Sichuan cuisine is very old, which originated in Qin and Han dynasties. At the end of the third century BC, after Qin Shihuang unified China, a large number of immigrants from the Central Plains brought cooking skills to Bashu, and the essence of the original Bashu folk cuisine and eating customs merged with it, gradually forming a unique set of Sichuan cuisine cooking techniques. By the Tang and Song Dynasties, Sichuan cuisine had developed into a major cuisine in China. In the Qing Dynasty, pepper was introduced into China, and the flavor of Sichuan cuisine increased, the dishes became richer and the cooking skills became more and more perfect. During the Anti-Japanese War, famous chefs from all major cuisines gathered in Chongqing, which enabled Sichuan cuisine to learn from many families and eclectic, thus achieving perfection.
the cooking methods of Sichuan cuisine include frying, frying, frying, stir-frying, stir-frying, baking, roasting, stewing, burning, boiling, stewing, boiling, scalding, stewing, steaming, marinating, brewing, mixing, pickling and pickling.
Sichuan cuisine, as a cultural phenomenon, has profound connotations. Celebrities and masterpieces of past dynasties are often inseparable from diet when it comes to Bashu customs. Chang Qu's Huayang Guozhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty summed up Bashu diet as "respecting taste" and "good spicy flavor". In the Tang Dynasty, Du Fu highly summarized and praised Bashu wine and delicacies with the poem "Shu wine is invincible, and the river fish is beautiful". During the Anti-Japanese War, famous people such as Guo Moruo, Yang Hansheng, Chen Baichen, Ge Baoquan and Fengzi often gathered in a small restaurant near Tongyuanmen to taste Sichuan dishes such as "spiced beef", "stewed beef", "fried beef" and "crystal steamed stuffed bun". Guo Moruo also took the opportunity to write the signboard of "Xinglinxuan" for the small restaurant, leaving a section of famous people and Sichuan cuisine.
Sichuan cuisine has been paying attention to "harmony of five flavors" and "flavor-oriented" since ancient times. Sichuan cuisine has many flavors, ranking first among the major cuisines. Today, there are 24 flavors of Sichuan cuisine, which are divided into three categories.
the first category is spicy flavor, including spicy flavor, red oil flavor, pungent flavor, sour and spicy flavor, pepper and hemp flavor, home-cooked flavor, litchi spicy flavor, fish flavor, dried tangerine peel flavor and strange flavor. Among them, fish flavor, dried tangerine peel and strange flavor are the unique flavor types of Sichuan cuisine, which are difficult to cook. They are salty, sweet, sour, spicy, fresh and fragrant in one dish, and more than ten kinds of seasonings are in harmony and complement each other. Its dishes include shredded chicken with strange flavor, diced rabbit with strange flavor, shredded pork with fish flavor, shrimp with fish flavor, kidney with fish flavor, fried chicken with fish flavor, beef with dried tangerine peel, chicken with dried tangerine peel, Mapo tofu, boiled beef, kung pao chicken, fresh-keeping shellfish in Palace, Sichuan style pork, fried pork with salt, Taibai chicken and so on.
the second category is spicy flavor, including garlic paste flavor, ginger juice flavor, mustard flavor, sesame sauce flavor, smoke flavor, sauce flavor, five flavors, bad flavor and so on. Representative dishes include duck with camphor tea, smoked ribs, phoenix tail with sesame sauce, spiced smoked fish, fried mutton with sauce, fish sticks with scallion oil, hot nest chicken with ginger sauce, wind meat, fragrant bad meat and so on.
the third category is salty, fresh, sweet and sour flavor, including salty, soy sauce, tomato juice, mellow sweetness, litchi, sweet and sour taste and so on. This kind of flavor is widely used, and there are many dishes, such as Yipin Gongyan, dried roasted fish wings, abalone in white sauce, lotus fish maw, boiled cabbage, hibiscus chicken slices, chicken tofu pudding, crispy rice, white oil maw strips, eight-treasure duck, preserved salted duck, lotus root with honey sauce, walnut paste and so on.