Basic Knowledge about Chinese Food Culture
By admin on 2014-12-16

As is known to all, China is noted for its delicious and aboundant food. However, it is not easy to give a thorough description, thanks to the long history and related food culture. Many factors matter in relation to the food diversity. A quick view may help us have a basic understanding of Chinese food.

A set of dining tools

Different from western people, Chinese is used to having their dinner together with all the family members, sitting around a table and each person having one set of dining tool including two bowls, one pair of chopsticks. They share dishes which are put into the central of table, diners will only pick up the food from dishes which they want to eat. There are 2 special habits, one is, Chinese diners never pick up rice from the bowl but will handle the bowl towards their lips then poke the rice into their mouths by the chopsticks. The other one is, Chinese always have soup during or after dining.

Doufu

Based on famous classes divided by district, there are style of Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, North-West, and so on…or by folk, there are kajia, Yunan, Fujian, etc. These above- mentioned styles are well-known worldwide. Special dishes like doufu, steamed fish, lobster and  tea eggs etc. are very popular.

During holidays, there are some special snacks, such as sweet-stick cake and turnip pastry in Lunar New Year, glutinous rice tamale in Dragon Boat Festival, moon cake in Middle Autumn Festival etc. and steamed buns to the Birthday person.

Buddhism and Tao are main religions in Mainland China. It is a must to simply know that vegetarian diets become the main food to the people who are monk and nun, as well as Taoist. There are many vegetarian diets made like meat. They are funny to look and healthy to taste. Islam is one of the large religion in Mainland China, but it is well-known that, the Muslins never eat Pork, and their famous recipe is BBQ Lamb.

Gluten is like abalone

Generally, we can divide farming products of main food in China into 3 styles, that is rice in the south and east China, wheat in north China and sweet corn in middle, norht and west China. As a result, people living in Southern China have rice, congee or rice noodle as their main food, and those in Northern China have wheat-made products like bun, noodle, pancake. The populace living on seaside and lakeside will have seafood or lake fishes as meals. Of course, people can have any food as they want nowadays.

There is a big difference on diets between Northern and Southern China, that is, the dishes made by Northern Chefs are in heavier taste and those are comparably light in Southern Chefs' recipes. We say food tastes sweet and fresh in the south. In the Northern and Western Provinces of China like Ningxia, Hebei, Sichuan, and Yunnan, diets are made in hot and spicy flavor, because of the humid cold weather and high altitude.