Popular in its iconic take-out boxes, there isn’t any part of the world that isn’t familiar with Chinese cuisine. It’s fast, delicious, with a whole range of choices to choose from carbohydrates, to vegetables, meats and seafood plus interesting desserts plus the fortune cookie picked up with a piece of paper that reads your fortune. These fortune cookies have been also marketed to be wedding favors or party favors with a little twist of creativity. Just like food history, Chinese food’s history dates back to centuries ago and change from period to period. With eight culinary traditions with different characteristics, China has various flavors and dishes under its belt cooked and prepared in many different ways–braised, salted, fermented, pickled, the list goes on.
As the westerners favor bread, the major staple food of China is rice. It is usually eaten steamed or stir-fried with vegetables and meat. Either way, it’s eaten with other dishes. Rice is also used to make other products, used for cooking or beverage. Another carbohydrate source is noodles, either in soup form or served fried with other ingredients. According to the Chinese, noodles symbolize longevity and are often served in birthday celebrations.
Protein sources are again, seafood, meat, and poultry. Tofu is also used as another protein source. Also from soy comes another popular Chinese condiment – soy sauce, which is used to add flavor to dishes, soups, or as a dipping sauce to dim sum – dumplings already bite-size and usually served as an appetizer. Bok Choy is a popular vegetable in many side dishes, noodle dishes, and as an edible garnish in main dishes. Peking duck or Beijing roast duck is another well-known dish and is still popular among many restaurants today. Other duck dishes in Chinese cuisine are Jinling salted dried duck, Nanjing’s most famous dish and also dried duck.
At the end of the meal, tea is served with dessert such as jellies with fruit or deep-friend mantou served with sweetened condensed milk. Ice creams and shaved ice are also popular. Tea also has different choices such as green tea, black tea, oolong tea, and there are also herbal teas drunk for medicinal purposes.
Due to immigration and globalization, Chinese food has evolved and some traditional dishes and favorites are mixed with other culture’s popular dishes resulting in fusion cuisine, therefore new dishes are created with dishes from two different countries as inspirations or basis for this new dish. So the story of food does not end here yet.