The people take food as the sky, and this sentence is basically a well-known sentence in China.

From here, we can also see the importance of "eating" for Chinese people. It's not just the stomach, the common people of China, since ancient times, have been pursuing the beauty of food.

In fact, "eating" in this country is no longer just about eating, but also has cultural elements.

To put it bluntly, Chinese food culture is a Chinese culture with a long history and profound profoundness.

Under the influence of many factors such as the philosophy of yin and yang and the five elements in traditional Chinese culture and education, Confucian ethics and morality, the theory of nutrition and reproduction of traditional Chinese medicine, as well as cultural and artistic achievements, food aesthetics and national character characteristics, the Chinese cooking skills that shine in the annals of history have been created, and a broad and profound Chinese food culture has been formed. From the perspective of extension, Chinese food culture can be classified from various perspectives such as era and technique, region and economy, ethnicity and religion, food and utensils, consumption and level, folk customs and functions, etc., showing different cultural tastes and reflecting different use values, which can be called colorful.

Zhou Fangyuan: The Lin'an cuisine they enjoyed today, to be honest, there is no such thing as praise or disapproval - it has only begun to appear in modern times. Or to put it more rigorously, it has only been gradually summarized in the past 20 years. Although it is a very important part of Zhejiang cuisine, before that, it has been scattered and unsystematic. It is also after the reform and opening up that the people's living standards have gradually improved, which is summed up little by little.

The dishes are good dishes, the taste is good, and the appearance is good, but if you want to really put it in this big food country, Lin'an cuisine, to be honest, is basically at the level of a younger brother.

Let's not talk about it from afar, let's just say that the eight major cuisines recognized by everyone -- Shandong, Sichuan, Guangdong, Suzhou, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hunan and Hui, which one is not famous and has been handed down since ancient times? Lin'an cuisine is only a part of Zhejiang at best.

Cuisine is a genre of Chinese cuisine that has evolved over a long period of time in terms of material selection, cutting, cooking and other skills, has distinctive local flavor characteristics, and is recognized by the society as a dish genre of Chinese cuisine.

In China, the cuisine of food culture refers to a set of self-contained cooking skills and flavors formed after a long historical evolution in a certain area due to the different climate, geography, history, products and food customs, and is recognized by all parts of the country.

As early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, China's dietary culture has taken shape, with Taigongwang being the most representative, and then in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period of Qi Huan, the flavor of northern and southern dishes in the food culture shows differences. By the time of the Tang and Song dynasties, the southern and northern foods formed their own systems. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the pattern of sweet in the south and salty in the north was formed. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Cantonese cuisine, and Suzhou cuisine became the most influential local cuisines at that time, known as the "four major cuisines". By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the four new local cuisines of Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan and Hui were differentiated and formed, which together constituted the "eight major cuisines" of traditional Chinese cuisine.

Of course, some of the eight cuisines are common, and some of them are borrowed from each other, so the so-called eight cuisines cannot be completely independent eight systems, which is unrealistic. Generally speaking, how to distinguish the eight major cuisines mainly depends on the focus of the taste between them.

For example, Shandong cuisine pays attention to the taste of salty and fresh. Pay attention to the quality of raw materials, salt to enhance freshness, soup to strengthen freshness, seasoning to emphasize salty and fresh, highlighting the original taste. Salty and fresh, the heat is exquisite, good at making soup, good at cooking seafood. It originated from the Qilu flavor of Dalu Province, and is the only spontaneous cuisine in China's traditional cuisine, compared with Huaiyang, Sichuan, Guangdong and other influential cuisines, it is completely from the working people themselves. It is the cuisine with the longest history, the most abundant techniques, the highest difficulty and the most skillful, and it is also the first of the eight cuisines. There are too many famous dishes in Lu cuisine, there are too many to tell, and it is difficult to count, but there are a few more classic dishes.

For example, sweet and sour carp, nine turns of large intestine, braised sea cucumber with green onions, fried double crispy in oil, grilled original shell abalone, Yipin tofu and so on.

In addition, there are subdivisions in Lu cuisine, such as the Confucian cuisine handed down by the Confucian family, which can be called the best of the best. After all, the family of the Confucian saint had a high status in ancient times and was passed down from generation to generation, but whenever the emperor went out on patrol, as long as he passed through Lu Province, he would inevitably visit the former residence of the saint. Therefore, Confucian cuisine is actually equivalent to the folk imperial cuisine. Whether it is in terms of material selection, or skills, or taste, appearance and other aspects, it can be called the top.

In addition, as an aside, in recent years, as far as Zhou Fangyuan knows, Lu cuisine is actually in decline.

The big reason may be that the requirements of Lu cuisine are too high, compared to other cuisine heirs who may be able to learn in five or ten years, the chef of Lu cuisine, without twenty or thirty years of hard work, can not see any results at all.

Twenty or thirty years is the time when a person enters middle age from a teenager, and in a few more years, he will retire if he can't say it.

As the main body of court cuisine, the value of Lu cuisine is huge, and it is indeed a little embarrassing to fall into this situation. But at the same time, is it true that Lu cuisine is going to disappear? Even if "Lu cuisine" really disappears one day, the essence of Lu cuisine has been passed down. There is almost such a sentence, "As long as it is stir-fried, it is all Lu cuisine". The skills of Lu cuisine have long been spread all over the country, and even abroad, even if Lu cuisine as a cuisine will disappear one day, but Lu cuisine itself has already entered thousands of households and entered the hands of every chef.

This is something that no other cuisine can match.

After Lu cuisine, there is Sichuan cuisine.

The taste of Sichuan cuisine is mainly spicy, the dishes are diverse, the taste is fresh and mellow, and the good use of spicy seasoning, there are fish flavor, spicy, spicy, tangerine peel, pepper numb, strange taste, sour and hot flavors.

Sichuan cuisine has a very significant feature, that is, fresh and mellow, spicy and spicy, one dish and one style, and one hundred dishes and all kinds of flavors.

There are six kinds of Sichuan cuisine: numb, spicy, sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. On the basis of the six basic flavor types, it can be adjusted and changed into a variety of compound flavor types, in the process of Sichuan cuisine cooking, if you can use the primary and secondary flavors, the intensity and shade, the number of flavors, the mix changes, plus the selection of materials, cutting and cooking properly, you can obtain a variety of delicacies with special flavors with good color, flavor and shape.

Sichuan cuisine is characterized by highlighting numb, spicy, fragrant, fresh, oily, thick flavor, and reusing "three peppers" and fresh ginger. The seasoning methods include dry roast, fish flavor, strange flavor, pepper sesame pepper, red oil, ginger ale, sweet and sour acid, lychee, garlic paste and other compound flavor types, forming the special flavor of Sichuan cuisine, enjoying the reputation of "one dish, one style, one hundred dishes and one hundred flavors".

There are more than 20 kinds of compound flavor types of Sichuan cuisine, such as salty and umami flavor, home-style flavor, spicy flavor, paste and spicy flavor, fish flavor type, ginger flavor type, strange flavor type, pepper flavor type, sour and hot flavor type, red oil flavor type, garlic flavor type, sesame sauce flavor type, sauce flavor type, smoke flavor type, lychee flavor type, five-spice flavor type, fragrant lees flavor type, sweet and sour flavor type, sweet flavor type, tangerine peel flavor type, mustard flavor type, salty and sweet flavor type, salt and pepper flavor type, paste and spicy lychee flavor type, ketchup flavor type and so on.

The whole cuisine is mainly composed of four parts: high-end banquet dishes, ordinary banquet dishes, popular light dishes and home-style dishes. The four types of dishes not only have their own style characteristics, but also penetrate and cooperate with each other to form a complete system, which has a wide range of adaptability to all localities, all walks of life and even foreign countries. The classic dishes include Sichuan-style hot pot, boiled fish, back-pot meat, mapo tofu, fish-flavored shredded pork, boiled pork slices, spicy chicken, sauerkraut fish, kung pao chicken, sweet duck, etc., which are one of the most popular dishes in Chinese folk.

Cantonese cuisine, the taste is mainly fresh and fragrant. The selection of materials is fine, clear but not light, fresh but not vulgar, tender but not raw, oily but not greasy. Good at stir-frying, it is required to master the heat and oil temperature is just right. It is also compatible with many Western cuisine practices, and pays attention to the momentum and grade of the dish.

Because of some historical reasons, among the Chinese living overseas, the number of Cantonese people can be said to be the largest, so in Chinese cuisine, it is Cantonese cuisine that really goes abroad to the world.

In Canada, for example, Chinese restaurants were popular for their so-called "chowder" before the 60s of the 20th century. Since then, many teahouses and restaurants have been opened, and their dishes and dim sum are modeled after Hong Kong standards. In big cities, there are many teahouses and restaurants that advertise "authentic Cantonese cuisine". By the 90s of the last century, Cantonese food was mainly cooked in Toronto's Chinatown. Cantonese restaurants are popular not only with overseas Chinese, but also with Chinese people, and they have quickly become one of the most popular businesses in Chinatown. In 1852, the Alta California newspaper wrote: "For a time almost all the restaurants in the city were run by Chinese."

In the 60~70s of the 19th century, two domestic officials who visited the United States also recorded in their diaries the Cantonese cuisine they tasted in San Francisco: "Eating in Yuanfanglou, the delicacies of the mountains and seas, cooking are as good as the mainland", "the tea is eight colors, the fruit is on a plate, and it is widely produced". A poll in 1960 showed that Cantonese cuisine was the second most dominant cuisine in the United States after Italian cuisine at the time. In 2010, Yangcheng's famous snack fried rice noodles were named the champion of the top ten delicacies of the year by the Los Angeles Times website.

According to some newspapers and periodicals, there are nearly 10,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States, 4,000 in Britain, more than 2,000 in France and the Netherlands, and no less than several thousand in Japan. Most of the Chinese restaurants in these places are Cantonese teahouses and restaurants, and business is very prosperous. Sydney, Australia, under the influence of "Chinatown", tea drinking has become a special term, and all people who visit Sydney City take a trip to "Chinatown" to enjoy the charm of Cantonese tea and dining as a fashion. Cantonese cuisine has its unique light flavor and is well-known at home and abroad for its reputation as "food in Yangcheng".

Su cuisine, the taste is mainly light. The materials are rigorous, pay attention to color matching, pay attention to modeling, and the four seasons are different. The cooking techniques are known for stewing, stewing and simmering, and the emphasis is placed on mixing the soup to maintain the original juice and the taste is calm. Make good use of vegetables. Among them, Huaiyang cuisine pays attention to the selection of materials and knife work, and is good at making soup; Southern Jiangsu cuisine has a sweet taste, pays attention to soy sauce, and makes good use of fragrant grains and rice wine for seasoning.

Fujian cuisine, the taste is mainly fresh and fragrant. It is especially good at "fragrant" and "taste", and its fresh, mellow, fragrant and non-greasy style. There are three major characteristics, one is good at red lees seasoning, two is good at making soup, and three is good at using sweet and sour.

Zhejiang cuisine, the taste is mainly light. The dishes are small and exquisite, handsome and beautiful, and the dishes are delicious and tender, crisp, soft and refreshing. Use fragrant grains and rice wine to taste. The cooking techniques are abundant, especially in the cooking of seafood River, which is rarely unique. The taste pays attention to freshness, crispness and tenderness, and maintains the original color and true taste of the raw materials. The dishes are exquisite, delicate and delicate, delicate and elegant. The northern part is sweet, the western part is spicy, and the southeast is salty. The Lin'an cuisine that Zhou Fangyuan and they eat today is a very important part of Zhejiang cuisine.

Hunan cuisine is mainly spicy in taste and has a wide variety. The color is heavy and the color is strong, and it is affordable, spicy, fragrant and fresh, soft and tender. Pay attention to the combination of raw materials and the taste of each other. Hunan cuisine is particularly seasoned with sour and spicy. Comparatively speaking, the simmering skills of Hunan cuisine are even better, almost to the point of perfection. Simmering can be divided into red simmer and white simmer in terms of color change, and there are clear soup simmering, thick soup simmering and milk soup simmering in terms of seasoning. Simmer over low heat, original flavor.

Hui cuisine, the taste is fresh and spicy. Good at burning, stewing, steaming, and less stir-frying, heavy oil, heavy color, heavy fire. Heavy fire work is historical, its uniqueness is concentrated in the good at burning, stewing, smoking, steaming Kung Fu dishes, different dishes use different fire control technology, the formation of crispy, tender, fragrant, fresh unique flavor, among which the most can reflect the characteristics of the Hui style is the slip burning, stewing and raw smoking method.

The eight major cuisines are different, but they are basically developed according to the local customs, but some cuisines have been greatly influenced by other cuisines and have undergone some changes, and some have not changed much from beginning to end.

Of course, in addition to the dishes themselves, there are many other points of Chinese food culture.

For example, the beauty of tableware, for example, the meaning of tableware, far away, let's talk about the chopsticks that everyone uses.

It has been made clear in the cross talk, "the people take food as the sky" and "the sky is round and the place is round", so the standard chopsticks should be a round end and a square end, and the round side is used to pick up vegetables and send them to the mouth, the circle represents the sky, which also corresponds to the saying that the people take food as the sky, because the things to eat are ultimately sent to the mouth, with round chopsticks and a round mouth...... Isn't this a kind of cultural inheritance?

Eating, in China is definitely not simply to fill the stomach, Zhou Fangyuan has always been proud of being a citizen of the big foodie empire, don't look at him can eat anything outside, and all kinds of top ingredients can be bought casually, but as long as he is abroad, his appetite is always not so strong, but this can't be blamed on him. The things that crooked nuts can accept the most, I'm afraid they are part of Italian food and part of French food. Needless to say, the Great Gentleman's Empire is famous for its dark cuisine. Lao Mi is not much better, the food is monotonous, and there are just a few tricks over and over.

Fusang is better, but the taste of Fusang people is a little strange, anyway, Zhou Fangyuan is not used to it. So no matter how long he stays outside, what he misses is still the domestic food after all, which I believe many people who can often go abroad are the most experienced.