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With the history of more than 5000 years, China boasts profound culture and cuisine is an important aspect of Chinese culture. Chinese cuisine is characterized by its special seasoning, featured cooking methods, diversified cooking material and distinctive flavor, which makes it highly-favorable among gourmet domestic and abroad. Chinese cuisine has a number of different styles, which makes the Eight Culinary Traditions of China, Guangdong (Cantonese) cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine and Sichuan cuisine, Fujian cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Anhui cuisine and Zhejiang cuisine, while perhaps the first four are the best known and most influential. Cuisines of different styles have their own features, both in cooking methods and seasonings.
Sichuan Cuisine
Sichuan cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine originated in the Sichuan Province of southwestern China. Sichuan cuisine is prepared with garlic and chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorn, zhitianjiao, peanuts, sesame paste and ginger, which offers it bold flavors, particularly pungent and spicy. Sichuan cuisine is highly favored by people home and abroad due to the hotness, sourness and numbness it produces. The most famous dish of Sichuan cuisine is Hotpot.
Anhui Cuisine
Anhui cuisine, one of the Eight Culinary Traditions of China, is derived from the native cooking styles of the Huangshan Mountain region in China, which is similar to Jiangsu cuisine. Anhui cuisine emphasizes less on seafood but more on a wide variety of local herbs and vegetables. Due to its unbeatable geographical advantage, Anhui province is particularly endowed with fresh bamboo and mushroom crops, which makes the main raw material in the dishes.
Shandong Cuisine
Shandong Cuisine, commonly known as Lu cuisine, plays an important role in imperial cuisine and is widely spread in North China, while it isn't so popular in South China. Shandong Cuisine is characterized by a variety of cooking techniques. For tasting Shandong cuisine, these must-haves like braised abalone, braised trepang, sweet and sour carp, Jiuzhuan Dachang and Dezhou Chicken should never be missed!
Fujian Cuisine
Fujian cuisine, also known as Min Cuisine, is one of the most famous Eight Cuisines in China. For the cooking techniques, slicing is the mostly utilized to enhance the flavor, aroma and texture of seafood and other foods. For the cooking materials, edible mushrooms and bamboo shoots are particularly utilized to prepare the woodland delicacies. Fujian cuisine is often served in a broth or soup, which is prepared in the cooking techniques of braising, stewing, steaming and boiling.
Su Cuisine (Jiangsu, Huaiyang Cuisine)
Jiangsu cuisine, also known as Su Cuisine, is one of the major components of Chinese cuisine, which consists of the styles of Yangzhou, Nanjing, Suzhou and Zhenjiang dishes. Jiangsu cuisine is characterized by its distinctive style, special taste and featured cooking techniques, which makes it quite popular among the world-wide gourmets. For tasting the authentic Jiangsu cuisine, dishes like Jinling salted dried duck, crystal meat, clear crab shell meatballs, Yangzhou steamed Jerky strips and triple combo duck are all what you can not miss!
Cantonese Cuisine
Cantonese Cuisine, also known as Yue cuisine, is another major component for Chinese eight cuisines, which enjoys a long history and a good reputation both home and abroad. The most typical Cantonese dish is the dim sum, bite-sized small hearty dish, which is prepared with the cooking methods of frying, steaming, stewing and baking. Other cantonese dishes like rice rolls, lotus leaf rice, turnip cakes, buns, shui jiao-style dumplings, stir-fried green vegetables, congee porridge and soups are also quite popular among gourmets.
Hunan Cuisine
Hunan cuisine, also known as Xiang cuisine, is featured with hot spicy flavor, fresh aroma and deep color, which makes itself quite favorable among gourmets. Xiang cuisine is commonly prepared with traditional cooking methods like stewing, frying, pot-roasting, braising, and smoking. Due to the unbeatable geographical advantages, Hunan is blessed with diversified agricultural resources, which makes the ingredients for the dishes varied.
Zhejiang Cuisine
Zhejiang cuisine, commonly known as Zhe cuisine, is of the Eight Culinary Traditions of China, which is characterized by its non-greasy taste, soft flavor and mellow fragrance. Zhejiang cuisine is mainly composed of four styles, namely Hangzhou style, Shaoxing style, Ningbo style and Shanghai style, each of which has its own ingredients. Hangzhou style is rich in bamboo shoots, Shaoxing style, freshwater fish, Ningbo style, seafood, and Shanghai style, dimsum.