Due to the influence of regional characteristics, climatic environment, customs and habits, catering products will have different degrees of differences in raw materials, tastes, cooking methods and eating habits. It is precisely because of these differences that catering products have a strong regional character. The differences between Chinese and western cultures have created the differences between Chinese and western food cultures, which come from different ways of thinking and philosophy of life. China people pay attention to "harmony between man and nature", while westerners pay attention to "people-oriented".

here is a brief talk about the differences between Chinese and western food cultures from the following three aspects.

First, two different dietary concepts

Compared with China's diet which pays attention to "taste", the west is a rational dietary concept. Regardless of the color, fragrance, taste and shape of food, nutrition must be guaranteed, and how many calories, vitamins, protein and so on should be taken in a day. Even if the taste is the same, you must eat it-it is nutritious. This concept of diet is compatible with the whole western philosophy system. Metaphysics is the main feature of western philosophy. The research object of western philosophy is the reason of things, and the reason of things is often metaphysical, which is coherent with each other and forms metaphysical philosophy. This philosophy has brought vitality to western culture and made it develop by leaps and bounds in natural science, psychology and methodology. But in other aspects, this philosophical proposition has greatly hindered, such as food culture. At the banquet, you can pay attention to tableware, materials, service and the collocation of raw materials in shape and color. But no matter how luxurious and upscale, from L.A. to new york, steaks have only one flavor, and there is no art at all. As a dish, chicken is chicken, and steak is steak. Even if there is a match, it is done in the plate. A plate of "French lamb chops" is served with mashed potatoes, lean against the lamb chops, boiled green beans and a few slices of tomatoes on the other side. The colors are in sharp contrast, but the various raw materials are irrelevant and harmonious in taste, each with its own flavor, which is simple and clear.

China people attach great importance to "eating". The proverb "Food is the sky for the people" shows that we regard eating as important as the sky. Because our nation has been at a low level of productivity for thousands of years, people are always hungry, so there is a unique diet culture that puts food above everything else. I think this is probably due to a need for survival. If a culture regards eating as the first thing, then there will be two phenomena: on the one hand, it will play its function to the extreme, not only to maintain survival, but also to use it to maintain health, which is the cultural basis of "medicine tonic is not as good as food tonic"; On the other hand, paying too much attention to food will make people admire the pursuit of delicious food.

In China's cooking, the pursuit of delicacy is almost to the extreme, so that China people make a living overseas by opening restaurants, which has become the foundation for us to settle down all over the world! Unfortunately, when we take the pursuit of delicacy as the first requirement, we ignore the most fundamental nutritional value of food. Many of our traditional foods have to be fried in hot oil and cooked with slow fire for a long time, so that the nutritional components of dishes are destroyed and many of them are lost in the processing. So when it comes to nutrition, it actually touches the biggest weakness of China's food culture. There is a folk saying: "Food is the most important thing for the people, and taste is the first thing to eat". It is this pursuit of delicious food that makes us ignore the true meaning of eating.

When people in China taste dishes, they often say that this dish is delicious and that dish is not delicious. However, if you want to further ask what is "delicious", why "delicious" and where "delicious" is, I am afraid it is not easy to make it clear. This shows that China people's pursuit of food is an indescribable "artistic conception", that is, it is still difficult to cover this "realm" by using what people usually call "color, fragrance, taste, shape and container".

The key to China's unique charm lies in its taste. The production of delicious food lies in harmony, so that the original taste of food, the cooked taste after heating, the taste of ingredients and auxiliary materials and the harmonious taste of seasonings are intertwined and coordinated, so that they complement each other, help each other penetrate and blend together, and you have me and I have you. The harmonious beauty of China's cooking is the essence of China's cooking art. The shape and color of dishes are external things, while the taste is internal things. It is the most important manifestation of China's aesthetic diet view that it pays attention to the interior without deliberately modifying the appearance and the taste of dishes without excessively revealing the shape and color of dishes.

In China, the pursuit of beauty in diet obviously overwhelms rationality, which is also consistent with China's traditional philosophy. As a representative of oriental philosophy, China's philosophy is characterized by its macroscopic, intuitive, vague and unpredictable features. The method of making Chinese food is to reconcile the tripod, and ultimately to reconcile a beautiful taste. This emphasis is on discretion, that is, overall cooperation. It contains the rich dialectics of China's philosophy. Everything is based on the beauty and harmony of food. The variety within the range determines the richness and variety of Chinese food, and determines the characteristics of Chinese cuisine and even the characteristics of every chef.

second, the difference between Chinese and western food objects

Westerners think that dishes are to satisfy hunger, so they specialize in eating "hard dishes" such as large pieces of meat and whole chicken. China's dishes are "tasty", so China's cooking also shows great randomness in the materials used: what many westerners regard as discarded things are excellent raw materials in China, and what foreign chefs can't handle can be turned into magic as soon as it reaches the hands of China chefs. It serves to show that China's diet has a wide range of randomness in the use of materials.

According to a survey by western botanists, people in China eat more than 611 kinds of vegetables, six times more than those in the west. In fact, in China cuisine, vegetarian dishes are ordinary foods, and meat dishes only enter the ordinary diet structure when the living standard is high, so there has been a saying of "vegetable food" since ancient times, and vegetable food is dominant in the ordinary diet structure. China people's plant-based cuisine is inextricably linked with the advocacy of Buddhists. They regard animals as "living things" and plants as "inanimate", so they advocate vegetarianism.