Cantonese cuisine and other local cuisines are all part of Chinese cuisine, and both originated from the traditional culture of China. However, compared with the Central Plains cuisine or other cuisines, the precipitation of its traditional food culture is not as deep as that in the Central Plains and other regions. Influenced and nourished by overseas culture for a long time, Cantonese cuisine attaches importance to inheritance, but it is not solid in tradition. It is flexible, fresh and young, and it is the most innovative role in China's diet system. It absorbs many advantages of western cakes and exotic foods, and attaches importance to active reference and absorption. Digest the advanced aspects of foreign food culture and then integrate it into the national food culture.
Cantonese cuisine has a wide range of materials, not only rich in main ingredients, but also rich in ingredients and seasonings. In order to show the flavor of the main ingredients, Cantonese cuisine is very particular about the choice of ingredients and seasonings, and the ingredients are not mixed. Seasoning is to bring out the original flavor of the main ingredients, both of which are mainly fresh. Pay attention to color, fragrance, taste and shape, and take taste as the main body.
Cantonese cuisine has a wide variety of materials, which is dazzling. Almost everyone who flies in the sky, crawls on the ground and swims in the water can eat it. Needless to say, partridges, sparrows, leopards, civets, pangolins, seals and other game birds and animals; Cats, dogs, snakes, rats, monkeys, turtles and even grasshoppers, which are mistaken for "leeches" by ignorant people, are also included in cooking. Once cooked, they suddenly become strange and delicious food, which makes consumers clap their hands and exclaim "strange and exotic".
Another outstanding feature of Cantonese cuisine is fine and fine dosage, exquisite ingredients, exquisite decoration, good imitation and innovation, and various varieties. 1965 "Guangzhou Famous Cuisine Exhibition" introduced 5457 kinds.
The third feature of Cantonese cuisine is that it pays attention to quality and taste, and the taste is relatively light, striving to be clear and fresh, and light and beautiful. And it changes with the seasons. There is light in summer and autumn, and it is rich in winter and spring, pursuing color, fragrance, taste and shape. Food tastes clear, fresh, tender, cool, smooth and fragrant; Seasonings are sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and salty; This is the so-called five flavors and six flavors.
Famous Cantonese cuisine includes roast suckling pig, boiled shrimp, Long Hudou, Grandpa chicken, braised pork with taro, braised skirt wings, scrambled eggs in Huangpu, stewed Mi Chong, dog meat pot, multicolored shredded snake, chrysanthemum, dragon and tiger, phoenix and snake soup, all of which are famous Guangzhou dishes with local flavor.
Cantonese cuisine is also one of the eight major cuisines in China. Its formation and development are closely related to Guangdong's geographical environment, economic conditions and customs. Guangdong is located in the subtropical zone, adjacent to the South China Sea, with abundant rainfall, evergreen seasons and abundant products. Therefore, Guangdong's diet has always been a blessed person. As early as the Western Han Dynasty, Huainanzi Spirit contained a fine and extensive selection of Cantonese cuisine materials. It is conceivable that Cantonese people had mastered different cooking methods to cook different smells more than 1,000 years ago. Before that, Han Yu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, was demoted to Chaozhou. In his poems, he described dozens of foreign bodies in chaozhou people, such as horseshoe crabs, snakes, octopus, frogs, octopus and Jiang Yaozhu, which made him feel very uncomfortable. However, in the Southern Song Dynasty, octopus and other seafood were the top delicacies of many local dishes. In terms of composition and taste, raw food is used. After that, few people ate pigs, cows, sheep and deer raw, but the habit of eating sashimi, including raw fish porridge, has been preserved to this day. However, it is still the case that the white-cut chicken is cooked and the thigh bone is bloody. Cantonese cuisine is characterized by exquisite knife work, exquisite ingredients and clear but not light taste.
Cantonese cuisine is also good at absorbing the strengths of various families and using it for me. I also often learn new things. Sweet and Sour Mandarin Fish is a famous dish in Jiangsu cuisine, which is famous all over the country, but you can't attend the Cantonese banquet. Although Cantonese people like to eat mouse meat, the name of the mouse is not elegant. The famous Cantonese chef turned the fish into a man named Qiuhuayu, named Chrysanthemum Fish, with skillful knife work. After such a change, it is convenient and hygienic to eat one bite at a time with chopsticks and knives and forks. After the transformation, Jiangsu cuisine became Cantonese cuisine. In addition, the cooking methods of Guangdong cuisine, such as soaking, roasting, roasting and Sichuan cuisine, are transplanted from the explosion, roasting, roasting and frying of northern cuisine. The new method of frying and frying is formed by absorbing similar methods of western food and improving them. However, the transplantation of Cantonese cuisine is not a mechanical reproduction, but a combination of Guangdong's extensive raw materials, fresh texture and people's love for freshness and always new tastes, so as to develop it. For example, steak in northern cuisine is usually seasoned, roasted until crisp and rotten, and oiled, which is called clear steak. However, the steak in Cantonese cuisine is cooked or steamed until it is greasy, and then pushed on the clam, which is what most people expect. Representative works include Babao roast duck, shredded chicken and preserved meat. Guangdong's food culture is closely related to all parts of the Central Plains. One of the most important reasons is that there are many mainlanders who established another dynasty in history. The officials who were sent to govern Guangdong and relegated in the past dynasties brought the northern food culture, and many chefs passed on their skills to their local counterparts, or opened their own shops in stores, directly introducing the local food culture to Lingnan people, making it an important part of Cantonese cuisine. After the Han dynasty, Guangzhou became the transportation hub of Chinese and western sea routes; Most foreign businessmen gathered in Yangcheng in the Tang Dynasty, and merchant ships came in droves. At that time, compared with inland areas, Guangzhou's economy developed rapidly.
The famous ones are Man-Han Banquet in Nanyang Hall, fragrant perch balls, drunken shrimps and crabs in Jufeng Garden, assorted cold dishes, sesame balls with one pot and one product and high quality, semi-fried pot in Yubolou, crisp crucian carp in Fulai, roast duck in Wanzhantang, Jiangnan Baihua Chicken in Wen Yuan Garden, braised abalone slices in Nanyuan Garden and Dinghu vegetarian dishes in Xiyuan Garden. Wang Ji's roast suckling pig, Xinyuan's fish cloud soup, Jinling's duck slices, Guan Zhen's clear soup fish belly, Taotaoju's fried crab, vegetable with vegetable root fragrance, Luyuju's skinned suckling pig, Baiyun pig hand and Western-style white dove in Taiping Pavilion, etc.
Cantonese cuisine consists of three local flavors: Guangzhou cuisine, Chaozhou cuisine and Dongjiang cuisine. Guangzhou cuisine includes famous foods in the Pearl River Delta, Zhaoqing, Shaoguan and Zhanjiang. It has the widest area, complicated materials, fine selection of materials, exquisite skills, good at changing, delicate flavor, clear but not light, fresh but not vulgar, tender but not raw, oily but not greasy. Try to be light in summer and autumn, rich in winter and spring, good at stir-frying, and need to master the heat and oil temperature just right. Chaoshan cuisine belongs to Fujian, and its language and customs are similar to those of southern Fujian. After being affiliated to Guangdong, it was influenced by the Pearl River Delta. Therefore, Chaozhou cuisine is close to the strengths of Fujian, Guangdong and Huizhou, and has formed its own genre. He is good at cooking seafood, especially soup, vegetarian dishes and beets. Fine knife work and pure taste. Dongjiang cuisine, also known as Hakka cuisine, originally came from the Central Plains. At the end of the Han Dynasty and the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, he moved south to avoid the war and lived in Dongjiang, Guangdong. Its language and customs still retain the inherent characteristics of the Central Plains. Most of these dishes are meat and few are aquatic. The main ingredients are outstanding, paying attention to fragrance, heavy oil and salty taste. Casserole dishes are famous for their unique local flavor.
There is also a school of Hainan cuisine in Cantonese cuisine, which has fewer varieties but has the unique flavor of tropical food. In cooking, Cantonese cuisine is mainly fried and fried, but also stewed, fried and roasted. It pays attention to freshness, tenderness, freshness and smoothness, and once had the saying of "five flavors and six flavors". The "five flavors" are fragrant, loose, smelly, fat and strong, and the "six flavors" are sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty and fresh. At the same time, pay attention to color, fragrance, taste and shape. Many Cantonese dim sum are baked in the oven and have the characteristics of western food. The main famous dishes of Cantonese cuisine include crispy roast suckling pig, Long Hudou, Taiye chicken, national protected dishes, Chaozhou roast eagle goose and monkey brain soup. Among them, "roast suckling pig" is the most famous specialty in Guangzhou. As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, roast suckling pig was one of the "eight treasures". Roasted suckling pigs spread all over the country in the Qing Dynasty, but now they are very famous in Guangdong. With the changes of the times, the cooking methods have been continuously improved, and the goal of "color like amber and real gold" has been truly achieved. The skin is crispy and the meat is soft, and it is fragrant inside and outside, which is suitable for the tastes of southerners. Grandfather Chicken is a traditional dish in Guangzhou, which started in the late Qing Dynasty and was interrupted in the 1970s.
The origin of Cantonese cuisine can be traced back to the early Han Dynasty more than two thousand years ago. In ancient times, before the arrival of immigrants from the Central Plains, the ancestors of the Yue nationality in Lingnan had a unique diet style, such as eating white snake, fish, clams and raw food. There is a record in Liu An in the Western Han Dynasty that "there are many pythons, and the food is good". In Song Dynasty, Zhou Qufei's Answer to the Generation Outside the Ridge also recorded that Guangzhou people "eat birds, animals, insects and snakes without asking". This is inseparable from the geographical environment of Guangzhou. Guangzhou belongs to the subtropical water network zone, where insects, snakes, fish and clams are particularly rich, easy to get, easy to cook and easy to eat, thus forming a lively and vigorous eating habit.
Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Han people in the Central Plains have been moving southward into Guangzhou. They not only brought advanced production technology and cultural knowledge, but also brought the Central Plains diet style of "never getting tired of cooking". During the Tang and Song Dynasties, a large number of businessmen from all over the Central Plains entered Guangzhou, and Guangzhou's cooking skills were rapidly improved. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Guangzhou's food culture reached its peak. According to the related documents in "Two Years of Qing Daoguang" (1822), "Guangzhou Xiguan Meat Forest is full of wine sea, with no cold and heat, no day and night."
In the 1920s and 1930s, Guang Chuan's food customs, North-South compatibility, and combination of Chinese and Western, featured foods and snacks emerged in large numbers. In the long years, Guangzhou people not only inherited the tradition of Central Plains food culture, but also absorbed foreign and various cooking essences, and constantly absorbed, accumulated, improved and innovated according to local tastes, hobbies and habits, thus forming the food characteristics of diverse dishes, exquisite cooking skills, high quality and delicious taste. In the past century, it has become one of the most representative and influential food cultures in China. This is based on three major cuisines, namely, Shandong Cuisine in the Yellow River Valley, Sichuan Cuisine, Jiangsu Cuisine and Shanghai Cuisine in the Yangtze River Valley, and Cantonese Cuisine in the Pearl River Valley, or four major cuisines (namely, Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Guangdong) or eight major cuisines (namely, Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Fujian). Up to now, Guangzhou's diet, whether it is the variety and quality of food, the number and scale of restaurants, or diet. At present, there are nearly 20,000 restaurants with 900,000 seats in the city.