This can also be seen from the structure of staple food. South China has a humid climate and abundant rice. Therefore, rice is the staple food. The northern climate is relatively dry and cold, suitable for the growth of crops such as wheat. Therefore, flour is the staple food.
Shanxi people can be jealous, which is the first of the "western acid". Before they eat, they often bring vinegar bottles first, and each person drinks three spoonfuls of vinegar to "satisfy their cravings". Before the reform and opening up, every Spring Festival, some good wines were supplied from other places, but the oil and salt shops in Taiyuan posted a note: "Supply old vinegar, one catty for each household." When someone came to propose to the girl, the mother first asked, "How many pickle jars are there in his house?" There are many jars of sauerkraut, which shows that the family is thick. In addition, both Fujian people and Guangxi people like to eat sour bamboo shoots, and the more sour they are, the more they can reflect the level of the producers. Dai people also love sour, and stewed chicken with sour bamboo shoots is a traditional famous dish.
Why do "Westerners" in Shanxi and other places like to eat sour food? Open the map of China, we can know that the soil and water in these areas, especially the Loess Plateau, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and its surrounding areas contain a lot of calcium. Therefore, their food contains more calcium. In this way, through diet, it is easy to cause calcium deposition in the body and form stones. Working people in this field, after long-term practical experience, found that eating more acidic food is conducive to reducing diseases such as stones. Over time, they gradually developed the habit of eating sour.
Korean residents in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan and Northeast China like spicy food. There is a saying in China that "Guizhou people are not afraid of spicy food, Hunan people are not afraid of spicy food, and Sichuan people are not afraid of spicy food". People in Guizhou have eaten many peppers in their lives, including early peppers and wild peppers. In northern Sichuan, I heard that there is a kind of pepper that you can't eat by yourself. It hangs on the stove with a thread. After the soup is cooked, the pepper is rinsed in the soup, which is extremely spicy, so it is called "rinse-rinse-rinse". Sichuan's "Mala Tang" is famous all over the country. It can be said that there is no famous Sichuan food that is not spicy, not a "famous food". Now people call Sichuan women "Sichuan sisters" and "spice girls", which is probably based on this.
Spicy food customs are mostly related to the humid geographical environment. On the eastern coast of China, the local climate of Korean nationality in Northeast China is wet and rainy, and it is wet and cold in winter and spring. Although Sichuan is not in the east, it is indeed located in the basin, which is humid and foggy. The sunshine is rare all year round, so it is called "Shu Dog Barks". This kind of climate makes people's body surface humidity equal to air saturation humidity, which makes it difficult to discharge sweat and makes people feel bored and uneasy. After a long time, it is easy to cause people to suffer from rheumatism, cold evil and spleen and stomach weakness. Eating Chili peppers makes you sweat all over, of course, sweat is easy to excrete. Eating pepper regularly can dispel cold and dampness, strengthen the spleen and stomach, which is extremely beneficial to health (for local people). In addition, eating spicy food in the northeast is also related to the cold climate. Eating spicy food can drive away the cold. Lu Xun also had the habit of eating spicy food to keep out the cold when studying abroad.
The northern part of China is the Inner Mongolia Plateau. In the past, fresh vegetables were rare for northerners. Mr. Lu Xun said that "the cabbage in Jiaodong was shipped to Beijing, so it was tied up with red rope and hung upside down at the door of a fruit shop, euphemistically called' glue vegetables'", which was what he meant. The north of China is located in the warm temperate zone, with cold and dry winters, mild and rainy summers and high temperatures throughout the year. In the past, even a small amount of vegetables were difficult to spend the winter, and at the same time, they were unwilling to "squander" for a while. Northerners pickled vegetables and slowly "enjoyed" them. As a result, most people in the north have also developed the habit of eating salty food.
People say Suzhou food is sweet, but in fact, compared with Wuxi food, Suzhou food is only light. There is a lot of sugar in Wuxi fried eel paste, and there is also a lot of sugar in the meat stuffing of steamed buns, which northerners can't eat at all. Most residents in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Yunnan also like sweets. The south is rainy, with good light and heat conditions, and is rich in sugar cane. Compared with the north, vegetables are planted several times a year. Southerners are surrounded by sugar and naturally develop the habit of eating sweet. It is not that northerners don't like sweets. It's just that there was little sugar in the past, so they had to use "salty" instead of "sweet" to adjust the taste. Although there is no shortage of "sugar" in the north now, once the taste is formed, it cannot be changed overnight. I believe that with the development of society and the continuation of time, this relative trend of salty and sweet will weaken.
Of course, "sweet in the south and salty in the north, spicy in the east and sour in the west" is just a general and relative statement. China has a vast territory and abundant resources, and its eating habits are very different, even different in some areas, which is also related to the economic development, ethnic customs and personal habits of various places.