Culinary Culture

1. A Outline of Traditional Chinese Culture Culinary Culture

2. Chinese Cuisine / Food • The Features of Chinese Food • Eight Regional Cuisines • Table Manners

3. The features of Chinese Food • Colour, Aroma, and Taste • Color refers not only to the beautiful color of the food, but also to the layout and design. • Aroma refers to the fragrant and appetizing smell of the dishes served on the table before eating. • Taste is not only associated with tasting the food itself, but also with the appreciation of seasonings and texture.

4. 3. Chinese cuisine • Chinese culinary arts are famous all over the world. Chinese dishes appeal to the senses through sight, smell, taste, texture. • Chinese cuisine includes a variety of different flavors due to China's vast geography and diverse nationalities. Local dishes with their own distinctiveness can be roughly divided into eight regional cuisines. 业务 流程

5. Cooking Methods • Time and temperature play an important role in cooking. • They include boiling (煮), stewing (煲/炖), braising (烧/焖/烩), frying (煎), stir-frying (炒),quick-frying (爆), deep-frying (炸), frying and simmering (扒), sautéing (快煎), simmering (煨), smoking (熏), roasting or barbecuing (烤), baking (烘), steaming (蒸) and scalding (白灼).

6. Seasonings • Taste mainly depends on the seasonings. • There are many tastes—salty (salt, soy sauce), sweet (sugar, honey), sour (vinegar), pungent (chili, ginger, scallion 葱), fragrant (sesame oil香油, coriander 香菜, wine), prickled (麻的) (prickly ash 花椒) and tangy (monosodium glutamate or MSG 味精) and bitter (dried tangerine 陈皮, bitter apricot kernel 苦杏仁).

7. Yin-yang Principle • Each food has its own characteristics of yin or yang. Yin foods are thin, cooling and low in calories. Yang foods are rich, spicy, warming and high in calories. Boiling food makes them yin; frying them makes them yang.

8. Medicinal Function • In China, people contend that a food tonic (食补) is much better than a medicine in fortifying one's health. • Based on traditional Chinese herbal medicine practice, medicinal cuisine combines strictly processed traditional Chinese medicine with traditional culinary (烹饪的) materials to produce delicious food with health-restoring qualities.

9. Eight Regional Cuisines • Foods vary from north to south. Tastes also differ regionally because of the climatic differences. One popular summary of Chinese food is “sweet in the south, salty in the north, sour in the west and spicy in the east”.

10. Jiangsu Anhui Hunan Known for sour and spicy dishes High cutting techniques Nutritious food large meatball Yi xiang fish Fujian Zhejiang peculiar about soup light, crisp, elegant Tai bai fish Sichuan Spicy-hot Tremella and quail eggs soup Dong po Pork Shandong Guangdong excellent seafood Delicacies Chicken with chili sauce Sea pumpkin Fotiaoqiang Chinese Eight Regional Cuisines

12. Shandong Cuisine, also known as Lu Cai, is famous for its qualities of freshness, clear colors, dedication to fragrance and pure tastes. Shandong Cuisine

13. Beijing Roast Duck Beijing Roast duck is thought to be one of the most delicious dishes all over the world; most visitors coming to Beijing will never forget to have a try.

14. Sichuan Cuisine, also known as Chuan Cai, is famous for its many flavors, especially for its hot and pungent flavoring. Almost every dish has its own unique taste. Sichuan Cuisine

15. Guangdong Cuisine is known as YueCai (粤菜). Tasting clean, light, crisp and fresh. It usually has fowl (家禽) and other meats to produce its unique dishes. Guangdong Cuisine

16. Fujian Cuisine, also known as Min Cai, is noted for its light taste and sweet and sour flavour. The cooking puts great emphasis on choosing the choicest ingredients, and is thus particularly apt in preparing seafood dishes. Fujian Cuisine

17. Jiangsu Cuisine, also known as Su Cai,has characteristically sweet taste. It preserves the food’s original flavor, while emphasizing strictly choice ingredients, exquisite workmanship, and elegant shapes. Jiangsu Cuisine

18. Zhejiang Cuisine, also known as ZheCai, has won a reputation for freshness, tenderness, softness, and smoothness in its dishes with mellow fragrance. Zhejiang Cuisine

19. Anhui Cuisine, also known as HuiCai, is highly distinctive not only for its elaborate choices of cooking ingredients but also for its strict control of the cooking process. Anhui Cuisine

20. Hunan Cuisine, also known as Xiang Cai, is akin to that of the chili-rich Sichuan dishes. It is also characterized by a dense pungent flavor. Chili, pepper and shallot (葱) are necessities in this cuisine. Hunan Cuisine

21. Table Manners • Arrangement of seats • At a formal banquet, the host prepares adequate seating for the guests. For a large number of guests, the elderly or people of high status are allocated specific seats. Special guests and the elderly sit on the north side of the table or directly facing the entrance to the room. The concept of “honoured south, humble north” is closely related with traditional Chinese etiquette.

23. Toasts • Once the guests are seated, the host proposes a toast to the guests whilst saying, “Drink first to show respect”(先干为敬). Then the host and guests empty their glasses, which are refilled in readiness for the next of many toasts. • It is perfectly acceptable to have three toasts (traditionally signifying friendship) with the entire company, rather than one separate toast for every individual present. Some other toasts can be offered: “Toast for your health”, “Toast to our friendship”, etc.

25. The courses • Serving order is from cold to hot. Hot entrees (主菜) should be served starting on the left of the seat across from the main guests. The meal then begins with a set of at least four cold dishes followed by the main courses of hot meat and vegetable dishes. Soup is served next (unless in Guangdong style restaurant) with the local staple food such as rice, noodles and dumplings being served last.

27. The correct holding of the chopsticks is to grab the chopsticks in the middle, making sure that the ends are even. Chinese chopsticks

28. China has a rich and sophisticated tea culture. The Chinese have a common saying, “Seven things in the house: firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea”. Chinese Tea

29. The art of tea making and drinking evolved through the dynasties. It focuses on the method of brewing tea, the drinking utensils and the serving etiquette.

30. Tea Classification • The five types are green tea (绿茶), black tea (红茶), oolong tea (乌龙茶), compressed tea (砖茶: brick tea), and scented tea (花茶). Some minor types are white tea and yellow tea.

31. Green tea is the most natural of all Chinese teas. It refers to tea made without being fermented. It’s called green tea because the tea liquid and tea leaves are greenish. About 50% of China's teas are green tea.

32. Black tea is fermented before baking. It’s so named because the tea liquid and tea leaves are reddish black. It tastes sweet and can facilitate the fostering of yang energy in the human body and erase the greasiness of the stomach.

33. Oolong tea sits half way between green tea and black tea in the sense that it's half- fermented. Typical oolong tea leaves are green in the middle and red on the edges as a result of the process to soften tea leaves.

34. Compressed tea is made by compressing steamed tea leaves into molds such as bricks, cakes, columns and other shapes. Most Chinese Compressed tea uses black tea as its base.Compressed tea can be stored for years or even decades. Aged Compressed tea has a gentle flavor.

35. Chinese Scented tea is a unique class of Chinese tea. It is made from fragrant flowers. It is subdivided into flower tea and scented tea. Flower Tea is from dried flowers with little processing. Scented tea is a mixture of green tea with flower petals.

36. White tea is non-fermented, non-rubbed, non-scented tea with natural fragrance. Famous varieties include Silver Needle (白毫银珍) and White Peony (白牡丹).

37. Yellow Tea has yellow leaves and yellow tea colour. It's an uncommon class of Chinese tea. The flavor is mild and refreshing.

38. Tea Etiquette • Serving a cup of tea is more than mere politeness. It is a symbol of togetherness, a sharing of something enjoyable, and a way of showing respect to visitors. When offered tea, it is considered polite to at least take a sip.

39. To offer tea, ask for the preference of the guests before making the tea. The water should not be too hot or it will scald the guests. When you pour tea, the rule of “full cup for wine and half cup for tea” should be observed.

41. Three Cups of Tea (三杯茶) of Bai Ethnic Group • Visitors are greeted with this warm and unique ceremony: they are offered three cups of tea. The first cup of tea is made from local bitter leaves. It tastes medicinal. The second looks like soup. It is made from walnuts (核桃), cheese and sugar. It tastes sweet. The third cup of tea is made by mixing prickly ash, ginger and Chinese cinnamon (肉桂) with honey and bitter tea. It is pungent, with a distinct aftertaste.

42. What does the three cups of tea symbolize? • The three cups of tea are symbolic of the three stages of one’s life journey: going through all kinds of hardships, feeling the joy of life, and recalling both bitter and happy experience. (先苦后甜三回味)

43. Chinese Wine • Wine has a long history in China and plays an important part in the life of Chinese people. It is comparable with such daily necessities as rice, salt, oil and water.

44. Wine Feasts • “Marriage wine feasts” • “Arm-crossed wine” • “Month-old wine feasts” • “Hundredth-day wine feasts” • “Longevity wine feasts” • “Beam-placed-on-the-roof wine feast” • …..

46. Drinkers’ Wager Game • Drinkers’ wager game is a particular method in China to help create more joyous atmosphere while drinking. In general, the drinkers’ wager game is used as a penalty to urge drinkers to drink more, but the chief purpose of the drinkers’ wager game is to create a more cheerful atmosphere.

47. General games Ladies attending banquets may play general games such as telling jokes, solving riddles and passing down a flower to the beats of a drum (击鼓传花).

48. Literary games are more popular with scholars and intellectuals, since their education equips them with the knowledge to compete. They play it by composing poems, solving word puzzles and guessing riddles.

49. Contestant game Archery, arrow pitching, chess, dice throwing(掷骰子), finger guessing and animal betting are contest games.

50. Touhu(投壶) is an ancient banquet game where the host and guests throw chips (筹)into a pot. The winner is the one with the greatest number of chips thrown in, and the loser is required to drink as a forfeit.