As the saying goes, "You can rely on mountains to eat mountains, and you can rely on water to eat water." "A place where water and soil support a person" is about adaptation. China has a vast territory and diverse natural conditions. The 56 ethnic groups living in China have each formed unique and rich dietary customs in different natural environments. For example, the Mongolian, Tibetan, Kazakh and other ethnic herdsmen living on the prairie eat meat and drink milk; the Hezhen people live in the Sanjiang Water Town of Heilongjiang, where fish is the main food; and the Oroqen people who live in the dense forests of the Xing'an Mountains eat birds. Animal meat... This is an unchangeable dietary pattern in an era of underdeveloped transportation. The south is suitable for growing rice, so people in the south generally eat rice as their staple food; the north has a variety of wheat and other cereals, so the people in the north eat noodles and other cereals as their staple food; the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is suitable for growing green trees, so farmers of all ethnic groups living here have highland barley as their staple food. Shuxiang has heavy humidity, and many people eat spicy food; Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Hunan, Guizhou and many mountainous areas, either due to water and soil conditions or due to a long-term lack of salt in history, people like to eat sour food... These local characteristics in diet It makes Chinese food culture show a colorful situation.

"Food China" takes chronological order as its longitude and various ethnic groups and local characteristics as its weft. It describes in detail the dietary conditions and dietary customs of various ethnic groups and classes in the Chinese nation over the past five thousand years. It also includes a lot of dietary knowledge, which allows us to have a detailed understanding of the diet of our ancestors and various places, as well as the diet of the five thousand cars of the Chinese nation. The essence of culture. The rich and exquisite illustrations in the book bring us visual enjoyment.

“Food is the first necessity of the people”, and eating is the primary means to achieve survival goals. Therefore, the birth of life is the day when the activity of eating begins, but the activity of eating does not have utensils in its initial stage. Before learning how to use fire, what humans ate and how they ate were no different from the animal kingdom, that is, they directly ate plant fruits and animal flesh and blood. This eating method of "rubbing hair and drinking blood" did not exist and did not require any eating utensils. This stage is called the raw food stage. After mastering the use of fire, people first grilled food in the fire before eating it. Or heat the stone and then bake the food on the stone before eating, thus entering the primitive stage of cooked food. But at this time, eating utensils in the true sense have not yet been produced. During the Paleolithic Age, which lasted for millions of years, human beings relied on these two primitive methods of barbecue and roasting to survive and reproduce.

China is an ancient civilization with a history of five thousand years. Its food culture and cooking skills are part of its civilization history. It is the crystallization of China's splendid culture. China has a vast territory and diverse climates, including tropical, subtropical, temperate and sub-arctic zones. It also has diverse terrain, including rivers, lakes and seas, mountains and plains. This provides Chinese food and cooking with different types and qualities. It has rich animal and plant raw materials and seasonings such as fish, meat, poultry and eggs, delicacies from mountains and sea, fruits and vegetables. Over thousands of years, Chinese food has accumulated exquisite cooking techniques. The cooking methods include: roasting, frying, roasting, stewing, stir-frying, braising, stir-frying, sautéing, smoking, braising, pan-frying, boiling, pasting, steaming and other recent methods. There are hundreds of varieties, thus forming a wide variety of cuisines and varieties with different flavors. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 10,000 kinds of dishes across the country. The famous Qing court banquet dish "Man-Han Banquet" has more than 120 kinds of hot and cold dishes on this table alone. The Chinese food culture represented by this kind of big dish shows the gorgeous and magnificent "Celestial" and "Emperor" mentality, and shows the universal characteristics of Chinese traditional culture.

Chinese food is famous for its bright color, rich aroma, fresh taste and beautiful appearance. Its shape is beautiful, especially the fancy cold platter is the most outstanding. It is unique in shape, colorful and lifelike, presenting artistic scenery and patterns. The mountains, rivers, trees, pavilions, flowers, birds, fish, insects, rare birds and animals are all on the plate. It seems like a beautiful picture, giving people enjoyment. Moreover, every set of Chinese food is in even numbers, with four, six, eight, ten...etc. becoming a general rule. As the saying goes: "Two plates for guests, three plates for turtles." The pursuit of even numbers just reflects the Chinese culture's emphasis on "perfection" and the psychological habit of pursuing even numbers for profit.

The names of Chinese food dishes are also unique, rich in traditional Chinese cultural characteristics, and give people a good aftertaste. Such as dragons playing with pearls, white snow in spring, peonies with silver pearls, green jade surrounded by gold, peaches picked by jade hands, fish presented at the palace gate, etc., there are all kinds of them. It is full of poetry and painting, and sometimes it is a kind of three-dimensional poetry paired with painting. In China, you can tell where you go and where you eat. Hotels, restaurants, restaurants, and food stalls abound across the country. Especially in major and medium-sized cities, in just one place, you can taste the food flavors from all over the north and south, including famous meat and vegetable dishes, dim sum, noodles, porridge, and seasonal snacks. Even abroad, there are many Chinese restaurants, almost all over the world. Moreover, these Chinese restaurants are often full of guests, overwhelmed, and business is very prosperous. In the United States, there are an astonishing number of Chinese restaurants. In New York alone, there are more than 5,000.

China has a vast territory and is the nation that attaches most importance to "eating" in the world. After thousands of years of development. A broad and profound "food culture" has been formed. For a long time, various places have formed their own unique flavors and different cuisines due to the use of different raw materials, different ingredients, and different cooking methods. Among them, the eight more famous cuisines refer to Sichuan, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Hunan, Fujian, Hui, Zhejiang, Shandong, etc.

In addition, due to the limited level of the editor of this book, errors and omissions in the book are inevitable. I hope readers and experts will criticize and correct me so that this book can be more perfect.