China's diet has a long history and has developed into a huge pedigree after a long period of multi-ethnic integration. China is dominated by farming people, who advocate cooked food. So the frying and frying have been renovated. European countries are mainly nomadic people, with simple diets and spices to cover up the taste of food. Of course, this is also a general statement. The major cuisines in China are also far apart, and it is normal for western countries to produce dozens of styles. Generally speaking, the taste is strong at high latitudes and light at low latitudes. Due to the influence of regional characteristics, climatic environment and customs, there will be differences in raw materials, tastes, cooking methods and eating habits between China and the West. It is precisely because of these differences that catering products have strong regional characteristics. 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. People in China pay attention to "harmony between man and nature", while westerners pay attention to "people-oriented". Here, we briefly talk about the differences between Chinese and western food cultures from the following three aspects. 1. Two different dietary concepts Compared with China's diet which pays attention to "taste", the west is a rational dietary concept. No matter the color, fragrance, taste, shape and nutrition of food, how many calories, vitamins, protein and so on should be taken in a day. Even if it tastes 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 cause of things, and the cause of things is often metaphysical. The two are interrelated and form 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 great obstacles, such as food culture. At the banquet, you can pay attention to the collocation of tableware, materials, services and raw materials in shape and color. But no matter how luxurious and high-end, from L.A. to new york, steak has 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 disk. A plate of "French lamb chops" with mashed potatoes, leaning against the lamb chops, and boiled green beans and some tomatoes on the other side. The colors are in sharp contrast, but the raw materials are irrelevant, the taste is harmonious, each has its own flavor and 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 in a state of low productivity for thousands of years, people are always hungry, so we have a unique food-oriented diet culture. I think this is probably due to the need of survival. If a culture takes eating as the first thing, then there will be two phenomena: on the one hand, it will exert its functions to the extreme, not only for survival, but also for health preservation, which is the cultural basis of "medicine tonic is not as good as food tonic"; On the other hand, excessive attention to food will make people admire the pursuit of food. In China's cooking, the pursuit of delicacy is almost to the extreme, so that China people make a living by opening restaurants overseas, which has become the foundation for us to settle down in the world! Unfortunately, when we regard the pursuit of delicacy as the first demand, we ignore the most fundamental nutritional value of food. Many of our traditional foods have to be fried in hot oil and cooked with low fire for a long time. As a result, the nutrients in the dishes are destroyed and many nutrients are lost during processing. So when it comes to nutrition, it actually touches the biggest weakness of China's food culture. There is a folk proverb: "Food is the first priority for the people, and taste is the first priority for food". It is this pursuit of food that makes us ignore the true meaning of eating. The key to the unique charm of China's diet lies in its taste. The production of food lies in harmony, so that the original flavor of food, the cooked taste after heating, the taste of ingredients and auxiliary materials, and the harmonious taste of seasonings are intertwined and coordinated with each other, so that they complement each other, penetrate each other and blend with each other. You have me and I have you. The harmonious beauty of China's cooking is the essence of China's cooking art, and the variety of dishes is an external thing, while the taste is an internal thing. It is the most important embodiment of China's aesthetic diet view that he pays attention to the interior without deliberately modifying the appearance, and pays attention to the taste of dishes without revealing the shape and color of dishes excessively. In China, the pursuit of beauty in diet obviously overwhelms rationality, and this view of diet is also consistent with China's traditional philosophy. As a representative of oriental philosophy, China's philosophy is macroscopic, intuitive, fuzzy and unpredictable. The method of making Chinese food is to reconcile the tripod and finally reconcile a beautiful taste. This emphasizes the sense of proportion, that is, overall cooperation. It contains rich dialectics of China's philosophy. Everything is based on the beauty and harmony of food. The variety in the range determines the richness and diversity of Chinese food, determines the characteristics of Chinese food, and even determines the characteristics of every chef. Second, the difference between Chinese and western food objects Westerners think that dishes are for hunger, so they specialize in "hard dishes" such as large pieces of meat and whole chicken. China's food is "delicious", so China's cooking also shows great arbitrariness in the use of materials: what many westerners regard as discarded is an excellent raw material 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 shows that China's diet has a wide range of randomness in materials. According to the survey of western botanists, people in China eat more than 600 kinds of vegetables, six times more than those in the west. In fact, in Chinese 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 plays a dominant role in the ordinary diet structure. China people's plant cooking is closely related to the advocacy of Buddhists. They regard animals as "living things" and plants as "lifeless things", so they advocate vegetarianism.