History of Chinese cuisine
The history of Chinese cuisine is marked by both variety and change. The archaeologist and scholar Kwang-chih Chang says "Chinese people are especially preoccupied with food" and "food is at the center of, or at least it accompanies or symbolizes, many social interactions". Over the course of history, he says, "continuity vastly outweighs change." He explains basic organizing principles which go back to earliest times and give a continuity to the food tradition, principally that a normal meal is made up of grains and other starches (traditional Chinese: 飯; simplified Chinese: 饭; pinyin: fàn) and vegetable (菜; cài) or meat dishes .[1]
Overview
The
- The expansion of Han culture from the upland stretches of the Yellow River across a huge and expanding geographical area with climate zones ranging from the tropical to the subarctic, each providing new ingredients and indigenous cooking traditions;
- An elaborate but continually developing traditional medicine which saw food as the basis of good health ("Food was medicine and medicine, food");
- Constantly shifting demands from elites – beginning with the imperial courts and provincial governors but eventually expanding to include rich landowners, "scholar-gourmands", and itinerant merchants – for specialised cuisines, however far away from home; and
- Continuous absorption of diverse foreign influences, including the ingredients, cooking methods, and recipes from invading steppe nomads, European missionaries, and Japanese traders.
The philosopher and writer Lin Yutang was more relaxed:
- How a Chinese life glows over a good feast! How apt is he to cry out that life is beautiful when his stomach and his intestines are well filled! From this well-filled stomach suffuses and radiates a happiness that is spiritual. The Chinese relies upon instinct and his instinct tells him that when the stomach is right, everything is right. That is why I claim for the Chinese a life closer to instinct and a philosophy that makes a more open acknowledgment of it possible.[2]
Chinese cuisine as we now know it evolved gradually over the centuries as new food sources and techniques were introduced, discovered, or invented. Although many of the characteristics we think of as the most important appeared very early, others did not appear or did not become important until relatively late. The first
The "
Classifications
Not long after the expansion of the
Northern and southern cuisine
The primary and earliest distinction was between the earlier settled and relatively arid
Four Schools
The "Four Schools" refers to Shandong's (called after its former polity of Lu), Jiangsu's (called Yang after its most famous branch), Cantonese (called after its former polity of Yue), and Sichuan's (abbreviated to Chuan) cuisines.
The cooking styles of other areas was then arranged as branches of these four:
Lu (Shandong) | Yang (Su) | Yue (Guangdong/Cantonese) | Chuan (Sichuan) |
---|---|---|---|
|
Eight Schools
Eventually, four of these branches were recognized as distinct Chinese schools themselves:
's (abbreviated as Zhe).History
Neolithic
Although no reliable written sources document this era of Chinese history, archaeologists are sometimes able to make deductions about food preparation and storage based on site excavations. Sometimes artifacts and (very rarely) actual preserved foodstuffs are discovered. In October 2005, the oldest
Early dynastic times
Legendary accounts of the introduction of agriculture by
The most common staple crops consumed during the
During the Han dynasty, Chinese developed methods of food preservation for military rations during campaigns such as drying meat into jerky and cooking, roasting, and drying grain.[14]
Chinese legends claim that the roasted, flat shaobing bread was brought back from the Xiyu (the Western Regions, a name for Central Asia) by the Han dynasty General Ban Chao, and that it was originally known as barbarian pastry (simplified Chinese: 胡饼; traditional Chinese: 胡餅; pinyin: húbǐng). The shaobing is believed to be descended from the hubing.[15] Shaobing is believed to be related to the Persian and Central Asian naan and the Near Eastern pita.[16][17][18][19] Central Asians made and sold sesame cakes in China during the Tang dynasty.[20]
Southern and Northern dynasties
During the
Tang Dynasty
The fascination with exotics from the diverse range of the Tang empire and the search for plants and animals which promoted health and longevity were two of the factors encouraging diversity in Tang dynasty diet.
Some foods were also off-limits, as the Tang court encouraged people not to eat
During the earlier
Methods of food preservation continued to develop. The common people used simple methods of preservation, such as digging deep ditches and trenches, brining, and salting their foods.[40] The emperor had large ice pits located in the parks in and around Chang'an for preserving food, while the wealthy and elite had their own smaller ice pits.[41] Each year the emperor had laborers carve 1000 blocks of ice from frozen creeks in mountain valleys, each block with the dimension of 0.91 by 0.91 by 1.06 m (3.0 by 3.0 by 3.5 ft).[41] There were many frozen delicacies enjoyed during the summer, especially chilled melon.[41]
Liao, Song and Jurchen Jin dynasties
The Song saw a turning point. Twin revolutions in commerce and agriculture created an enlarged group of leisured and cultivated city dwellers with access to a great range of techniques and materials for whom eating became a self-conscious and rational experience. The food historian Michael Freeman argues that the Song developed a "cuisine" which was "derived from no single tradition but, rather, amalgamates, selects, and organizes the best of several traditions." "Cuisine" in this sense does not develop out of the cooking traditions of a single region, but "requires a sizable corps of critical adventuresome eaters, not bound by the tastes of their native region and willing to try unfamiliar food". Finally, "cuisine" is the product of attitudes which "give first place to the real pleasure of consuming food rather than to its purely ritualistic significance." This was neither the ritual or political cuisine of the court, nor the cooking of the countryside, but rather what we now think of as "Chinese food".[43] In the Song, we find well-documented evidence for restaurants, that is, places where customers chose from menus, as opposed to taverns or hostels, where they had no choice. These restaurants featured regional cuisines. Gourmets wrote of their preferences, showing that food and eating had become a conscious aesthetic experience. These Song phenomena were not found until much later in Europe.[44]
There are lists of entrées and food dishes in customer menus for restaurants and taverns, as well as for feasts at banquets, festivals and carnivals, and modest dining, most copiously in the memoir
Regional differences in ecology and culture produced different styles of cooking. In the turmoil of the Southern Song, refugees brought cooking traditions of regional cultures to the capital at Hangzhou.[44] After the mass exodus from the north, people brought Henan-style cooking and foods (popular in the previous Northern Song capital at Kaifeng) to Hangzhou, which was blended with the cooking traditions of Zhejiang.[44]
However, already in the Northern Song capital at Kaifeng there were restaurants that served southern Chinese cuisine.[44][47] They catered to capital officials whose native provinces were in the southeast, and would have found northern cuisine too bland for their tastes.[44] Song era documents provide the first use of the phrases nanshi, beishi, and chuanfan to refer specifically to southern (南食), northern (北食), and Sichuan (川饭) food, respectively.[47] Restaurants were known for their specialties; for example, a restaurant in Hangzhou served only iced foods,[48] while some restaurants catered to those who wanted either hot, warm, room temperature, or cold foods.[49] Descendants of Kaifeng restaurant owners ran most of the restaurants in Hangzhou,[50] but many other regional varieties were also represented. This included restaurants featuring highly spiced Sichuan cuisine; there were taverns featuring dishes and beverages from Hebei and Shandong, as well as those with coastal foods of shrimp and saltwater fish.[42] The memory and patience of waiters had to be keen; in the larger restaurants, dinner parties with twenty or so dishes became a hassle if the server made even a slight mistake. If a guest complained, the waiter could be scolded, have his salary docked, or in extreme cases, even fired.[49]
Along the wide avenue of the Imperial Way in Hangzhou, special breakfast items and delicacies were sold in the morning.
Foods came to China from abroad, including
Special and combination dishes included scented shellfish cooked in rice-wine, geese with apricots, lotus seed soup, spicy soup with mussels and fish cooked with plums, sweet soya soup, baked sesame buns stuffed with either sour bean filling or pork tenderloin, mixed vegetable buns, fragrant candied fruit, strips of ginger and fermented beanpaste, jujube-stuffed steamed dumplings, fried chestnuts, salted fermented bean soup, fruit cooked in scented honey, and 'honey crisps' of kneaded and baked honey, flour, mutton fat and pork lard.[46][53][61][62][63] Dessert molds of oiled flour and sugared honey were shaped into girls' faces or statuettes of soldiers with full armor like door guards, and were called "likeness foods" (guoshi).[64]
Su Shi a famous poet and statesmen at the time wrote extensively on the food and wine of the period. The legacy of his appreciation of food and gastronomy, as well as his later popularity can be seen in Dongpo pork, a dish named after him.[citation needed] An influential work which recorded the cuisine of this period is Shanjia Qinggong (山家清供; 'The Simple Foods of the Mountain Folk') by Lin Hong (林洪). This recipe book accounts the preparation of numerous dishes of common and fine cuisines.[65] The dietary and culinary habits also changed greatly during this period, with many ingredients such as soy sauce and Central Asian influenced foods becoming widespread and the creation of important cookbooks such as the Shanjia Qinggong and the Wushi Zhongkuilu (Chinese: 吳氏中饋錄; pinyin: wushi zhoungkuilu) showing the respective esoteric foods and common household cuisine of the time.[65][66]
Mongol Yuan Dynasty
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During the
Ming dynasty
China during the
Qing dynasty
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2009) |
Jonathan Spence writes appreciatively that by the Qing Dynasty the "culinary arts were treated as a part of the life of the mind: There was a Tao of food, just as there was Tao of conduct and one of literary creation." The opulence of the scholar-official
- I always say that chicken, pork, fish and duck are the original geniuses of the board, each with a flavor of its own, each with its distinctive style; whereas sea-slug and swallows-nest (despite their costliness) are commonplace fellows, with no character – in fact, mere hangers-on. I was once asked to a party by a certain Governor, who gave us plain boiled swallows-nest, served in enormous vases, like flower pots. It had no taste at all.... If our host’s object was simply to impress, it would have been better to put a hundred pearls into each bowl. Then we would have known that the meal had cost him tens of thousands, without the unpleasantness of being expected to eat what was uneatable."
After such a meal, Yuan said, he would return home and make himself a bowl of congee.[75]
The records of the Imperial Banqueting Court (光禄寺; 光祿寺; Guānglù Sì; Kuang-lu ssu) published in the late Qing period showed there were several levels of Manchu banquets (满席; 滿席; Mǎn xí) and Chinese banquets (汉席; 漢席; Hàn xí).
The specialty dish Dazhu gansi was highly commended by the Qing emperor Qianglong.
Post-Dynastic China
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2012) |
After the end of the Qing dynasty, the cook previously employed by the Imperial Kitchens opened-up restaurants which allowed the people to experience many of the formerly inaccessible foods eaten by the Emperor and his court. However, with the beginning of the Chinese Civil War, many of the cooks and individuals knowledgeable in the cuisines of the period in China left for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States. Among them were the likes of Irene Kuo who was an ambassador to the culinary heritage of China, teaching the Western world of the more refined aspects of Chinese cuisine.[77]
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the nation has suffered from a series of major food supply problems under the
Year | Percent of grain handed over to the Communist party[78] |
---|---|
1957 | 24.8% |
1959 | 39.6% |
1960 | 35.7% |
In Beijing in the 1990s, a Communist-style cuisine, which is also called Cultural Revolution cuisine or CR cuisine has also been popular.
One of the cuisines to benefit during the 1990s was the
Crocodiles were eaten by Vietnamese while they were taboo and off limits for Chinese. Vietnamese women who married Chinese men adopted the Chinese taboo.[82]
Famous quotes
A common saying attempts to summarize the entire cuisine in one sentence, although it now rather outdated (Hunan and Sichuan are now more famous even within China for their spicy food) and numerous variants have sprung up:
Language | Phrase |
---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 東甜,南鹹,西酸,北辣[83] |
Simplified Chinese | 东甜,南咸,西酸,北辣 |
English | The East is sweet, the South's salty, the West is sour, the North is hot. |
Pinyin | Dōng tián, nán xián, xī suān, běi là. |
Jyutping | Dung1 tim4, naam4 haam4, sai1 syun1, bak1 laat6*2. |
Another popular traditional phrase, discussing regional strengths, singles out Cantonese cuisine as a favorite:
Language | Phrase |
---|---|
Traditional Chinese |
食在廣州,穿在蘇州,玩在杭州,死在柳州 |
Simplified Chinese |
食在广州,穿在苏州,玩在杭州,死在柳州[citation needed] |
English | Eat in Guangzhou, clothe in Suzhou, play in Hangzhou, die in Liuzhou. |
Pinyin | Shí zài Guǎngzhōu, chuān zài Sūzhōu, wán zài Hángzhōu, sǐ zài Liǔzhōu. |
Cantonese | Sik joi Gwongjau, chuen joi Sojau, waan joi Hongjau, sei joi Laujau. |
The other references praise Suzhou's
See also
- A Bite of China – a seven-part CCTV television series
Notes
- Yale Univ. Press (New Haven, Connecticut), 1977.
- ^ Lin Yutang. The Importance of Living, p. 46. John Day (New York), 1937. Also quoted in Sterckx, Roel. Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China, p. 6. Palgrave Macmillan (New York), 2005.
- ^ a b Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A Manual, pp. 646–47. Harvard Univ. Press (Cambridge, Mass.), 2000.
- ^ Wood, Frances. The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia, p. 59. 2002.
- ^ Kansas Asia Scholars. "Regional Chinese Cuisine".
- ^ BBC. "Oldest Noodles Unearthed in China". 12 October 2005.
- ^ Chinapage. "Ancient sites in China Archived 17 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine".
- ^ a b Song, pp. 3–4.
- ^ Wang (1982), 52.
- ^ Wang (1982), 53 & 206.
- ^ Wang (1982), 57–58.
- ^ Hansen (2000), 119–121.
- ^ Wang (1982), 206; Hansen (2000), 119.
- ^ Anderson (1988), p. 52.
- ISBN 0-521-65270-7. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ^ Anderson (1988), pp. 143, 144, 218.
- ISBN 0-8493-8804-X. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ^ Free China Review, Volume 45, Issues 7–12. W.Y. Tsao. 1995. p. 66. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-8248-2465-5.
- ^ Schafer, Edward H. (1963). The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of Tʻang Exotics (illustrated, reprint, revised ed.). University of California Press. p. 29. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ^ Anderson (1988), p. 80.
- ISBN 0-674-00523-6. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-674-02605-6. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ISBN 0-521-65270-7. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-231-15987-6.
- ISBN 978-1-4351-0121-0.
- ISBN 0-19-517665-0. p. 122
- ^ a b Benn, 120.
- ^ Benn, 121.
- ^ Benn, 125.
- ^ Benn, 123.
- ^ Schafer, 1–2.
- ^ Sen, 38–40.
- ^ Adshead, 76, 83–84.
- ^ Adshead, 83
- ^ Ebrey, Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 120.
- ^ Ebrey (1999), 95.
- ^ Schafer p. 20
- ^ a b Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 122
- ^ Benn, 126–127.
- ^ a b c Benn, 126.
- ^ a b c Gernet, 134.
- ^ Michael Freeman Ch 4 "Sung," in K.C. Chang, ed., Food in Chinese Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 143–145.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Gernet, 133.
- ^ West, 73, footnote 17.
- ^ a b c d West, 86.
- ^ a b West, 70.
- ^ a b Gernet, 137.
- ^ a b West, 93.
- ^ Gernet, 133–134
- ^ a b Gernet, 183–184
- ^ Gernet, 184.
- ^ a b c West, 73.
- ^ Gernet, 134–135.
- ^ Gernet, 138.
- ^ Gernet, 184–185.
- ^ a b c d Gernet, 135.
- ^ a b c Gernet, 136.
- ISBN 978-0-520-95934-7.
- ^ West, 73–74.
- ^ Rossabi, 78.
- ^ West, 75.
- ^ West, 75, footnote 25.
- ^ West, 89.
- ^ ISBN 0-415-43586-2.
- )
- ISSN 1570-1484.
- ISBN 978-0-500-25142-3.
- ISSN 1542-3484.
- ^ Anderson (1988), pp. 91, 178, 207.
- ^ Ebrey, 1999, p. 211
- ^ Crosby, 2003, pp. 198–201
- ^ Gernet, 1962
- ^ Crosby, 2003, p. 200
- ^ Spence, "The Ch’ing", in Chang, Chinese Food and Culture, pp. 271–274
- ISBN 0-393-30994-0.
- ^ Sen, Mayukh (16 March 2017). "How America Lost 'The Key to Chinese Cooking'". FOOD52.
- ^ ISBN 0-8047-3529-8.
- ISBN 978-988-19984-6-0.
- ^ ISBN 0-8223-2447-4.
- ISBN 0-8047-4685-0.
- ISBN 978-0-7591-2075-4.
- ^ Yhnkzq.com. "Yhnkzq.com verification of phrase existence from ancient China times." "Yangjing." Retrieved on 2007-09-30. This phrase has been consulted with a HK culinary experts in September 2007. Despite the many versions floating around on the internet, this is believed to be the original since it fits the best.
References
For references on specific foods and cuisines, please see the relevant articles.
- ISBN 0-300-04739-8. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- Paul D. Buell, ISBN 0-7103-0583-4.
- Kwang-chih Chang, ed., Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). ISBN 0-300-01938-6.
- Key Rey Chong, Cannibalism in China (Wakefield, New Hampshire: Longwoord Academic, 1990).
- Coe, Andrew. Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). ISBN 0-19-533107-9.
- Crosby, Alfred W., Jr. (2003). The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492; 30th Anniversary Edition. Westport: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-98092-8.
- Judith Farquhar. Appetites: Food and Sex in Postsocialist China. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press; Body, Commodity, Text Series, 2002). ISBN 0-8223-2906-9.
- Gernet, Jacques (1962). Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276. Translated by H. M. Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0720-0.
- H.T. Huang (Huang Xingzong). Fermentations and Food Science. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Part 5 of Biology and Biological Technology, Volume 6 Science and Civilisation in China, 2000). ISBN 0-521-65270-7.
- ISBN 978-0-446-58007-6.
- Needham, Joseph (1980). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 4, Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Apparatus, Theories and Gifts. Rpr. Taipei: Caves Books, 1986.
- Roberts, J. A. G. China to Chinatown: Chinese Food in the West. (London: Reaktion, Globalities, 2002). ISBN 1-86189-133-4.
- Schafer, Edward H. (1963). The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of T’ang Exotics. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. paperback edition: 1985. ISBN 0-520-05462-8.
- Song, Yingxing, translated with preface by E-Tu Zen Sun and Shiou-Chuan Sun. (1966). T'ien-Kung K'ai-Wu: Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
- Swislocki, Mark. Culinary Nostalgia: Regional Food Culture and the Urban Experience in Shanghai. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009). ISBN 978-0-8047-6012-6.
- Wang, Zhongshu. (1982). Han Civilization. Translated by K.C. Chang and Collaborators. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-02723-0.
- West, Stephen H. Playing With Food: Performance, Food, and The Aesthetics of Artificiality in The Sung and Yuan. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (Volume 57, Number 1, 1997): 67–106.
- David Y. H. Wu and Chee Beng Tan. Changing Chinese Foodways in Asia. (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2001). ISBN 962-201-914-5.
- Wu, David Y. H., and Sidney C. H. Cheung. ed., The Globalization of Chinese Food. (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, Anthropology of Asia Series, 2002). ISBN 0-7007-1403-0.