Anhui Cuisine (徽菜) comes from the cooking style of Huangshan Mountain region.
The main ingredient is herbs from land and sea. With the simple way of braising and
stewing, there comes out the famous dishes like Stewed Soft Shell Turtle with Ham,
Steamed Stone Frog, Bamboo Shoots Cooked with Sausage and Dried Mushroom and
Li Hongzhang Hodg-Podge.
Cantonese Cuisine (粤菜) boasts the wide range channel of choosing the ingredients.
Cantonese are famous for adventurous palate. In Cantonese Cuisine, different kind of
meat like snake, snail, organ meats of chicken and duck can be seen on the dining-table and the main method of cooking are roasting, stirfrying, sautéing, deepfrying,
braising, stewing and steaming. It makes Cantonese food the most diverse and richest
cuisine in China.
Cantonese cooking in the South is colorful and sophisticated, based on abundant fresh
vegetables, fish and seafood. Stirfrying was perfected here, and Canton is the home of
Dim Sum, which literally means "to please the heart", and this describes the Cantonese
approach to food.
Fujian Cuisine (闽菜) comes from the native cooking style of Fujian. The feature of
the Fujian Cuisine is soft, tender, light but flavorful. There is a sayings in the region's
cuisine: "One soup can be changed in ten forms" (一汤十变) and "It is unacceptable
for a meal to not have soup"(无汤不行).
Hunan Cuisine (湘菜) is well known for its hot and spicy taste. The common cooking
method includes stewing, frying, pot-roasting, braising and smoking. The most famous snack of Hunan is the Changsha-style stinky tofu.
Jiangsu Cuisine (苏菜), also called Huai Yang Cuisine, stresses the freshness of the
ingredient. The decoration of the dishes is very famous. The Jiangsu Cuisine will be
decorated by the elaborate carving techniques. It has a tendency to be sweeter than
the other styles of cuisine.
Shandong Cuisine’s (鲁菜) history is as old as Confucius himself, making it the oldest
existing major cuisine in China. Shandong is a large peninsula surrounded by the sea
to the east. The ingredients from the sea are very rich. Shandong's most famous dish
is the Sweat and Sour Carp.
Sichuan Cuisine (川菜) in the West of China is well-known for its superb balance of
spices and aromatic flavourings. Chillies and Szechuan peppercorns are important and
dishes are typically piquant and full of zest.
Zhejiang Cuisine (浙菜) is not greasy and gains itself a reputation of freshness, tenderness,
softness, smoothness. Zhejiang Cuisine consists of Hangzhou Cuisine, Ningbo Cuisine and
Shaoxing Cuisine. Among them, Hangzhou Cuisine is the most famous. Dongpo Pork and
West Lake fish in vinegar are the most popular among people.
What all the classic dishes of the regional cuisines have in common is a harmonious balance
of flavours, colours and textures and a long tradition of excellence. Definitely, exquisite
refinement and delicacy
has characterized Chinese cooking for much of its 5,000 year history.
