«All
Featured Cuisine
Chinese
Cuisine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisine
Chinese Cuisine originated
from the various regions of China and has become widespread
in many other parts of the world — from Asia to the Americas,
Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa. In recent years,
connoisseurs of Chinese cuisine have also sprouted in Eastern
Europe and South Asia.
Regional cultural differences vary greatly
amongst the different regions of China, giving rise to the different
styles of food. There are eight main regional cuisines, or Eight
Great Traditions: Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu,
Shandong, Sichuan, and Zhejiang. Among them, Cantonese, Sichuan,
Shandong, and Huaiyang cuisine (a major style and even viewed
as the representation of the entire Jiangsu cuisine) are often
considered as the standouts of Chinese cuisine and due to their
influence are proclaimed as the Four Great Traditions. Occasionally,
Beijing cuisine and Shanghai cuisine are also cited along with
the aforementioned eight regional styles as the Ten Great Traditions.
There are also featured Buddhist and Muslim sub-cuisines within
the greater Chinese cuisine, with an emphasis on vegetarian
and halal-based diets respectively.
Presentation
In most dishes in Chinese cuisine, food is prepared in bite-sized
pieces, 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 (or
chunked), 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
(lit. common/public/shared 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.
Red meat
is generally preferred over beef in Chinese cuisine due to economic
and aesthetic reasons; the pig is easy to feed and is not used
for labour, and is so closely tied with the idea of domesticity
that the character for "home" depicts a pig under
a roof. The colour of the meat and the fat of pork are regarded
as more appetizing, while the taste and smell are described
as sweeter and cleaner. It is also considered easier to digest.
However, beef is more popular in the west of the country, influenced
by Islam, and also in the Sichuan region and parts of the south,
where cattle are used for hauling in mining and are plentiful.[1]
Lamb is more popular in the far north of the country.
continued...
Wikipedia® is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation.
