these cabbages are a staple of the winter diet throughout much of the province, and are featured in a great number of dishes.

·Guangdong

Being a historical key port for Chinese international trade, Guangzhou witnesses the development of food culture and Cantonese takes pride in their dishes originated in Lingnan. Guangdong cooking was developed unceasingly without sacrificing its own feature. What's amazing to a gourmet is that any creature flying in the sky, swimming in water, crawling on the around can find a way on to menu to become an unforgettable dish.

Generally, Guangdong dishes use less spicy sauces to keep the original delicious flavors, so Guangdong food tastes crisp, light and fresh with the use of different seasonings. Usually fresh and light in summer but a bit heavy in winter and spring, the dish is well-known for its five tastes（fragrant, soft, crisp, rich and thick）.

Chaozhou dishes are local in Chaozhou and Shantou. Chaoshan flavors are like those from south Fujian, but influenced by Guangzhou. Chaozhou cooking is notable for seafood, soup in particular, elaborately done in many ways to preserves stewing, frying, steaming, deep-frying, and roasting. After cooking and seasoning with local condiments, a dish is delicious, a soup thick, but not heavy. Smashed taro and five-fruit soup are best deserts.

Also called Hakka style, Dongjiang food refers to the local flavor along the Dongjiang River. It features the main ingredient, a strong flavor and primitive shape. Most dishes are the combination of meat and vegetables. A bit heavier than other styles, and a bit salty, its stews are well known. Other famous dishes are pickled chicken, bean curd, pork with plum, and duck seasoned with eight treasures.

·Sichuan

The Sichuan cuisine is marked by its rich traditional flavors, which stems from a culture of hundreds of years and are in part shaped by the natural forces of climate. Arising from a culturally distinct area in Sichuan, a province in central China, Sichuan is often hot and humid, which is conducive to faster food spoilage, resulting in foods preparation in ways that differ greatly from other regions of China. Therefore, Sichuan cuisine enjoys the reputation of being hot and spicy since the fresh food supply was not as reliable as in places that traditionally used a lighter hand in their use of spices. This feature, particularly in the past, requires necessary food preservation techniques such as salting, pickling, drying, and smoking. Thus, spices served to mask the less than fresh foods flavors or not to reveal their natural flavors by methods of food preservation. In addition, the prevailing use of hot spices, such as chili peppers, tends to be more common to hot climates, as they possess the function to produce more sweat to cool the body.

A variety of spices and ingredients are used in Sichuan cuisine to achieve the desired taste sensations. These include a variety of chili peppers, different peppercorns and Sichuan peppers, a type of fruit rather than real peppers, can produce a numbing but warm flavor. Sichuan peppers, also named flower pepper and mountain pepper, are a traditional element of the Chinese five-spice powder, and the use of which is regarded as the most authentic versions of Sichuan cuisine.

There are other commonly used ingredients in Sichuan cuisine to create the five fundamental taste sensations. Salt is important, and the area produces uniquely flavored salts that makes the authentic Sichuan cuisine different from the other Chinese regional cuisines. The sour comes from pickled vegetables and different varieties of vinegar. A special bitter melon is added to many dishes to offer bitterness that supplements other flavors. Sugars are many, such as cane sugar and beetroot sugar as well as local fruits for sweetness. Other spices and flavors include garlic, ginger, dried orange peel, sesames oil and bean paste. After all, Authentic Sichuan cuisine offers a unique dining experience made up of adventurous and creative taste sensations.

·Huaiyang

Huaiyang cuisine encompasses the styles of Yangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou and Zhenjiang dishes, is one of the major branches of Chinese cuisines, which is especially popular in the lower reach of the Yangtze River.

Renowned as“a land of fish and rice”in China, Jiangsu Province has an abundant variety of components available for cooking. With the typical raw materials being fresh and live aquatic products, Jiangsu cuisine is characteristics of strictly chosen ingredients, elegant appearance, exquisite workmanship, and rich cultural connotation. It attaches great importance to the freshness of ingredients. Other cooking ingredients include high quality tealeaves, bamboo shoots, pears, mushrooms, and dates. Delicate carving techniques are appealing, especially the melon carving technique. Due to the methods of stewing, braising，quick-frying, warming-up, stir-frying, wine sauce pickling and adding some sugar as condiments, Jiangsu dishes taste fresh, mild and light.

In addition, the different kinds of vegetables available in the region enable them to be widely used in many dishes. To ensure the vegetables and meat to absorb more sauces during cooking, it always takes relatively long time to prepare Huaiyang cuisine. The seasonings tend to be sweeter with more sugar and dark soy applied in its production.

②Origins

The system of origins involves the dishes of the imperials, officials, com-mon people, mountain, ethnic minorities and foreign nations, basing on the rigid ranking of China's feudal society. This kind of food classification can be found in the Unofficial Annals of the States in the Spring and Autumn Period as follows: “The emperor ate ox, sheep; officials ate pig; scholars ate fish; and the common people ate vegetables. ”

To be relevant of folks, two of the above mentioned kinds: family and ethnic minorities' dishes need to be discussed here.

·Family Dishes

In Chinese cooking, color, aroma, and flavor are of equal importance in the preparation of each dish, in satisfying the gustatory, olfactory, and visual senses. Any entrée is a combination of three to five colors. Usually, a meat and vegetable dish is used as one main ingredient and two to three secondary ingredient to add contrasting colors. Then cook it appropriately with seasonings and sauces to make the dish aesthetically attractive. The basic methods of preparation include stirfrying, stewing, steaming, deep-frying, flash-frying, and pan-frying.

Besides, fragrant aroma of the dish is highly valued in Chinese cooking. Some ingredients such as scallions, fresh ginger root, garlic, chili peppers, wine, star anise, cinnamon stick, pepper, sesame oil, and dried black Chinese mushroom contribute to a mouth-watering aroma to stimulate the appetite or help to preserve the fresh, natural flavor of the ingredients and to re move any unpleasant fish or game odors. In Western cooking, lemon is often used to remove smells of fish; however, in Chinese cooking, scallions and ginger serve the function similarly. What's more, vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and other seasonings add richness to a dish without depriving the natural flavor of the ingredients. All in all, seasoning helps to create various tastes in Chinese food:salty, sweet, sour, pungent, fragrant, bitter and so on. The proper use of seasonings will produce a variety of dishes to cater to a variety of appetites such as mala（numbing spicy sauce）, guaiwei（strange salty, spicy, and sesame sauce）, yuxiang（taste fish-flavored sauce）and so on.

However, compared with color, aroma, and flavor, nutrition is what really matters in Chinese household cooking. A statement of the“harmonization of foods”can be traced back to Yi Yin, a famous scholar in Shang dynasty. He created the theory that the five flavors of sweet, bitter, piquant, sour and salty can be related to the nutritional needs of the five major human organ systems（the heart, spleen, lungs, liver, and kidney）, stressing their role to facilitate good physical health. In fact, many of the frequently-used plants in Chinese cooking such as scallions, fresh ginger root, garlic, dried lily, and tree fungus have functions of preventing and relieving various illnesses. It is traditionally advocated in China that food and medicine share the same origin and therefore food possesses a medicinal value. Following this theory, people find that an appropriate proportion of meat to vegetable ingredients should be balanced to ensure the greatest nutritional value.

·Ethnic Cuisine

Besides the various Han cuisines, the other 55 ethnic groups each have their own. With their peculiar religions and geographical zones, their diets differ respectively. Ethnic food serves as a marker of ethnicity in ethnic theme parks, as in Xishuang Banna, in southern Yunnan. Certain food, such as the sour moss of the Banna Tai（Dai）, is known as the prototypical food of various groups. It is impossible to cite every ethnic food here, therefore, some typical cuisines are presented in the following.

—Southern China Minority Food

In southern China, no regions like Yunnan Province, Guizhou province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have the largest concentration of ethnic minorities anywhere in China, among which, the Zhuang, Miao, Yi, Yao, Bai, Dai, Dong, Hani, Naxi, and Shui are some of the notable and dominating groupings.

Rice food is popular among those minorities: one is called rice cake（baba）, which is made by oil tea, home-brewed rice wine, and sticky rice;and another is glutinous rice wrap（zongzi）. Besides, they often produce their own home-smoked meats.

Typical Zhuang foods include oil tea, sticky rice cakes, and pork-stuffed snail shells. Multicolored sticky rice is eaten on festivals such as Tomb Sweeping Day and the Zhuang Song Festival. The Yao are most famous for their oil tea, a broth of fried tea leaves, and their foods include sweet potato noodles, mugwort rice cakes（aiyeba）, stuffed green peppers, and stuffed bitter cucumber.

In Miao culture a chicken or duck is usually killed to entertain a guest on important occasions and sticky rice cakes are exchanged as symbols of love. Yi meals are based on buckwheat, corn and potatoes, and meats are often cooked in large joints.

The Baiare fond of making a lot of pickles and pork dishes. Dai cuisine is greatly influenced by Thai food. Sour and spicy food, wild vegetables, and blood cakes are popular among the Hani of Southwest Yunnan. Mushrooms stuffed with pork and butter tea are Naxi specialties. The Shui have a simpler cuisine, including glutinous rice, pork and beef bone hotpots, and steamed fish, with chilies, tomatoes, and pickles.

—Chinese Islamic Cuisine

Chinese Islamic cuisine is the cuisine of the Hui and other Muslims living in China.

With a large number of Muslim residing in western China, many Chinese restaurants cater to, or are run by, Muslims. Originally, Northern Chinese Is lamic cuisine is greatly influenced by Beijing cuisine, with nearly all cooking methods similar, and differs only in material out of religious restrictions. During the Yuan dynasty, Genghis Khan banned Halal methods of animal slaughtering and food preparation, forcing them to follow the Mongol method, and then the restriction remains till today.

Despite that mutton and lamb are both utilized in Islamic food, there exists a traditional distinction between northern and southern Chinese Islamic cuisine. The former feeds heavily on beef, but rarely ducks, geese, shrimp or other seafood, while the latter is the reverse. The difference lies in the availability of the cooking materials. On one hand, oxen have long been used for farming in northern China, then beef is consumed as major food for Muslim of the minority-dominated regions; on the other hand, ducks, geese, and shrimp are rare in comparison to southern China due to the arid climate of northern China.

Having the majority of Muslim in China, the Hui nationality cuisine repre-sents Chinese Muslim food with the core value embodying their living habit: hygiene. Pork, the meat of non-ruminating animals, fierce animals and their blood are forbidden in their diet. But those meats that are allowed and which have been prepared under the auspices of an imam can be made into delicious dishes.

For Muslims, they are not allowed to smoke or drink wines, but they are encouraged to enjoy tea. When guests come to visit, hospitable hosts will present tea together with fruits and fried cakes. Coupled with tea are highly nutritious ingredients, such as sugar, Chinese wolfberry, red Chinese date, longan, sesame, and raisins. Besides, sweeteners play an important role in the meals, these people tend to add honey or sugar to their dishes. As to staple food, Hui people prefer food made of flour to rice with many varieties. They have also adjusted and adapted aspects of Han cuisine-for example dumplings in a sour soup is one of their favorites.

Lamian（stretched noodles）is a typical Hui dish of hand-made noodles, which involves taking a lump of dough and continuously stretching it to produce a single extremely long noodle. It is usually served in a beef or mutton-flavored soup, but sometimes stirfried and served with a tomato-based sauce. Beef noo dle soup is a noodle soup dish consists of stewed beef, beef broth, vegetables and wheat noodles, a traditional food created by the Hui people since the Tang dynasty.

In addition to Hui cuisine, Uyghur food is also representative Islamic food which is characterized by mutton, beef, camel, chicken, goose, carrots, tomatoes, onions, peppers, eggplant, celery, various dairy foods, and fruits.

Uyghur-style breakfast is tea with home-baked bread, hardened yogurt, olives, honey, raisins, and almonds. Welcoming Uyghurs like to treat guests with tea, naan and fruit before the main dishes are ready.

Snacks are various: Sangza are crispy fried wheat flour dough twists consumed as a holiday specialty. Youtazi is steamed multi-layer bread. Samsa（baked buns）are lamb pies baked with a special brick oven.Göshnan are pangrilled lamb pies. Pamirdin are baked pies with lamb, carrots, and onion inside.

Polo（pilaf）is another typical Uyghur dish throughout Central Asia. Carrot and mutton（or chicken）are first fried in oil with onion, then rice and water are added and the whole dish steamed probably with raisins and dried apricots.

Other dishes include soups made of lamb or chicken, and kawaplar（kebabs）of lamb or beef, seasoned with chili powder, salt, black pepper, and cumin. When eating it, one may put the skewer parallel to the mouth, holding the kebab closest to the end and biting it off with one's teeth. Another popular Xinjiang dish is Dapanji（big plate chicken）, a spicy hot chicken stew served on a big plate, and after the chicken has been eaten, wide flat hand-pulled noodles are added to the gravy.

Naan（náng）is the baked flatbread using sesame seeds, butter, milk, vegetable oil, salt, and sugar. Typical beverages include Chinese black tea and kvass, a non-alcoholic drink made with honey.

—Tibetan Cuisine

Having a population of over 5 million, Tibetan ethnic group mainly lives in Tibet Autonomous Region in southeast China, plus neighboring provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan. Tibetan people have their own oral and written language belonging to Cambodian branch, Sino-Tibetan language system.

Tibetan cuisine features Zanba（roasted highland qingke barley flour）, meat, and milk products. The products demonstrate the differences between the various pastoral and farming areas. The generally favored foods are vegetables like cabbages and wine made from qingke barley and corn.

Tibetan cuisine can be generally classified into four typical flavors: Ngari's Qiang Cuisine, Nyingchi's Rong cuisine, Lhasa's Lhasa cuisine and the Court Cuisine of former aristocrats of Tibet. Roughly there are over 200 recipes. Qiang cuisine caters for those living in the high altitude pastoral area. Cheese, acidulous milk, butter and stock made from boiled cattle hoofs can produce energy to help them cope with extremely cold climate. Rong Cuisine is popular in southeast Tibet with a relatively lower altitude. Wild fungi and mushrooms are readily available and used to supplement food. Lhasa cuisine applies a variety of ingredients and is cooked diversely. Radish carbonade, boiled mutton, beef catsup are all common dishes. Court cuisine is an elaborate art using the prime traditions of Tibetan dietary skills and cooking methods to produce attractive and flavorsome dishes.

Other specialties are yoghurt made from yak milk, the material also used to make superb cheeses, and a particularly excellent recipe for stewed chicken with mushrooms in Nyingchi, and so on.

（3）Food Therapy

The Chinese believed that mixing tonics with food adds flavor to the food and is good for health. Famed medicinal dishes include“lily decoction with chicken”and“porridge with lotus seeds and lily. ”

Chinese medicine cuisine has a long history which can be traced back to Han dynasty, and now it has evolved into a practical nutritious science with the continuous improvement during the succeeding dynasties. Not being a mere mixture of food and conventional medicine, it is a characteristic cuisine made from food and medicinal ingredients according to Chinese medicine theory. Generally there are approximately 600 kinds of resources ranging from fruits, vegetables, cereals, marine products and herbal medicines which are appealing in appearance and effective to promote health. Besides, other commonly used items such as almonds, mandarin orange or peanuts can all be utilized in the cooking process.

Medicinal cuisine is roughly categorized into four types according to its respective functions：

①Health-protection Dishes

The dishes aim to keep the organic health through reinforcement of required nutritious food. For instance, a pumpkin and almond soup is believed to help lose weight; soup of angelica and carp can promote beauty; and ginseng congee can offer the consumer more strength.

②Prevention Dishes

Chinese people tend to believe that certain dishes possess the function to resist against potential sufferings. For example, “Mung bean soup”is considered beneficial to add resistance to heat stroke in summer. Lotus seeds, lily, yam, chestnuts, and pears can assist in the precaution of dryness in fall and a reinforcement of resistance to chill in winter.

③Healing Dishes

The dishes are the medicinal food for rehabilitation after severe illness.“Broiled sheep's heart with rose”or“Braised mutton with angelica”help to rebuild healthy constitution.

④Therapeutic Dishes

Specific pathology is expected to be achieved with the application of therapeutic dishes. “Fried potatoes with vinegar”can recuperate the organ and relieve hypertension; “carp soup with Tuckahoe”may amplify the strength of blood plasma albumen to reduce swelling.