Chinese Regional Cuisines 中国菜系

from: How Chinese Think; and How To Deal With China
by Kevin Fountain, Ph. D. - © Kevin Frederick Fountain

CHINESE FOOD

'We Chinese have a saying for that.' A sentence you will hear often in China. One of these myriad sayings is:

• 生在苏州 Sheng zai Suzhou
• 玩在杭州 Wan zai Hangzhou
• 食在广州 Shi zai Guangzhou
• 死在柳州 Si zai Liuzhou.

• Be born in Suzhou
• Holiday in Hangzhou
• Eat in Guangzhou
• Die in Liuzhou.

Why do those four things in those four places? Supposedly, those born in Suzhou have the best skin, complexion, features, therefore being born in Suzhou was good luck. Some today dispute Suzhou's claim to genetic good looks, pointing out that the emperors focused on Yangzhou not Suzhou as a source of beautiful concubines. Hangzhou was traditionally a city with a relatively large number of tourist attractions, and therefore a great holiday resort. However the city's reputation as a Mecca for site-seers has not maintained its top rating with the rise of so many alternative Chinese travel destinations. As for Liuzhou, it was suggested that one should die in Liuzhou (Guangxi) because quality wood was harvested from the surrounding forested hills, and made into the best coffins. Visitors to modern day Liuzhou who hear this old saying are puzzled. They find few trees, and no sign of teak, mahogany or cedar. Of the four lines, only the advice to eat in Guangzhou remains untarnished. Guangzhou still ranks as the place with the best cuisine, Cantonese food.

粤菜 Cantonese

Cantonese food is an art form. Dishes are labor intensive, with the strictest attention to principle and method. The range of ingredients is extensive and eclectic, but tolerance for anything less than fresh is zero. Quality standards are best understood as inviolable. Cantonese insist that the food is prepared and presented with the same respect, love and exactitude that the French show to wine. The menu may be the most bountiful of any kitchen in the world, and dishes are named in terms of precious gems and mythical fancies, like 'jade columns among the clouds,' or after a special and often inventive process of preparation, for example 盐焗鸡 yan ju ji "salt braised chicken." or 梅菜扣肉煲 "pot-simmered pork and plum leaves."

Sunny side up with sausage for breakfast cannot compare with exquisite 点心 dim sum, steamed delicacies wrapped in glass pasta or fried in wafer thin flour, or any of a score of savories. Cheungfen is barbecued pork wrapped in thick, sticky sheets of steamed rice pasta, then drenched in sweetened soy sauce. Shrimp dumplings or hagao combine shrimp steamed very briefly at high heat with bamboo slivers, creating a crunchy delight of prawn flavor wrapped in a transparent pearl of pasta. Other dim sum favorites include turnip cakes, long fritters, congee, steamed spare ribs, phoenix talons (steamed chicken feet with chili and fermented black beans), beef balls and chasiu or barbecued pork buns.

Soups are made to refresh and to leave the stomach and whole body feeling comfortable. Donggua tang "winter melon soup" 冬瓜汤 cooked and presented within the melon itself, will show you what I mean, but there are many super soups.

武汉菜 Wuhanese

The best kept secret in Chinese food I found in Wuhan, and only after many, many stops there. At first I found Wuhan food to be edible, but hardly memorable. My Wuhan hosts tended to bring me to eat in (modified) Cantonese restaurants, which I figured told me quite a lot about the local fare. When it was suggested we eat 'authentic' Wuhanese food, I agreed politely and braced myself for bitter medicine. Surprise! The food was outstanding.

We were served fresh al dente mushrooms, in varieties and species that the Japanese devotee of shitake would kill for. The lotus root, both in terms of flavor and consistency, or as the Chinese say 口感 kou gan "mouth sensation," was far superior to any I had previously eaten. The 鱼丸子 yuwanzi fish balls were every bit as tasty as the more famous Fujian fish balls and perhaps even more fresh and springy.

As for street food, I have never eaten better than Wuhan's 热干面 reganmian 'chilly chili noodles.' Wuhan chilly chili noodles are as the name suggests both hot and cold at the same time. The heat is supplied by garlic and chili powder, then extended by salt-preserved pickles 榨菜 zhacai and sesame seed oil, blended into chilled noodles. There is nothing muted, subdued or delicate here; mouth overflows with zest.

While Cantonese diners crave subtlety, Wuhanese fear blandness. Flavor pops in the mouth like the old-fashioned camera flash bulb.

东北菜 Northeastern

I have spent a great deal of time in China's northeast, the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, formerly referred to as Manchuria. The northeast is not a region famous for its food, and grungy franchise chains like "The Northeasterner," found in southern cities, give northeastern food a sticky image of grease and grime. But the true northeastern food is good.

The fertile 'black earth' of Manchuria produces first class fresh vegetables. Swaddled in rolled bean curd (tofu or doufu) and attended by the proper combination and quantity of spices, ginger and garlic, crisp cucumber spears are at once cool and spicy hot. Ginseng chicken in Changchun, Jilin is a bitter, sweet and savory contrast every bit as good as its Korean counterpart.

I have not yet acquired a craving for steamed silkworm cocoon, although the locals assure me that the nutrition of only one cocoon exceeds that of three hen's eggs. Hungry chopsticks of the Chinese guests dart and duel over the heap of black coffee cocoons, while the foreigners handle the delicacy with deep breaths and deliberate motions as if defusing a ticking bomb.

西北菜 Northwestern

Vinegar and pasta are the hallmarks of the food of China's northwest. The various types of noodles tend to taste each quite similar to the other, but their production is a show not to be missed. "Pulled noodles" la mian 拉面 begin from a block of dough, to a long roll of dough, and after a series of rapid and ever expanding cat's cradle hand motions, appear magically draped from the fingers of the chef, stretched to the full length of his wingspan, and somehow thin and uniform in diameter. "Knife shaved noodles" dao xiao mian 刀削面 also morph from a block of dough, held in one hand. In the chef's other hand is a honed butcher knife, flashing silver with lightning flicks from the wrist, shooting sawtoothed strips of pasta across the stove and into a waiting pot of boiling water and condiments. Northwesterners insist that their pasta is hand made from scratch, and like to douse it in pungent black rice vinegar. There is less variety in the food of the northwest, but the combination of unadulterated, unaffected natural primary ingredients is unique and difficult to duplicate, congenially stimulating to the local people, and they miss it quickly when they are away from home.

川菜 Sichuanese

Sichuanese food is one of the most famous of the Chinese cuisines. The taste is very strong and about as subtle as a bulldozer. To find a Sichuanese dish that could be called bland would be a true challenge. Sichuan food is oily and spicy. The spicy is what we know as 'hot,' but it is different from Mexican 'hot,' or Thai 'hot'. or Hunan 'hot.' The Sichuanese describe it as 麻辣 mala, a "tingling anesthetic hot." Some Sichuan restaurants bring course after course of huge stainless steel bowls full of bright red and steaming sauce and drowning fish or pork or eel or chicken, each of which tastes about the same as the other when immersed and overwhelmed in the pungent sauce. This is another variety of spicy, 红油辣 or "red oil hot." There are other "hots," such as "garlic paste hot" 蒜泥辣.

The best Sichuan food is the ordinary, classic dish, and these are very good. 'Pock-marked lady's bean curd' 麻婆豆腐 mapo doufu is one of the world's taste delights. 'Ants climbing a tree' 蚂蚁上树 mayi shang shu is not made with ants; tiny dried shrimp and kernels of minced pork dance about lengths of glass noodles (made from the soybean). 'Fish fragrant eggplant' 鱼香茄子 is another typical Sichuan dish, made with sesame oil, vinegar, ginger, garlic, scallions and of course chili bean paste, but no fish ingredients. Simple 'noodles carried on a pole' 担担面 dandan mian uses dried chillies, chili oil (including the sediment) and crispy minced beef to bring out the best from pasta. 'Double cooked pork' 回锅肉 hui guo rou made from leeks, unsmoked bacon strips, garlic and of course tingling hot sauce, like 'pock marked lady's bean curd' is mouthwatering by itself, but a dish that teaches the bread and potato eaters the range and rapture of good rice.

江浙／上海菜 Lower Yangzi Valley/Shanghainese

If you tend to think that the Chinese are all alike, or all enjoy the same things, then think again. The food from Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai is exactly what Sichuan food is not: subtle, delicate and bland. Even the colors, bean curd or bagel brown that would be comfortable on a bed room wall, pea green and pastel pink of tiny shrimp, buff yellow of bamboo shoots, off-white of water chestnuts, are a world away from the oily fire engine red of Sichuan. My favorite Shanghai dish, which I could happily gobble by the gallon, is 皮蛋豆腐 pidan doufu, a big square of firm beancurd, sesame cilantro sauce, plus a 'thousand day old egg,' all mixed together after presentation at the table. When I tell Shanghainese that my favorite dish is 'thousand year old egg with beancurd,' some smile at me with appreciation. Others raise their eyebrows in disbelief.

'Thousand day old eggs' are not, of course, really three years old, but usually ten weeks old. The eggs are covered with layers of lime and clay, and sometimes with an outer coat of straw, then buried for six to ten weeks. The lime causes the egg white to turn a metallic brown, and the yolk a limestone blue-grey.

Jiang-Zhe cuisine features aquatic vegetables and "seafood" of fresh water origin. 'Drunken shrimps' 醉虾 are inebriated, then steeped in Shaoxing spirits. The "best" Shanghai hairy crabs actually are raised in Yangcheng Lake near Suzhou. The crabs are steamed and then dipped in famous and fragrant Zhenjiang rice black vinegar 镇江醋.

Nanjing is famous for its salted duck, Hangzhou for 'Beggar's chicken,' Suzhou for eel and aquatic vegetables. Yangzhou is a city in Jiangsu province. It is the hometown of former President Jiang Zemin. Yangzhou has a history of over two thousand years, was an commercial and cultural center during the Tang dynasty and a favorite town of Marco Polo. If you like fried rice, almost everywhere in China, the menu will feature 'Yangzhou fried rice' 扬州炒饭 During the 90s on my first visit to Yangzhou, my Chinese friends and I instantly agreed we wanna have the real McCoy, the real Yangzhou fried rice. Pity, that we never found Yangzhou fried rice on the menu, nor had any of the restaurants we visited in Yangzhou ever heard of it. Ten years later, every restaurant in Yangzhou featured the eponymous rice dish. Asked whence the change, waiters shared a knowing wink and conspiratorial grin.

湘菜 Hunanese

Hunanese food provides a good market for the producers of garlic, chillies and shallots. Hunanese use both fresh chillies and dried chillies, and the cuisine is sometimes characterized as 'dry hot.' The skewered spicy beef chunks are definitely dry hot, and like other Hunanese dishes appetizing more than filling. Other representative Hunanese dishes include 麻辣鸡丁 'spicy chicken cubes' mala ji ding, and 干豆角蒸腊肉 gan doujiao zheng larou, bean sprouts with smoked air dried pork. Hunan's cured meat is just chewy enough, just salty enough, with flavor strong enough to diffuse into crisp green vegetables like peas in the pod, broccoli or cauliflower, making a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Fermented black soybeans also lend a special saltiness to whatever meat or vegetable accompanies them.

Chairman Mao was Hunanese, and restaurants have sprung up seeking to capitalize on the Great Helmsman, such as the Mao Jia Restaurant (Mao Family Restaurant). The menu features a number of dishes said to be the Chairman's favorites, such as hongshao rou, 'red-braised pork,' popular family fare that features pork belly with the skin retained, braised in anise seed, coarse cut ginger also with skin left on, dried red chillies and cinnamon. In fact the Great Helmsman regarded China's food culture with disdain, and detested the upper classes which had developed and supported it over centuries. Another direct result of life under Mao was that Chinese cuisine regressed from one of the world's best to barely tolerable, assuming that there was indeed enough to eat. Red braised pork may have ranked among the Chairman's favorites, but people who knew Mao have told me that he simply ate from the dish that was closest to him.

黔菜 Guizhou

Guizhou food is the hottest in China. In China I have heard it said:

• 蜀汉不怕辣 Sichuanese are not afraid of spicy hot;
• 湘丁辣不怕 Hunanese, spicy food they fear not;
• 黔老怕不辣 Guizhouese fear that it might not be hot.

We all have seen Chinese paintings with mountains that rise nearly vertically from a flat landscape. I had reckoned that these paintings represented scenery with the painter's version of poetic license. But the Guizhou terrain is that very topography of vertical limestone, mountains like giant stalagmites rising from the province floor. Houses in the countryside often are paired with flat concrete pads, ready for sun-drying a spread of harvested chillies.

Less oily than Sichuan cuisine, Guizhou-style fish-flavored pork 鱼香肉丝 yuxiang rousi delivers a hit of flavor that approaches becoming addictive. 辣子鸡 lazi ji 'Chili tips with chicken' is a bit too boney for some, and much too spicy for anyone whose alimentary tract is not lined with refractory bricks. More than once in Guizhou, we were served a typical banquet of twelve dishes, all of which were very spicy, and our hosts, as if anxious that the food might be judged to be lacking in spice or flavor, placed before each guest an additional bowl of chopped chillies with soy sauce. Guizhou's most famous dish is 花江狗肉 huajiang gou rou 'Hua River dog meat.' Some say this dish goes best with a shot glass of Maotai into which has been squeezed the bile and blood of one venomous snake's gall bladder, a chaser guaranteed to kick start the heart -- jackhammer and sweat glands.

鲁京菜 Capital/Pekinese/Shandong

Some will argue that the Shandong and Beijing kitchens are essentially two styles of the same culinary tradition. Others will argue that they are two separate but similar styles of Chinese cuisine. Still others will say that the influence of Shandong cooking in the north of China has assimilated Beijingese food into its system. Shandong-Beijing food is marked by a starchy and grassy corn, peanut oil, garlic, grains, steamed breads, soy sauce and vinegar. This is hearty fare, not lean cuisine. Diners will sometimes enjoy 'wraplings' or dumplings 水饺 shuijiao near the end of a meal, which is often organized around a central cause celebre dish, such as 'Beijing duck' 北京烤鸭 Beijing kao ya.

Another favorite is 涮羊肉 shuan yang rou 'mutton fire pot,' a fondue-type meal where diners surround a samovar fire pot, dip and cook thin strips of mutton in boiling stock. If three dots are added to the middle character for sheep 羊 yang, the character becomes 洋 yang with the same pronunciation but a new meaning, now 'foreign.' A Beijing joke 外国人洗澡，涮羊肉 claims that a "foreigner taking a bath" is also shuan yang rou, the mutton in the fire pot replaced by the fleshy foreigner.

Sea cucumber, or sea slug, or beche de mer 海参 haishen is another prize to be won at a Beijing banquet. From their original appearance as grey droppings, the sea slug is salt-roasted, soaked and then simmered until they have been described by foreigners as "broken bicycle tires." Basically without flavor, sea slug is eaten for its gristly, rubbery and slimy textures.

Food in the capital also features a variety of unleavened flat pancakes, either prepared for wrapping cuts of duck skin and meat, or already stuffed with pork and vegetables, as 馅儿饼 xianr bing, 'Chinese meat pies.'

徽菜 Anhui

When it comes to Chinese cuisine, as with other points of pride, there is no single opinion. Some insist that the orthodox writ of Chinese cooking specifies the Eight Culinary Traditions, comprised of Cantonese, Sichuanese, Hunanese, Jiangsuese, Zhejiangese, Shandongese, Fujianese and Anhuiese. That being said, few Chinese could give you a description of Anhui style cooking, and just as few Chinese have ever been there.

Anhui under the empire was home to generation after generation of literati, men of iron discipline, traditional erudition and discerning high brow taste. Anhui cuisine seeks to incorporate the wild herb just snatched from the forest floor, and wild game just trapped on the mountain or in the stillwater.

Many dishes are steamed, stewed or braised, with unusually strict attention to time and temperature. 'Stewed soft shell turtle' jiayu geng 甲鱼羹, 'steamed stone frog,' 'bamboo shoots and dried mushroom' are famous representatives of Anhui cuisine.

闽菜 Fujianese

Fujian style cuisine is distinguished by recurrent blends of sweet and sour, or spicy and sour, or spicy and sweet flavors. Seafood figures prominently, often blended into other foods, as in mussel and oyster omelettes, enjoyed on both sides of the Taiwan straits.

Fujian is also renowned for 'fish balls' yu wan 鱼丸 typical of Fujian fare in that fish balls would seem to be simple, but are not. The first trick is the selection of fish, for the fish ball is composed of more than one variety, each of which must contribute to the harmony of the final flavor. The second trick is the art of mincing the various fish meats into almost paste that can be rolled together to become a one inch diameter ball. The third trick is constructing the ball so that it does not disintegrate when cooked, and retains a chewy integrity when introduced to the mouth.

In the spirit of Fujian cuisine, perhaps the best known dish is 'Buddha jumps the wall' Fo tiao qiang 佛跳墙, a meatless recipe but a complex pandemonium of expensive ingredients like shark fin, sea slug and abalone, together with vegetables in sauce of course, a waft of which will make a monk leap over the monastery wall to appease his stomach.

潮州菜 Teochow/Chaozhou/Swatow

It is not real Chaozhou cuisine (sometimes 'Chiuchow' or 'Teochew') unless braised goose 烧鹅 shao e is on the menu. This is a sentence commonly used in introductions of Chaozhou cooking. Only a certain species of goose, the so-called "lion head goose," is deemed suitable for top Chaozhou restaurants. Stripped of its feathers and intestines, the rest of the whole goose (webbed feet, too) is braised slowly in a bath of herbs, spices and the oils and flavors of geese from days gone by. Like the best pastrami sauce in Brooklyn, New York, the goose bath is never thrown out, but is brought to a boil daily, then kept at simmering temperature for hours each day surrounding another new goose. In fact the quality of a Chaozhou restaurant is measured in part by the longevity of its goose bath.

Seafood, including cold crab and shrimp balls, are also among the stars of the Chaozhou menu. Salt water appetizer plate xianshui pinpan 咸水拼盘 with its dazzling array of marinated wings and tongues, browned and braised eggs, firm and soft tofus, has become a popular dish nationwide in China.

Chaozhou diners prefer to match with their meals Tieguanyin 铁观音 tea served with the full gongfu tea ceremony, more properly the gongfu process and technique.

To view more information about the book, How Chinese Think; and How To Deal With China, please click here.