Chinese food refers to a set of self-contained cooking skills and flavors formed in a certain region due to differences in climate, geography, history, products and eating customs, and has been recognized throughout the country.
Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Guangdong cuisine and Huaiyang cuisine were formed earlier. Later, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan, Huizhou and other local cuisines gradually became famous, forming eight major cuisines in China.
(1) Shandong cuisine
Shandong cuisine, Shandong cuisine, consists of jinan cuisine, Jiaodong cuisine and Confucian cuisine. Jinan cuisine pays special attention to making soup. There are strict rules on the use and cooking of clear soup and milk soup. These dishes are famous for their freshness, crispness and tenderness. Jiaodong cuisine originated in Fushan, Yantai and Qingdao and is good at cooking seafood. Its taste is mainly fresh and tender, with emphasis on lightness and color. Confucian cuisine is a concrete manifestation of "never getting tired of eating", and its extensive materials and rich banquets can be compared with the imperial meals that moved to the palace in the past. Shandong cuisine is very heavily seasoned, pure and mellow, and there are few complex synthetic flavors. It tries to reflect the original taste of raw materials. Another feature is that there are many kinds of pasta. Wheat, corn, sweet potato, soybean, sorghum and millet can all be made into pasta with different flavors, making it a famous feast. Shandong famous dishes include fried scorpion, Dezhou boneless braised chicken, abalone with original shell, Jiuzhuan large intestine, sweet and sour Yellow River carp and so on.
② Sichuan cuisine
Sichuan cuisine includes famous local dishes such as Chengdu, Chongqing, Leshan and Zigong. The main characteristics are diverse tastes and subtle changes. Pepper, pepper, pepper and bean paste are the main condiments. A variety of flavors, such as spicy, sour and spicy, pepper and hemp, sesame sauce, garlic paste, mustard, red oil, sweet and sour, fish flavor and strange taste, are made in different proportions, all of which are rich and mellow, with the special flavor of "one dish is fragrant" and "all dishes are fragrant". Among them, the most famous dishes are: dry-roasted rock carp, dry-roasted mandarin fish, shredded pork with fish flavor, exotic chicken, kung pao chicken, steamed beef with flour, Mapo tofu, beef hotpot with hairy belly, shredded beef with dry stir-fry, husband and wife's lung slices, Dengying beef, Daoxiao Noodles, glutinous dumplings and dragon wonton.
(3) Cantonese cuisine
Cantonese cuisine, namely Cantonese cuisine, developed from the specialties of Guangzhou, Chaozhou and Dongjiang. Although it started late, it has a great influence. Most Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong, Macao and other countries in the world are mainly Cantonese cuisine. Cantonese cuisine has its own unique flavor, which absorbs the advantages of various cuisines and forms a variety of cooking forms. Guangzhou cuisine is clear but not light, fresh but not vulgar, with exquisite materials and diverse varieties. It is also compatible with many western dishes, and pays attention to the momentum and grade of the dishes. Chaozhou belonged to Fujian in ancient times, so Chaozhou cuisine combines the flavors of Fujian and Guangdong, and is good at cooking marine dishes and sweets, with mellow taste, among which soup dishes are the most distinctive. Dongjiang cuisine, also known as Hakka cuisine, came from the Han people in the Central Plains and lived in the mountainous area of Dongjiang. Its dishes have a strong local flavor and are good at frying, frying, roasting and stewing. Generally speaking, Cantonese cuisine is characterized by extensive selection of materials, novelty and freshness, light taste, rich taste, clear but not light, tender but not raw, oily but not greasy, with five flavors (fragrant, loose, soft, fat and strong) and six flavors (sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty and fresh). Strong seasonality, light in summer and autumn, rich in winter and spring, and many dishes have unique flavors.
Famous dishes include stewed snake chicken, Long Hudou, roast suckling pig, Dongjiang brine chicken, boiled prawns, roasted goose, beef in oyster sauce, Cantonese moon cakes, shahe powder and boat porridge.
④ Huaiyang cuisine
Huaiyang cuisine is a famous cuisine in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China. It covers a wide area, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shanghai, as well as parts of Jiangxi and Henan. It has the reputation of "the best taste in Southeast China" and "the most beautiful in the world", and its reputation is spread far and wide at home and abroad.
Later, Zhejiang cuisine and Anhui cuisine became one of the eight major cuisines with their distinctive characteristics, and Huaiyang cuisine merged in Jiangsu. At the same time, Jiangsu cuisine belongs to Huaiyang cuisine, which used to be called Su cuisine. In this way, Huaiyang cuisine has become a famous local dish with Yangzhou and Huai 'an as the center, the Grand Canal as the mainstay, Zhenjiang in the south, Hongze Lake and Huaihe River in the north and coastal areas in the east. Huaiyang cuisine has strict selection of materials, pays attention to freshness, highlights the main ingredients, is skilled in knife work, is good at stewing, stewing and roasting, attaches importance to mixing soup, pays attention to original flavor, is good at modeling, and is lifelike in melon and fruit carving. The taste is moderate and salty, suitable for both north and south, and can be used to cook "whole eel seats". Huaiyang is exquisite, beautiful in shape, diverse in taste, beautifully made, fresh and delicious, and different in four seasons.
Representative dishes include stewed lion's head, stewed silver carp's head, roasted whole pig's head, steamed crucian carp, crystal vegetable hoof, three-piece set of duck, eel, roasted tiger's tail, fried butterfly slices, wax gourd cup, three-diced steamed buns, roasted jadeite, crab-yellow soup packets, and thousand-layer oil cakes.
In addition to the Huaiyang cuisine mentioned above, Jiangsu cuisine also includes local cuisines such as Nanjing cuisine, Suzhou cuisine and Xuzhou cuisine. Nanjing cuisine is good at stewing, stewing, forking and roasting. Pay special attention to seven flavors: sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty, fragrant and smelly; Fresh, rotten, crisp, tender, crisp, thick and fat. Nanjing cuisine is famous for its elaborate duck gizzards, and is known as "Jinling duck gizzards are the best in the world". Su cuisine is good at stewing, stewing, stewing and stewing, paying attention to maintaining the original flavor, delicate color, fresh in season, moderate in sweetness, crisp and delicious, fresh and delicious. In recent years, it has also cooked "Wuxi Ganlong River South Banquet", "Wuxi Xishi Banquet", "Suzhou Cuisine Banquet" and Taihu Boat Cuisine. The flavor of Xuzhou cuisine belongs to Shandong cuisine in history. With the changes of the times, its dishes have always been between Jiangsu and Shandong cuisines, with moderate salty taste, clear but not light, strong but not turbid. No matter what food is taken from, it pays attention to the role of "diet therapy and food supplement" In addition, Xuzhou cuisine mostly uses big crabs and dog meat, especially whole dog pads.
Jiangsu's famous dishes are: salted duck gizzard, stewed sushi, stewed raw clams, raw fried soft-shelled turtle, clove ribs, stewed chicken, scallop in Jinling, crucian carp in hibiscus, chrysanthemum herring, jade plate with chrysanthemum leaves, salted duck in Jinling, barbecued duck and barbecued mandarin fish (all of which are famous dishes in Nanjing); Sweet and Sour Mandarin Fish, Snail Shrimp, Jade Shrimp Bucket, Snow Crab Bucket, Crab Powder Fish Lip, Butterfly Sea Cucumber, Shark's Fin in Clear Soup, Pan-fried Whitebait, Crispy Eel with Dyed Creek, Mirror Box Tofu, Wuxi Meat and Bone, Changshu Beggar Chicken and Changzhou Braised Pork (all above are Su); Farewell my concubine, Pei Gong dog meat, Pengcheng fish balls, lotus finches, fish skin in milk soup, crab roe, anchovies, stir-fried black flowers, braised Cargill fish and braised Shaguang fish (the above are Xuzhou famous dishes); Tianmu Lake casserole fish head, Huai 'an soft pocket, golden webbed fairy skirt. Jiangsu snacks are very distinctive, such as Qinhuai snacks, Suzhou cakes and soup packets.
⑤ Fujian cuisine
Fujian cuisine is a kind of cuisine mainly formed by local flavor dishes in Fuzhou, southern Fujian and western Fujian. Fuzhou cuisine is fresh and refreshing, sweet and sour, and pays special attention to the preparation of soup. Another feature is that it is good at using brown sugar as an ingredient. Brown sugar has the functions of preventing deterioration, removing fishy smell, enhancing fragrance, improving taste and color matching. Minnan cuisine, represented by Xiamen, also has the characteristics of freshness and lightness, and pays attention to the use of spices such as Chili sauce and mustard sauce. West Fujian is located at the junction of Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, with Hakka dishes as the main body and many exotic products unique to mountainous areas as raw materials, which has a strong mountain flavor. Fujian cuisine is characterized by frying, stir-frying, stewing, frying, stewing and steaming. It is especially good at cooking seafood, with exquisite knives and interesting people, mostly soup. It has a unique flavor of fresh, fragrant, rotten, light and slightly sweet and sour. Fujian snacks and snacks have another advantage. They are made from all kinds of seafood in coastal shoals and flavored with special flavor. They are delicious.
The most famous flavor dishes are: the Buddha jumps over the wall, chicken soup, Ai Shan roast duck, seven-star fish balls, braised chicken, fried eel, moon-half Jiang Shen, swallow skin wonton, Fuzhou noodles, fried oysters and so on.
[6] Zhejiang cuisine
Zhejiang cuisine has a long history, and its flavor includes the special dishes of Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shaoxing. Hangzhou dishes pays attention to the freshness, liveliness and tenderness of raw materials, mainly fish, shrimp and seasonal vegetables, and pays attention to knife work, with fresh and tender taste and outstanding original flavor. Ningbo cuisine is salty and good at cooking seafood. It pays attention to freshness, softness and smoothness, and emphasizes the original flavor and taste. Shaoxing cuisine is good at cooking seafood and poultry. The dishes emphasize the fragrance, crispness and glutinous taste in the mouth, and the soup is delicious and full of rural flavor.
Zhejiang cuisine has the characteristics of bright color, delicious, tender, crisp, soft and refreshing, small and exquisite, delicate and beautiful. Good at stewing, frying, stewing and steaming, unique. Zhejiang Telecom has many kinds of jiaozi, cakes, soups and cakes, which are delicious.
Famous dishes include: Longjing shrimp, West Lake water shield soup, fried eel back with shrimp, West Lake vinegar fish, fried bell, crab catching, fresh eel, pickled yellow croaker, rock sugar turtle, oyster scrambled eggs, lotus root with honey sauce, Jiaxing Zongzi, jiaozi in Ningbo, and thousands of steamed buns in Huzhou, etc.
Hunan cuisine
Hunan cuisine includes the special dishes of Xiangjiang River Basin, Dongting Lake Area and Xiangxi Mountain Area. Xiangjiang River Basin centered on the Yangtze River, Hengyang and Xiangtan is the main representative of Hunan cuisine. It is characterized by strong oil color, emphasizing benefits, paying attention to fresh fragrance, hot and sour, soft and tender, and is especially suitable for stews and pickles. The dishes in Dongting Lake area are good at cooking seafood, poultry and livestock. They are characterized by large quantity, thick oil, salty, spicy and soft, and are famous for stewing and cooking. Xiangxi cuisine is good at making delicacies, smoked bacon, all kinds of bacon and chicken. Its taste is mainly salty, sweet and sour, and it has a strong Shan Ye flavor. One of the biggest characteristics of Hunan cuisine is spicy and the other is wax.
The famous dishes are: Donganzi Chicken, Steamed Bacon, Anzu Shark's Fin, Rock Sugar Xiang Lian, Red Pepper Beef Breast, Hundred-page Maoniu, Huogong Stinky Tofu, Jishou Sour Meat, Huanxin Egg, etc.
（8）
The flavor of Anhui cuisine includes the characteristics of dishes in southern Anhui, along the Yangtze River and along the Huaihe River. Southern Anhui cuisine includes Huangshan, Shexian (ancient Huizhou), Tunxi and other places. It pays attention to firepower, is good at cooking game, is heavy in oil, simple and affordable, and maintains its original flavor. Many dishes are stewed and simmered with charcoal. The soup is clear and mellow, and the original pot is full of fragrance. Although there are not many aquatic products in southern Anhui, the cooked and salted "osmanthus fish" is well known. The dishes along the Yangtze River were represented by Wuhu and Anqing, and later spread to Hefei. It is good at cooking fresh rivers and livestock, paying attention to knife work, color and shape, and making good use of sugar to flavor, especially smoked dishes. The dishes along the Huaihe River are represented by Bengbu, Suxian and Fuyang. The dishes are salty and spicy, the soup is thick and heavy, and coriander is also used to color and flavor. Famous flavor dishes include: Wuwei smoked duck, Maofeng smoked shad, Fuliji roast chicken, Fang La fish, Stewed chicken with stone ears, sliced pork with cloud, mung bean pancakes and butterfly noodles.