Table 1 Characteristics of the four cuisines in China
From: Nutritional characteristics and health effects of regional cuisines in China
Cuisines | Region | Flavor | Original food ingredients | Cooking methods | Condiments | Representative dishes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sichuan Cuisine | Chengdu, Chongqing | Taste: sour, sweet, spicy hot, spicy, bitter, salty, and fragrant; 8 flavors: fish-flavored, sour and hot, spicy and hot, odd taste, pepper and chili, red camphor oil, ginger juice and home-cooked taste | Game; aquatic products; a variety of tender and delicious poultry and animal meat; plenty of fresh vegetables, mushroom, bamboo shoot, and fungus | Stir-frying, pan-frying, braising, dry-frying, deep-frying, stewing, smoking, simmering in a covered pot over a slow fire, baking on a pan, quick-scalding, salting, and stewing in soy sauce | Chinese prickly ash, hot peppers, shallot, ginger, garlic, capsicum, vinegar, bean paste | Sichuan hotpot, double-cooked pork, mapo tofu, fish filets in hot chili oil, spicy diced chicken with peanuts |
Jiangsu cuisine | Nanjing, Huiyang, Suzhou, Wuxi | Sweet, salt, and especially pure, freshness, and mildness | Aquatic products, variety of vegetables | Stewing, braising, simmering, warming | Salt, sugar and yellow rice, or millet wine | Water melon chicken, brine-boiled duck, sweet and sour mandarin fish, duck wrapped in shark fins, fireside broth |
Shandong cuisine | Jining, Jinan, Jiaodong Peninsula (Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai) | Salt, pure, and umami oriented | Abundant peanuts, wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, sorghum, millet, soya beans; varieties of vegetables and fruits; huge products of seafood | Quick frying, boiling, frying, deep-frying, quick frying with corn flour, frying and simmering, stewing, stuffing, roasting | Sauce paste, fistulous onion, and garlic | Nine-coiled braised pig intestine in brown sauce, stir-fried large yellow croaker with sugar and vinegar, stir-fried sea cucumber with green onions, stir-fried pig’s kidney, pull-out silk sweet potato with caramelized sugar |
Cantonese cuisine | Guangzhou, Chaozhou,Dongjiang | Mild, fresh, natural and slightly sweet, sour, bitter, spicy | Delicacies of mountain and sea and a rich variety of fresh vegetables | Stir frying and steaming | Sweet and sour sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, white brine dark plum sauce, cranberry sauce, barbecue sauce and fish sauce | Roast suckling pig, dry-fried beef and noodles, barbequed pork (char siu), small pan rice, brine-soaked duck |