Intro to Chinese Food 101

My culinary mission in life is to expose and educate America to the beauty of Chinese cuisine.

Mirroring what Julia Child did for French food, I want to do the same with Chinese Food.

No more General Tso's or Sesame chicken nonsense. No more Moo Shu Pork or Wonton Egg Drop Soup. And definitely no more fried wonton skins with radioactive orange sweet sauce.

What the F is that?! Do you think people in China eat fried wonton skins while dipping them like nachos and salsa into orange syrup?

Like any large self sustaining country, with thousands of years of history and Imperial Dynasties, there are literally thousands of regional dishes making up the Chinese-Food genre.

For purposes of this introduction, I will break it up into 4 main regions.

Pekin(Beijing), Shanghai, Szechuan(Sichuan), Canton(Guangdong).

Take a look at a map, and you can logically make conclusions to what each region is famous for. Whether it's seafood, pork, rice, noodles, spicy, hot, cold... Breaking up food by regions just makes sense.

Pekin - Although not considered part of the great 8 cuisines of China, this is where the Emperor and many of the Aristocracy lived and therefore it's important.

Like any Imperial/Royal cuisine across the globe, food is never spicy nor messy at the ruling houses. Everything is done so that the final product is easily consumed and digested.

The Pekin Duck is probably the most famous dish known to this part of China.

Shanghai - Food tends to be sweeter in Shanghai. A lot of "drunken" dishes along with excessive amounts of sugar are used in the marinades, braises, and also stir fry dishes therefore lending a sweater finish.

Szechuan - Geographically further away from the ocean and trade ports. In order for food to get there, it would have to be cured or spiced. And at times, masked with stronger ingredients to hide the "not so fresh" taste of fish and other rare protein/meats.

So food here tends to be spicy and stronger in flavor.

Canton - Well located with tons of ocean exposure, seafood is a common dish in this region.

Most typically shrimp. But due to the fact that it's a major trading zone in China, chefs can get their hands on just about anything and therefore the cuisine in canton is amazingly diverse.

I will even go so far as to say, if you had the cash back in the day, you could have been eating just as well as the Emperor of China.

So there you have it. A quick 2 minute read on chinese food. I hope this gets the wheel turning and gets you ready for my next installment of Chinese Food 101.