The Eight Great Culinary Traditions of China

From Across the Vast Expanse, Eight Renowned Regional Cuisines

China's vast territory encompasses diverse geographical and climatic conditions, nurturing a variety of food resources. Regions with significant climatic differences, such as the north and south, as well as coastal and inland areas, have entirely distinct dietary habits.

Eight Great Cuisines

China has eight major cuisines, known as the 'Eight Great Cuisines', which are:

Cuisine	Flavors	Specialty Ingredients	Region	Cities
Shandong Cuisine	Fresh, tender, flavorful	Seafood, poultry, vegetables	Northern	Jinan, Qingdao
Sichuan Cuisine	Numbing, spicy, fragrant, fresh, oily, thick	Chilies, Sichuan pepper, fermented black beans	Southwestern	Chengdu, Chongqing
Cantonese Cuisine	Light, delicious	Seafood, meat, game	Southern	Guangzhou, Shenzhen
Jiangsu Cuisine	Fresh, sweet	River fish, meat, vegetables	Eastern	Yangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing
Fujian Cuisine	Fresh, rich soups	Seafood, wild delicacies	Southeastern	Fuzhou, Xiamen
Zhejiang Cuisine	Fresh, original flavor	Seafood, river fish, bamboo shoots	Eastern	Hangzhou
Hunan Cuisine	Spicy, sour-spicy	Chilies, pickled vegetables	Central Southern	Changsha
Anhui Cuisine	Rich flavor, thick soup	Wild delicacies, ham, tea leaves	Central	Huangshan， Hefei

Shandong Cuisine

Shandong Cuisine pursues the original flavors of its ingredients, with moderate seasoning, and focuses on maintaining the true character of the food materials. The history of Shandong Cuisine is long-standing, dating back to the Spring and Autumn period, and it has deep ties with Confucian culture.

Sichuan Cuisine

Sichuan cuisine is renowned for its 'hundred dishes, hundred flavors' characteristic, with tastes including numbing, spicy, sour, sweet, salty, and umami, among which the numbing-spicy flavor is the most famous.

It excels in the use of seasonings such as Sichuan pepper, dried chili peppers, broad bean sauce, pickled chili peppers, vinegar, soy sauce, and others, some of which have unique flavors. Sichuan cuisine also makes skillful use of various accompaniments and side dishes, striving for perfection in color, aroma, taste, and appearance. Famous Sichuan dishes include Kung Pao Chicken, Mapo Tofu, Sichuan Boiled Beef (also known as Water-cooked Beef), Twice Cooked Pork, and Husband and Wife Lung Slices.

It is also divided into the Chengdu Style and the Chongqing Style, each with its own distinct characteristics.

Chongqing Style

Chongqing Style is renowned for its spicy and numbing flavors, particularly standing out in its use of Sichuan pepper and chili peppers.

Savor Má Là, the Chongqing Jianghu Cuisine

Cantonese Cuisine

Cantonese Cuisine is renowned for its wide selection of ingredients. People from Guangdong place great importance on the freshness of their ingredients, ranging from meats and poultry on land to fish and other seafood from the ocean, encompassing almost everything. Cantonese Cuisine also frequently employs various rare ingredients. One of its distinctive features is the dim sum in Cantonese Cuisine; the tradition of yum cha (having morning tea) is an integral part of the Guangdong lifestyle. Dim sum comes in a vast variety, is intricately made, and offers rich flavors, including both savory and sweet options.

Jiangsu Cuisine

Jiangsu Cuisine (Suzhou Cuisine) is known for its exquisite refinement, where chefs display exceptional skill in their knife techniques. The soups in Jiangsu Cuisine are particularly famous, and the region is also well-known for its snacks.

Fujian Cuisine

Fujian Province is located on the southeast coast of China and boasts abundant seafood resources, as well as a rich variety of game and fungi from its mountainous regions. Fujian Cuisine tends to have a relatively light flavor profile, emphasizing the preservation of the original taste of the ingredients.

Zhejiang Cuisine

Zhejiang Cuisine emphasizes the true flavors of its ingredients, using a relatively light hand with seasonings and avoiding excessive spices or condiments in order to highlight the natural freshness of the raw materials.

Hunan Cuisine

Hunan Cuisine is known for its spiciness, but unlike Sichuan Cuisine's numbing and spicy flavor, Hunan dishes predominantly use dried and fresh chili peppers, which can result in a more direct and intense heat.

Sino-Western Differences

Chinese cuisine emphasizes rapid heating methods, commonly using techniques such as stir-frying, boiling, steaming, and stewing. It focuses on the pairing of condiments such as soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, salt, and five-spice powder. The cuisine features a combination of sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty flavors, resulting in a diverse range of tastes. The ingredients selected are also very diverse, including seafood, meats, vegetables, bean products, and mushrooms, as well as many ingredients uncommon in Western cuisine, such as tofu skins, lotus roots, and bamboo shoots.

Chinese cooking excels in using a wide variety of ingredients, with different parts of the same ingredient often prepared using various cooking methods. Taking chicken as an example, apart from chicken meat and chicken wings, parts such as chicken feet, chicken gizzards, chicken hearts, chicken livers, chicken intestines, and chicken blood can all be made into various dishes.

Staple Foods

Chinese staple foods primarily include rice, noodles, mantou, and baozi, which form the basis of daily meals across the country.

Shared Dishes

In traditional Chinese culture, Family Style Dishes are emphasized, where everyone gathers around a large round table, and each dish is placed in the center for everyone to share. Each person serves their own rice, then uses chopsticks to add a little bit of each dish to their own bowl at a time.

Meals are typically structured around having several dishes with one soup. Soup is an essential part of daily meals. Having soup with the meal is a tradition in Chinese cuisine. In everyday home cooking, whether it's three dishes with one soup, four dishes with one soup, or six dishes with one soup, there is always a bowl of soup included. The selection of dishes usually includes vegetables, meat, and a main course.

As a matter of etiquette, everyone typically starts eating together; those who finish early generally wait until everyone else is finished before leaving the table.