Cantonese cuisine

In the eating habits of Cantonese people, Cantonese cuisine and Cantonese snacks are inseparable. Among the three meals a day, Cantonese people place snacks in a very important position, and there are salty and sweet snacks at the end of the banquet. In the festival food arrangement, there are not only seasonal fresh fruits, but also seasonal snacks. Cantonese-style restaurants and teahouses all open tea markets and rice markets.

Cantonese cuisine and other local cuisines are part of Chinese cuisine and are derived from traditional Chinese culture. However, compared with Central Plains food or other cuisines, the accumulation of traditional food culture is not as rich as that of Central Plains and other regions. Cantonese cuisine has been influenced and nourished by overseas cultures for a long time. It values ??inheritance without being stuck in tradition. It shows flexibility, freshness and youthfulness in its unity. It is the most reforming and innovative role in my country's food system. It draws on many advantages of Western cuisine, pastries and foreign foods, and pays attention to actively learning from and absorbing them. Digest the advanced aspects of foreign food culture and then integrate them into the national food culture.

Cantonese cuisine uses a wide range of ingredients, not only rich in main ingredients, but also rich in ingredients and seasonings. In order to bring out the flavor of the main ingredients, Cantonese cuisine is very particular about the selection of ingredients and seasonings. The ingredients are not mixed, and the seasonings are used to bring out the original flavor of the main ingredients. Both are based on freshness. Pay attention to color, aroma, taste and shape, and take fresh taste as the main body.

Cantonese cuisine has a wide range of exotic ingredients and a wide variety of varieties, which is dazzling. Almost everything that flies in the sky, crawls on the ground, and swims in the water can be seated on the table. Not to mention partridges, grass sparrows, leopard cats, civets, pangolins, fur seals and other game birds; cats, dogs, snakes, rats, monkeys, turtles, and even grass insects that the uninitiated mistakenly think of as "locusts", It is also included in the list of cooking, and once it is in the hands of the chef, it immediately becomes a rare and delicious delicacy. Every time the eater praises it, it is called "a rare treasure".

Another outstanding feature of Cantonese cuisine is that it uses fine ingredients, has many and clever ingredients, and has beautiful and colorful decorations. It is also good at innovating in imitation and has a wide variety of dishes. In 1965, the "Guangzhou Famous Dishes and Pastries Exhibition "There are as many as 5,457 species introduced.

The third characteristic of Cantonese cuisine is that it pays attention to quality and taste, and the taste is relatively light, striving to be fresh and light, and beautiful. And it changes with the seasons. Summer and autumn tend to be lighter, while winter and spring tend to be rich, pursuing color, aroma, taste and shape. The taste of food should be clear, fresh, tender, refreshing, smooth and fragrant; the seasonings include sour, sweet, bitter, spicy and salty; these are the so-called five flavors and six flavors.

Famous dishes of Cantonese cuisine include: roasted suckling pig, boiled shrimp, dragon and tiger fight, Taiye chicken, taro pork belly, braised large skirt fin, Huangpu scrambled egg, stewed grass worm, dog meat pot, colorful fried snake Silk, chrysanthemum, dragon, tiger, phoenix and snake soup are all famous Guangzhou dishes with local flavor

Cantonese cuisine is also one of the eight major cuisines in my country. Its formation and development are closely related to Guangdong's geographical environment, economic conditions and customs. Guangdong is located in the subtropical zone, close to the South China Sea, with abundant rainfall, evergreens all year round, and rich products. Therefore, Guangdong’s food has always been unique. As early as the Western Han Dynasty, "Huainanzi·Spirit Chapter" records the exquisite and extensive selection of ingredients in Cantonese cuisine. It can be imagined that the Cantonese people more than a thousand years ago were already familiar with using different cooking methods to cook different flavors. Prior to this, Han Yu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, was demoted to Chaozhou. In his poems, he described how Chaozhou people ate dozens of foreign objects such as horseshoe crabs, snakes, catfish, frogs, octopus, and Jiang Yaozhu, and felt very uncomfortable. But by the Southern Song Dynasty, octopus and other seafood were already delicacies in many local dishes. In terms of ingredients and flavors, a raw food approach is adopted. Later, there were not many people eating raw pigs, cattle, sheep, and deer, but the habit of eating raw fish fillets, including raw fish porridge, has remained to this day. The white-cut chicken should only be cooked, with a slight trace of blood on the thigh bone, and this is still the case today. Cantonese cuisine is characterized by exquisite knife skills, careful attention to ingredients that complement each other, and attention to light but not bland tastes.

Cantonese cuisine is also good at taking the strengths of each family and using them for my own use. I am always learning and always new. The famous dish of Jiangsu cuisine, squirrel mandarin fish, is famous all over the country, but it cannot be served in Cantonese banquets. Although Cantonese people like to eat rat meat, the name of rats is not dignified. The famous Cantonese chef uses his skillful knife skills to transform the fish into a small chrysanthemum shape, which is called chrysanthemum fish. With such a modification, it can be eaten in one bite, and it is convenient and hygienic to eat with chopsticks, knives and forks. Jiangsu cuisine has been transformed into Cantonese cuisine. In addition, the cooking methods of Cantonese cuisine such as soaking, grilling, roasting, and Sichuan are transplanted from the northern cuisine's popping, grilling, roasting, and boiling. The new methods of frying and deep-frying are formed by absorbing and improving similar methods of Western cuisine. However, the transplantation of Cantonese cuisine is not a mechanical application, but is developed based on Guangdong's wide range of raw materials, fresh texture, and people's taste for freshness and freshness. For example, in Northern cuisine, the steak is usually seasoned, grilled until crispy, thickened with gravy and oiled, and served on a plate, which is called clear steak. In Cantonese cuisine, the ingredients are stewed or steamed until greasy, and then stir-fried with thick gravy. This is mostly done with ingredients. Representative dishes include Bazhen Braised Duck, Shredded Chicken Braised Pork, etc. The food culture of Guangdong is closely related to that of other parts of the Central Plains. One of the important reasons is that there have been many mainlanders who established separate dynasties in history. Officials sent by dynasties to govern Guangdong and those who were demoted brought the food culture of the north with them. There were also many master chefs who passed on their skills to their local counterparts, or set up their own shops in the shops to make a living. The food culture from various places was directly introduced to the people of Lingnan, making it an important part of Cantonese cuisine. After the Han Dynasty, Guangzhou became a transportation hub on the Central and Western Sea Routes; in the Tang Dynasty, most foreign merchants gathered in Yangcheng, and merchant ships arrived in groups. At that time, the economy of Guangzhou was developing faster than that of other inland areas.

The more famous ones include Guiliansheng’s Manchu-Han banquet and fragrant seabass balls, Jufengyuan’s drunken shrimps and drunken crabs, Nanyangtang’s assorted cold dishes and Yipin hotpot, Pinrongsheng’s sesame balls, and Yubo Lou's Banzhai fried rice dumplings, Fulaiju's crispy crucian carp, Wanzhantang's hanging oven duck, Wenyuan's Jiangnan Baihua chicken, Nanyuan's braised abalone slices, Xiyuan's Dinghu Shangsu, Dasanyuan's braised large skirt wings , Snake Kingman’s Dragon and Tiger Stew, Liuguo’s Taiye Chicken, Yuyuan’s Glass Shrimp, Huayuan’s Osmanthus Wings, Beiguo’s Yushu Chicken, Wangji’s Roast Suckling Pig, Xinyuanlai’s Fish Cloud Soup, Jinling’s Sliced ??Skin Duck, Guan Zhen’s fish maw in clear soup, Tao Tao Ju’s fried crab, Cai Gen Xiang’s vegetarian food, Lu Yu Ju’s suckling pig, Baiyun pig trotters, Tai Ping Guan’s pigeon in western sauce, etc.

Cantonese cuisine consists of three local flavors: Guangzhou cuisine, Chaozhou cuisine, and Dongjiang cuisine. Guangzhou cuisine includes famous foods from the Pearl River Delta, Zhaoqing, Shaoguan, Zhanjiang and other places. It has the widest area, uses a variety of ingredients, finely selects ingredients, has excellent skills, is good at changing, and has a particular flavor, which is clear but not bland, fresh but not vulgar, tender but not raw, and oily but not greasy. In summer and autumn, we strive to be light, while in winter and spring we tend to focus on richness. We are good at stir-frying, and we need to control the heat and oil temperature just right. Chaoshan cuisine belongs to Fujian, and its language and customs are similar to those in southern Fujian. After being affiliated to Guangdong, it was also influenced by the Pearl River Delta. Therefore, Chaozhou cuisine is close to that of Fujian and Cantonese cuisine, and it combines the best of both worlds to form its own style. It is famous for cooking seafood, and soups, vegetarian dishes, and beets are the most distinctive. The knife work is fine and the taste is pure. Dongjiang cuisine is also known as Hakka cuisine because the Hakkas were originally from the Central Plains. During the late Han Dynasty and the late Northern Song Dynasty, they moved south to avoid war and settled in the Dongjiang area of ??Guangdong. Its language and customs still retain the inherent characteristics of the Central Plains. The dishes mostly use meat and very few aquatic products. The main ingredients are outstanding, and they pay attention to the aroma, heavy oil, and salty taste. They are famous for their casserole dishes, which have a unique local flavor.

There is also a branch of Hainanese cuisine in Cantonese cuisine, which has fewer varieties but has the unique flavor of tropical food. Cantonese cuisine mainly focuses on stir-frying and quick-frying, as well as stewing, pan-frying, and roasting. It emphasizes freshness, tenderness, refreshingness, and smoothness. It was once said to be "five flavors and six flavors." The "five flavors" are fragrant, loose, smelly, fat, and rich, and the "six flavors" are sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty, and umami. Pay attention to color, aroma, taste and shape at the same time. Many Cantonese dim sum are baked in an oven and have the characteristics of Western cuisine. The main famous dishes of Cantonese cuisine include crispy roasted suckling pig, dragon and tiger fight, Taiye chicken, Huguo cuisine, Chaozhou roasted eagle and goose, monkey brain soup and more than 100 kinds. 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 pig spread throughout the Qing Dynasty, but now it is famous in Guangdong. With the changes of the times, there have been continuous improvements in cooking and production, and it has truly achieved a "color like amber, but also like real gold". It has crispy skin and soft meat, and a strong fragrance on the outside and inside, which is suitable for the taste of southerners. "Taiye Chicken" is a famous traditional Guangzhou dish famous in Hong Kong and Macao. It started in the late Qing Dynasty and was discontinued in the 1970s.

The origin of Cantonese cuisine. It can be traced back to the early Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. In ancient times, before the immigrants from the Central Plains arrived, the ancestors of the Yue people in Lingnan had a unique eating style, such as their preference for white snakes, clams and raw food. During the Western Han Dynasty, Liu An once recorded that "the Yue people obtained pythons as delicacies". "Lingwai Daida" written by Zhou Qufei in the Song Dynasty also recorded that Guangzhou people "eat all birds, beasts, insects and snakes". 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 abundant. They are readily available and can be cooked and eaten. This has developed a preference for fresh and vigorous eating habits.

Since the Qin and Han dynasties, Han people from the Central Plains have been migrating southward into Guangzhou. They not only brought advanced production technology and cultural knowledge, but also brought the Central Plains food style of "never getting tired of fine cooking and fine food". During the Tang and Song Dynasties, a large number of merchants from all over the Central Plains entered Guangzhou, and Guangzhou's cooking skills improved rapidly. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Guangzhou's food culture reached its peak. According to relevant documents recorded in the second year of Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty (1822): "The meat forest and sea of ??wine in Xiguan, Guangzhou, there is no cold or heat, no day and night."

In the 1920s and 1930s, Guangchuan food customs were compatible with the north and the south. , a mixture of Chinese and Western cuisines and highly distinctive delicacies and snacks are emerging in large numbers. Over the long years, Guangzhou people have not only inherited the traditions of the Central Plains food culture, but also absorbed the essence of foreign and various aspects of cooking, and then continuously absorbed, accumulated, improved and innovated according to local tastes, hobbies and habits, thus forming a cuisine The food features various styles, skillful cooking skills, high quality and delicious food. In the past century, it has become one of the most representative and most influential food cultures in China. Whether it is based on the three major cuisines, namely "Shandong cuisine" in the Yellow River Basin, "Sichuan cuisine", "Jiangsu cuisine" and "Shanghai cuisine" in the Yangtze River basin, and "Cantonese cuisine" in the Pearl River basin, or according to the four major cuisines (i.e. Shandong cuisine) Cantonese cuisine occupies an extremely important position. Up to now, Guangzhou's food, whether it is the variety and quality of food, the number and scale of restaurants, or the food environment and service quality, is second to none in the country and also enjoys a high reputation abroad. Currently, there are nearly 20,000 restaurants in the city, with as many as 900,000 seats.