Chinese Eight Great Reginal Cuisines

Chinese have a long history of cooking. For different area, people cook different. During centuries either great regional cuisines- Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shangdong, Szechuan, Zhejiang, become popular all over the country.  Among them, Cantonese and Szechuan are also well-known Chinese cuisine by people all over the world.

1. Anhui (Hui) cuisine
It is derived from the native cooking styles of the Huangshan Mountains region in China and is similar to Jiangsu cuisine. Anhui cuisine is known for its use of wild herbs, both land and sea, and simple methods of preparation. Braising and stewing are common techniques. Frying and stir-frying are used much less frequently in Anhui cuisine than in other Chinese culinary traditions. Anhui cuisine consists of three styles: Yangtze River region, Huai River region, and southern Anhui region. Anhui has ample uncultivated fields and forests, so the wild herbs used in the region's cuisine are readily available.

 Anhui steam meatball with sticky rice and duck eggs.








2. Cantonese (Yuet) cuisine
Cantonese cuisine draws upon a great diversity of ingredients. Besides pork, beef, and chicken, Cantonese cuisine incorporates almost all edible meats, including organ meats, chicken feet, duck tongue, snakes, and snails. However, lamb and goat is rarely eaten, unlike in cuisines of Northern or Western China. Many cooking methods are used, steaming and stir-frying being the most favored due to their convenience and rapidity, and their ability to bring out the flavor of the freshest ingredients. Other techniques include shallow frying, double boiling, braising, and deep frying.

Wenchang Chicken

3. Fujian (Min) Cuisine
Fujian style cuisine is known to be light but flavorful, soft, and tender, with particular emphasis on umami taste, as well as retaining the original flavour of the main ingredients instead of masking them.The techniques employed in the cuisine are complex but the results are ideally refined in taste with no "loud" flavors. Particular attention is also paid on the knife skills and cooking technique of the chefs. Emphasis is also on utilizing broth/soup, and there is a sayings in the region's cuisine: "One broth can be changed into numerous (ten) forms" and "It is unacceptable for a meal to not have soup".

Fo Tiao Qiang: it is made of 28 kinds of fresh ingredients such as, abalone, sea cucumber, shark’s fin, fish maw, shark's lip, tendons, hams, dried scallop, dried mushroom and Shaoxing Wine etc. Put them into an earthen jar and seal up with mud. It takes more than 10 hours to stew with slow fire. The flavor is delicious and the sweet perfumes are diffused all around. It is a delicacy in autumn and winter.



4. Hunan (Xiang) Cuisine
Hunan cuisine is well known for its hot spicy flavor, fresh aroma and deep color. Common cooking techniques include stewing, frying, pot-roasting, braising, and smoking. Due to the high agricultural output of the region, ingredients for Hunan dishes are many and varied.

Steamed fish heads in chili sauce