The origin of Cantonese cuisine can be traced back to the early Han Dynasty more than 2,000 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. It is recorded in Liu An of the Western Han Dynasty that "the more people get pythons, the better they eat". In the Song Dynasty, Zhou Qufei's "A Generation Beyond the Ridge" also recorded that Guangzhou people "don't ask birds, animals, insects and snakes what they eat". 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 and easy to get, cook and eat, 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 tired of cooking in detail and never tired of eating in essence". 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 the second year of Qing Daoguang (1822), "Guangzhou Xiguan meat forest is full of wine and sea, with no cold and heat, no day and night."
In the 1920s and 1930s, Guang Chuan's food customs, North-South compatibility, Chinese and Western combination, and special food snacks emerged in large numbers. In the long years, Guangzhou people not only inherited the tradition of Central Plains food culture, but also absorbed the 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 hundred years, it has become one of the most representative and influential food cultures in China.
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