Chinese Cooking Art

Chinese cooking embodies the dining culture tradition  of Chinese nation. Compared with the cooking of all other nations in  the world, it has many distinctive features.
Firstly, it has varied flavor. Since our country has a vast territory  and abundant resources with differences in climate, products, customs  and habits in all parts, it has developed many flavors in diet over a  long period of time. There has been the saying of rice in the south and  noodles in the north in our country all the time. The flavor is divided  into sweetness in the south, saltiness in the north, sourness in the  east and hotness in the west, which can mainly be reduced to the four  flavors of Bashu (Sichun), Qilu (Shandong), Huaiyang (Jiangsu) and  Yuemin (Guangdong and Fujian).
Secondly, there are differences in four seasons. With four seasons in  a year, people take food according the seasons, which is another  feature of Chinese cooking. Since antiquity, our country has always  seasoned and matched food with the variation of seasons. The flavor is  pure and thick in winter while light and cool in summer. The food are  mostly braised, stewed, simmered in winter and cold and dressed with  sauce and frozen in summer.


Thirdly, it places an emphasis on aesthetic feeling. Chinese cooking  has not only superior techniques, but also has the tradtion of placing  an emphasis on the aesthetic feeling of dishes and pays attention to the  harmony and agreement of food’s color, fragrance, flavor, shape and  utensils. The aesthetic feeling of dishes has all around  representations. Whether it is a red radish or a green cabbage, all kind  of designs can be carved out, which has a unique style, attains the  harmony of color, fragrance, flavor, shape and beauty and provides  people with highly unified special enjoyment in spirit and material.
Chinese-Cooking-Art

Fourthly, it pays attention to temperament and interest. The cooking  of our country has placed an emphasis on taste and interest since very  early times. It not only has strict requirements on the color, fragrance  and flavor of meals and snacks, but also has certain requirements on  the naming of dishes, the manner of tasting the flavor, the rhythm of  having dinner and the insertion of entertainment, etc. The names of  Chinese dishes can be called reaching the aceme of perfection and  suiting both refined and popular tastes. The dishes may named  realistically according to the main ingredients, supplementary  ingredients and seasoning as well as their cooking methods or called in  accordance with historical literary quotations, myths, legends, the  intereting episodes of celebrities taking food, the image of dishes,  such as “family collections (made of all sorts of seafood and  riverfood)”, “red lion’s head (fried meatballs in brown sauce)”,  “beggar’s chicken” (roasted chicken in yellow mud).
Lastly, it combines food with medicine. The cooking technique of our  country is closely related with medical treament and health care. There  has been the statement that food and medicine have the same origin and  action since several thousand years ago. It takes advantage of the  medicinal properties of the raw materials of food and makes them into  all kinds of cuisine, thereby accomplishing the purpose of preventing  and curing certain diseases.