Sichuan has been called "the land of abundance" since ancient times. Rivers crisscross the territory, evergreen all the year round, and there are many and wide cooking materials. There are delicacies, fish, shrimp, crabs and turtles in the river; There are all kinds of fat and delicious livestock, as well as all kinds of fresh vegetables and bamboo shoots that keep coming all the year round; There are also a wide variety of brewing condiments and planting condiments with excellent texture, such as Zigong Well Salt, Neijiang White Sugar, Langzhong Baoning Vinegar, Deyang Soy Sauce, Pixian Douban, Mao Wen Zanthoxylum, Xufu Sprouts, Nanchong Winter Vegetables, Newly-made Pickled Vegetables, Chengdu Pepper, etc., which provide a good material basis for all kinds of cooking of Sichuan cuisine and its endless seasoning. In addition, many wines and teas related to cooking and banquets produced in Sichuan are also well-known at home and abroad for their excellent varieties and quality, such as Wuliangye in Yibin, Laojiao Tequ in Luzhou, Jiannanchun in Mianzhu, Quanxing Daqu in Chengdu and Langjiu in Gu Lin, which also promoted the development of Sichuan cuisine to some extent.
According to historians' research, ancient Bashu people had "respect for taste" and spicy eating customs. When nobles and rich people get married and entertain guests, there are various banquets such as "kitchen banquet", "picnic banquet", "hunting banquet", "boat banquet" and "picnic banquet". In the Qing Dynasty, people usually organized family banquets, field banquets, horse banquets and horse banquets to celebrate weddings, funerals and birthdays. The emphasis on food tradition and the popularization of Sichuan cuisine have created a large number of professionals who are good at cooking, making Sichuan cuisine skills passed down from generation to generation and lasting forever.
The development of Sichuan cuisine depends not only on its rich natural conditions and traditional customs, but also on the extensive absorption of foreign experience. It absorbs and digests all the court, government, ethnic and folk dishes, as well as religious temple dishes, takes its essence and enriches itself. Qin destroyed Bashu, and the rich and powerful people who "migrated" into Sichuan brought the dietary customs of the Central Plains. Later, foreigners who ruled Sichuan in past dynasties also brought their eating habits and famous dishes to Sichuan. Especially in the Qing Dynasty, more foreigners entered Sichuan, headed by Huguang, and also naturalized Shaanxi, Henan, Shandong, Yunnan, Guizhou, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other provinces. These people who entered Sichuan from other places not only brought their original eating habits, but also gradually assimilated them into traditional eating habits in Sichuan. In this case, Sichuan cuisine absorbs the strengths of various places, implements "southern Sichuan cuisine" and "northern Sichuan cuisine", inherits the development tradition, and constantly improves and perfects, forming a Sichuan cuisine with unique flavor and broad mass base.
Sichuan cuisine is mainly composed of senior banquet dishes, ordinary banquet dishes, popular leisure dishes and home-cooked dishes. The four major cuisines not only have their own styles and characteristics, but also penetrate and cooperate with each other to form a complete system, which is widely used in all walks of life and even abroad. Senior banquet dishes, with complicated cooking and exquisite craftsmanship, are generally made of delicacies and seasonal vegetables, requiring rich varieties, fresh seasonings, equal emphasis on color and taste, beautiful appearance and spectacular style. Ordinary banquet dishes require local materials, matching meat and vegetables, paying equal attention to soup and vegetables, fine processing, economy, simplicity and generosity. Popular simple meals are characterized by quick and economical cooking, such as kung pao chicken, shredded pork with fish flavor, boiled pork slices, Mapo tofu and other dishes. Home-cooked dishes, such as Sichuan-style pork, salt-fried pork, Kung Pao diced pork, stir-fried shredded beef, minced garlic, minced peas, cross-river tofu, etc., are very popular among the public and can be cooked by restaurants and families. In addition to the above four kinds of dishes, there are many famous traditional folk snacks and pastry dishes all over Sichuan, which also add content and luster to the rich local flavor of Sichuan cuisine.
Sichuan cuisine pays attention to color, aroma, taste and shape, especially in taste, which is characterized by diverse taste types, exquisite changes, extensive materials and heavy taste.
Sichuan cuisine is characterized by "three flavors, three peppers and three ingredients, seven flavors, eight flavors and nine miscellaneous". What is "three spices, three peppers, three ingredients, seven flavors, eight flavors and nine miscellaneous"? Three spices refer to onion, ginger and garlic, three peppers refer to pepper, pepper and pepper, and three ingredients refer to vinegar, Pixian watercress and fermented grains. Cooking needs onion, ginger and garlic, which is a universal truth, but the three peppers are a renovation on the basis of the truth and a further expansion of the flavor. Sichuanese especially make the patterns of these three kinds of peppers unique, producing a variety of flavors and creating a world-famous Sichuan flavor. Seven flavors mean: sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, hemp, spicy, fragrant and salty. Eight flavors refer to: fish flavor, spicy, hot and sour, dry-roasted, pepper, red oil, strange taste and pepper hemp. Nine miscellaneous refers to miscellaneous materials.
Up to now, Sichuan cuisine has three characteristics: wide range of materials, diverse tastes and wide adaptability of dishes, among which it is famous for its diverse tastes and ingenious changes. "Taste in Sichuan" is universally acknowledged.
Sichuan cuisine is famous for its spicy taste. Let's take a look at how Sichuan cuisine makes use of its spicy flavor, and we can compare its advantages with those of other places. When pepper is used together or alone with other spicy materials, there are ten different spicy flavors, such as dry spicy flavor (dried pepper), crisp spicy flavor (spicy shell sauce), oily spicy flavor (pepper), aromatic spicy flavor (onion, ginger and garlic), sweet spicy flavor (onion or garlic) and sauce spicy flavor (Pixian douban or Justin douban). Among the 23 flavors commonly used in Sichuan, 13 are related to spicy, such as salty and slightly spicy home-cooked flavor, salty, sweet, spicy and spicy fish flavor, sweet, salty, sour and spicy harmonious strange flavor, red oil flavor, spicy, sour and spicy, spicy, burnt and spicy, dried tangerine peel flavor, prickly ash hemp flavor, salt and pepper flavor, etc.
Sichuan cuisine pays attention to its rich variety and delicious taste, so it is loved and respected by people, which is inseparable from its exquisite cooking technology, fine production technology and strict operation requirements. Many varieties of Sichuan cuisine are made by various cooking methods. There are 30 kinds of cooking methods in common use, some of which are universal in China and some are original in Sichuan. For example, Sichuan's original fried, dry-fried, dry-cooked and home-cooked dishes are unique. Cooking refers to: no oil, no change of pan, temporary juice adjustment, quick fire and short frying, a pot of vegetables, vegetables from the pan to the plate, suddenly fragrant. Dry stir-frying: stir-frying filamentary raw materials with medium hot oil to dehydrate, mature and dry them. Dry-burning refers to: burning slowly with medium fire, so that the soup with strong taste penetrates into the raw materials and naturally becomes juice, which is mellow and thick. Do you use medium hot oil first when cooking at home? Stir-fry watercress, add soup, boil to remove residue, add ingredients, and simmer until cooked and tasty. Mapo tofu, which is familiar to foreigners in Sichuan, is home-cooked food.
The characteristics of Sichuan cuisine are: first, careful selection of ingredients. It requires strict selection of raw materials to make the best use of everything, not only to ensure quality, but also to pay attention to saving. The choice of raw materials includes the choice of seasoning. Many Sichuan dishes pay great attention to the choice of peppers, such as spicy and home-cooked dishes, which must use Pixian watercress in Sichuan; To make fish coriander, you must use Sichuan style to soak peppers. Second, the knife is fine. Knife work is a very important link in Sichuan cuisine. It requires producers to be careful, pay attention to specifications, and cut and shape raw materials according to the needs of cooking to make them uniform in size, length, thickness and consistency. This can not only make dishes easy to season, neat and beautiful, but also avoid uneven raw and cooked dishes, old and tender. For example, boiled beef and dried shredded beef are characterized by tender, smooth and crisp residue respectively. If the length, thickness and thickness of shredded pork and sliced meat are inconsistent, it is difficult to distinguish cooked meat from raw meat when cooking. In this way, no matter how skilled you are, you can't make good dishes with high quality and good taste. Third, reasonable collocation. Sichuan cuisine requires a reasonable mix of raw materials to highlight its flavor characteristics. The raw materials of Sichuan cuisine are used alone and in combination, emphasizing the appropriate combination of shade and meat dishes. Strong taste should be used alone, not with; Light with light, thick with thick, or a combination of strong and weak, but they can't make a taste; Meat and vegetables are well matched and cannot be confused. This requires not only selecting the main ingredients, but also matching the auxiliary materials. Only in this way can the dishes taste harmonious and rich, the raw materials match clearly, the texture groups complement each other, and the colors are harmonious and beautiful, so that the dishes are not only good in color, smell and taste, but also rich in nutritional value and artistic appreciation value. Carefully cooked. There are many cooking methods of Sichuan cuisine, and the use of cooking is very particular. Many Sichuan dishes are cooked by various cooking methods. There are dozens of cooking methods of Sichuan cuisine, such as frying, frying, frying, steaming, burning, simmering, boiling, stewing, frying, stewing, rolling, frying, stewing, pickling, smoking, mixing and stewing. The cooking method of each dish must be determined according to the nature of raw materials and the technological requirements of different dishes. In the operation requirements of Sichuan cuisine, we should grasp the order of feeding, the degree of cooking, the amount of food, the length of time and the speed of action; Pay attention to observe and control the color depth of dishes, the weight, quality and quantity of sauces; Master the taste of finished dishes, the degree of cooked, tender, dry, wet, soft and crisp dishes, and take necessary measures to ensure the cooking quality.
What is the charm of Sichuan cuisine? In short, delicious. What dishes are tasteless? Everything has a taste. The taste of Sichuan food is special for cooking, and it is very comfortable after eating. This is the original charm of Sichuan cuisine. Its greatest charm is not here, but in the taste of people and vegetables. Generally speaking, what kind of food you eat will make your character. What is the character of Sichuanese? Generally speaking, it is pungent, delicate and tough. Spicy because I ate spicy food, my pores were swollen and my tongue was straightened. I really don't have time to tell you in detail. Exquisite is because you are not satisfied with the simple taste, and you will never settle for it just because you can eat it. When your mouth is bored, you must create seven or eight kinds of strange smells, distinguish the differences and tell the truth; Stubborn because when you are hungry, you can always find something to eat and eat whatever you see. Sichuanese can do everything that can be done in the sky and underground.
To sum up, the charm of Sichuan cuisine is that you can't forget it after eating it, but you still want to eat it. You have a strong work spirit, no distractions, integrity, no beating around the bush, high efficiency and a lively life.
In a word, Sichuan cuisine has a long history and strong local flavor. With rich varieties, varied tastes and strong adaptability, it enjoys the reputation of "one dish is unique and all kinds of dishes are delicious". With its delicious taste and unique style, it has won the favor of people at home and abroad, and is praised by many people as "Eating in China and Taste in Sichuan". We should further inherit and carry forward the excellent tradition of Chinese food culture, and make Sichuan cuisine, a bright pearl, radiate more dazzling brilliance!