Food

Taiwanese cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:57:58 -0700

To be pedantic, there are several cuisines in Taiwan. In addition to the following representative dishes from the Ho-lo ethnicity (see Taiwanese language), there are also aboriginal, Hakka, and local derivatives of Chinese cuisines (one famous example of the last is beef noodle soup = niurou mian = gu-bah mi).

Famous dishes in each of the main cities
Taichung
Sun cake is the most noted food in Taichung.

Tainan
There are pork foot, tann-ah noodle, shrimp cookie and so on.

Exemplar dishes
jiu-hi ken (youyu geng = 魷魚羹) - Soup with cuttlefish wrapped in fish paste.
o-ah-chian (kezaijian = 蚵仔煎) - Omelet made with tiny oysters.
o-ah mi-soan(kezai mianxian = 蚵仔麵線) - thin noodle with tiny oysters.
oh peng (yu bing = 芋仔冰) - a dessert made of frozen taro root paste.
ai-giok peng (aiyu bing = 愛玉冰) - a dessert made of some kind of jello or agar served on ice.
Boba nai cha - Boba milk tea.
o· bi-go (hei migao = 黑米糕) - rice in blood curd.
lo·-bah png (lurou fan = 魯肉飯) - a piece of fatty pork served on rice.
sian-chhau (xiancao) - Mesona procumbens Hemsley
Many of the non-dessert dishes are usually considered snacks, not entrees; that is, they have a similar status to the Cantonese dim sum or the Spanish tapas. Such dishes are usually only slightly salted, with lots of vegetables along with the main meat (or seafood) item.

Vegetarian restaurants are commonplace with a wide variety of dishes.

Taiwanese people also eat a lot of fruit, both local and imported.

Night market snacks
Taiwan's best-known snacks are present in the night markets. Chou doufu (fermented 'smelly' tofu) is one example; intimidating at first but can be an acquired taste. In these markets, one can also find delicious fried and steamed meat-filled buns, oyster-filled omelets, refreshing fruit ices, and much more.

Food

Szechuan Cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:50:12 -0700

Szechuan Cuisine or Sichuan Cuisine (川菜, pinyin: chuan1 cai4), originating in the Sichuan province of western China, has an international reputation for being spicy and flavorful.

Some well-known Szechuan dishes include "Kung Pao Chicken" and "Twice Cooked Pork". Although many Szechuan dishes live up to their spicy reputation, often ignored are the large percentage of recipes that use little or no spice at all, including recipes such as "Tea Smoked Duck".

What many do not realize is that the chili pepper, a common ingredient in Szechuan cuisine (often used unseeded), was only introduced to China following Columbus's discovery of the New World. Chili peppers were perhaps introduced to the remote Szechuan province by Western missionaries. Previous Szechuan cuisine was not completely without spice, however. Szechuan pepper is an indigenous plant (fruit) that produces a milder spice, and is still a key ingredient in Szechuan food to this day. The reason for this emphasis on spice may derive from the region's warm, humid climate. This climate also necessitates sophisticated food-preservation techniques which include pickling, salting, drying and smoking

Common preparation techniques in Szechuan cuisine include stir frying, steaming and basting. Beef is more common in Szechuan cuisine than it is in other Chinese cuisines, perhaps due to the widespread use of oxen in the region. Stir-fried beef is often cooked until chewy, while steamed beef is sometimes coated with rice flour to produce a rich gravy.

Some common Szechuan dishes include:

Chengdu chicken
Kung Pao chicken
Tea smoked duck
Twice cooked pork
Mapo dofu
Szechuan hotpot
Fuqi Feipian

Food

Shanghai Cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:47:20 -0700

Shanghai cuisine, known as Hu cai (滬菜 in pinyin: hu4 cai4) among the Chinese, is one of the most popular and celebrated cuisines in China.

Shanghai does not have a definitive cuisine of its own, but refines those of the surrounding provinces (mostly from adjacent Jiangsu and Zhejiang coastal provinces). What can be called Shanghai cuisine is epitomized by the use of alcohol. Fish, eel, crab, chicken are "drunken" with spirits and usually served raw. Salted meats and preserved vegetables are also commonly used to spice up the dish.

The use of sugar is very unique to Shanghainese cuisine and, especially when used in combination with soy sauce, effuses foods and sauces with a taste that is not so much sweet but rather savory. A typical Shanghai household will consume sugar at the same rate as soy sauce, even excluding pastry baking. Non-natives tend to have difficulty identifying this usage of sugar and are often surprised when told of the "secret ingredient."

Beggar's Chicken is a legendary dish wrapped in lotus leaves, covered in clay and oven baked to steamy, tasty perfection - in olden times, it was baked in the ground. Lime-and-ginger-flavoured "1,000-year-old" eggs is another popular Shanghainese creation. The braised meat ball and the Smelly Tofu are also uniquely Shanghainese.

Facing the East China Sea, seafood in Shanghai is very popular. Locals though favor freshwater fish just as much as saltwater products like crabs, oysters, and seaweed.

Shanghainese people are known to eat very little (an often target of mockery from other Chinese), and hence the servings are usually quite small. The Xiao Long Bao (Shanghainese: shoh lonpotzi, or sanji) in a miniature bamboo steamer is now popularized throughout China as a Dim Sum. It is a smaller version of the meat-filled steamed bun and more delicately made.

Due to the rapid growth of Shanghai and its development into one of the foremost East Asian cities as a center of both finance and contemporary culture, the future of Shanghai cuisine looks very promising.

Food

Mandarin Cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:44:18 -0700

Mandarin cuisine refers to cooking style in Beijing, China. It is known as jing1 cai4 (京菜) among Chinese.

Since Beijing has been the Chinese capital city for centuries, its cuisine was influenced by people from all over China. The Emperor's Kitchen was a term referring to the cooking places inside of the Forbidden City of Beijing where thousands of cooks from the different parts of China showed their best cooking skills to please royal families and officials. Therefore, it is at times rather difficult to tell determine the actual origin of a dish as the term "Mandarin" is generalized and refers not only to Beijing, but other provinces as well.

Some famous Mandarin dishes:

Peking Duck (北京烤鸭)
Hot and Sour Soup (酸辣汤)
Four Seasons Stringbean (烤肉/北京烤肉)
Mutton Hotpot (涮羊肉)
Sweetened Vinegar Spareribs (糖醋排骨)
Glazed/Candied Chinese Yam (金丝糕)
Chinese fajitas

Food

Hunan Cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:59:31 -0700

Hunan Cuisine, sometimes called Xiang Cuisine (湘菜 pinyin xiang1 cai4), consists of the cuisines of the Xiangjiang region, Dongting Lake and western Hunan Province, in China.

While similar to Szechuan cuisine, Hunan Cuisine is often spicier and contains a larger variety of ingredients. Hunan is known for its liberal use of chilli peppers, shallots and garlic. Many Hunan dishes are characterized by a strongly flavored brown sauce. Some rely on sweetness from ingredients such as honey; sweet and sour sauces are also characteristic of the style.

Hunan cuisine is difficult to precisely characterize, as it has absorbed stylistic elements from all over China. For this reason, the region is sometimes regarded as China's culinary center. Common cooking techniques include stewing, frying, pot-roasting, braising, and smoking. Due to the high agricultural output of the region, ingredients for Hunan dishes are many and varied.

Some representative Hunan dishes include:

Sweet and Sour Chicken
Orange Beef
Crispy Duck
Dongan Chicken
Peppery and Hot Chicken (Hot and Spicy Chicken)
Lotus Seeds in Sugar Candy

Food

Hakka Cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:57:20 -0700

Hakka people are migratory tribes of ethnic Han people originated from central China. Their ancestors exiled themselves from foreign rulers such as the Mongols in Yuan Dynasty. Due to their late migration to the southern areas of China, they found that all of the best land had been settled long before. The Hakkas then were forced to settle in the sparsely settled hill country.

As a result, fresh produce was at a premium, forcing the Hakkas to heavily utilize dried and preserved ingredients, such as various kinds of fermented beancurd and much use of onion. Due to the hill country being far inland seafood is a rarity. Pork is by far the most favored meat of the Hakkas, with belly bacon being the preferred cut as it has alternating layers of fat and lean meat, providing an excellent texture.

Famous dishes in Hakka restaurants in Hong Kong include:

Salt baked chicken (東江鹽焗雞) - supposed to be baked inside a heap of hot salt, but many restaurants simply cook in brine nowadays.
Duck stuffed with rice (糯米鴨) - a whole duck is de-boned while maintaining the shape of the bird, the cavities are filled with seasoned sticky rice.
Tofu soup in pot (東江釀豆腐煲) - the stuffed tofu cubes.
Beef ball soup - very simple clear broth with lettuce and beef balls.

Other traditional Hakka dishes include:

Fried pork with fermented beancurd: this is a popular Chinese New Year offering which involves two stages of cooking. As previously mentioned, fresh food was at a premium in Hakka areas, so the marinated pork was deep fried to remove the moisture in order to preserve it. When a meal of pork was desired, the fried pork was then stewed with water and wood's ear fungus. Think of it as a Hakka equivalent to canned soup.

Yong Tau Foo (酿豆腐): various oddments including eggplants, chillies and bitter melon stuffed with fish paste, beancurd, beancurd skin, fish and meat balls among other ingredients, served in clear soup.

Kau yuk (扣肉): Alternate pieces of pork and yam served in a dark sauce whose principal component is, of course, fermented beancurd.
Hakka food also includes takes on other traditional Chinese dishes, just as other Chinese dialects do.

Food

Cuisine of China

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:51:41 -0700

China has one of the richest culinary heritages on Earth. Solid Chinese food is eaten with chopsticks and liquid with a wide, flat bottomed spoon (usually ceramic). Chinese consider having a knife at the table as barbaric, so most dishes are prepared in smaller pieces, ready for direct picking and eating.

Because of the large and varied nature of China itself, Chinese cuisine can be broken down into very many different regional styles.

Chinese Buddhist cuisine
Cantonese cuisine
Chiuchow cuisine
Hakka cuisine
Hunan cuisine
Chinese Islamic cuisine
Mandarin cuisine
Shanghai cuisine
Szechuan cuisine
Taiwanese cuisine
American Chinese cuisine

Food

Chopsticks

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:50:41 -0700

Chopsticks, a pair of small tapered sticks, are the traditional eating utensils of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam (the four "Chopstick countries"). Chopsticks are commonly made of wood, bamboo, metal, bone, ivory, and in modern times, plastic as well.

Names

"Chopstick" is the pidgin-English and English name for the tools. "Chop" is pidgin-English for "quick", the Mandarin word for chopsticks being kuàizi (筷子) or kuài'er (筷兒), meaning "the bamboo-objects for eating quickly". However, originally in Classical Chinese and some older literature, they are zhù (箸), possibly just a phonetic character that merely indicates that the object is made of bamboo.

The Chinese usage 'zhù' spread to Japan and is pronounced hashi. In Korea, neither of the Chinese words are used now at all, but jeotgarak (젓가락) is used instead.

Usage

Held between the thumb and fingers of the right hand, they are used as tongs to take up portions of the food, which is brought to table cut up into small and convenient pieces, or as means for sweeping the rice and small particles of food into the mouth from the bowl. Many rules of etiquette govern the proper conduct of the chopsticks.

Chopsticks are traditionally held in the right hand only, even by the left-handed. (In East Asia, as in Muslim nations, the left hand is used in the toilet, the right hand used for eating.) In modern times, biases against left-handed eating are becoming less severe, and so chopsticks might be held with either hand.

Chopsticks are simple in design - merely two thin rods (top and bottom area smaller than one square centimeter, length varies), each with one end slightly smaller than the other. The smaller, round ends come in contact with the food. In practice, their use is an acquired skill that can take some mastery. In addition, East Asian food, which is usually made into small pieces more suitable for clawing than cutting or scraping, is generally geared to be eaten with chopsticks. For example, rice in East Asia is often prepared to be sticky, while rice prepared using Western methods tend to be "fluffy", and is particularly difficult to eat with chopsticks.

Types
There are three main styles of chopsticks:

Chinese: long, wooden sticks that taper to a rounded end.
Japanese: short, wooden sticks that taper to a pointed end
Korean: short, metal sticks that taper to a blunted end

How to use
Put one chopstick between the palm and the base of the thumb,
Use the ring finger (the third finger) to support the lower part of the stick.
With the thumb, squeeze the stick down while the ring finger pushes it up. The stick should be stationary and very stable.
Use the tips of the thumb, the index and middle finger to hold the other stick like an ink pen.
Make sure the tips of the two sticks line up.
Pivot the upper stick up and down towards the stationary lower stick.
With enough practice, the two sticks function like a pair of pincers.
For easier handling in the beginning, hold the sticks at the midpoint as a child would do. With proficiency, hold the sticks at the upper ends for a farther reach and a more mature look.

General etiquette
The chopsticks should not touch the mouth. It is also poor table manners to suck on the tip of the chopsticks.
If there are serving spoons or public chopsticks on the table, use those to get the food to your own plate/bowl before switching to your own set.
After you have picked up an item, it is yours. You should not put it back in the dish. (So set your aim before raising your chopsticks.)
It may be a polite gesture to pick up the best piece of food and send it to your guests' bowl. (Use caution in this practice; many people observe some kind of special diet and picking food for your guests may not be appropriate to each person's tastes. Furthermore, it may be best, due to hygienic concern, to use the serving utensil instead of your own chopsticks if you perform this gesture. If chopsticks are used, invert them and use the other ends to pick up the food.)
Never rest chopsticks by sticking them point-first into a bowl of rice. This is reminiscent of ancestral offerings and can be seen as disrespectful.

Chinese etiquette
Dishes are usually prepared in such a way that each piece is bite-sized so if the item is too small or too big to be picked up by the chopsticks, then it is not designed to be eaten with the chopsticks.
The rice bowl is raised to the mouth and the rice is shoveled into the mouth using the chopsticks. If rice is served on a plate, as is more common in the West, you should eat it with a fork or spoon. It is quite tedious to try to pick up the rice, grain by grain.
Chinese traditionally eat rice from a bowl.

History
Chopsticks were developed about 3000 to 5000 years ago in China (the exact date is unknown).

Food

Chiuchow Cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:40:56 -0700

Chiuchow cuisine or Chaozhou cuisine originates from Chiuchow, a city of China in the Guangdong Province, not far from Canton. Hence the cooking style is very similar to Cantonese cuisine. However, Chiuchow cuisine does have some unique dishes that are not in Cantonese cuisine.

Chiuchow cuisine is known for serving rice soup, in addition to steamed rice with meals, which is quite different from Cantonese porridge or congee which is very thick and gluey. The Chiuchow rice soup is very watery with the rice sitting loosely at the bottom of the bowl. Authentic Chiuchow restaurants serve very strong oolong tea in very tiny cups before and after the meal.

There is a famous feast in Chiuchow cuisine called "Gau Dai Gui" (九大簋) which roughly means "nine big courses" in the dinner. Chiuchow chefs pride themselves on their skill in vegetable carving. Carved vegetables are used as garnishes on cold dishes and on the banquet table.

Chiuchow is also known for a late night dinner called "Da Loun" (打冷). Chiuchow people like to eat out in restaurants or at roadside food stalls close to midnight before they go to bed. Some restaurants stay open till dawn.

Some famous Chiuchow dishes include, among others:

Steamed goose
Cold crab
Fun Goh (a steamed dumpling filled with dried raddish, peanuts and ground meat)
Shrimp balls
Oyster pancake
Tiet Kwun Yum (a premium grade Oolong Tea)

Food

Chinese Wine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:38:03 -0700

Jiu (酒; pinyin jiu3) is the Chinese word that refers to all alcoholic beverages. Many Chinese wines are made from grains and herbs and distilled to high concentration. Chinese wines from southern China are mostly made of rice, those from northern China are mostly made of wheat and sorghum. Most are colorless clear liquid unless other herbs are added to give a different color.

Name of some famous Chinese liquors, wines:

Fen jiu (汾酒) - this wine was dated back to Northern and Southern Dynasties (550 A.D.). It is the original Chinese white wine made from sorghum. Alcohol content by volume: 63-65%.
Zhu Ye Qing jiu (竹葉青酒) - this wine is Fen jiu brewed with a dozen or more of selected Chinese herbal medicine. One of the ingredients is bamboo leaves which gives the wine a greenish color and its name. Alcohol content by volumne: 46%.
Mao Tai jiu (茅台酒) - this wine has a production history of over 200 years. It is named after its origin at Mao Tai town in Guizhou Province. It is make from wheat and sorghum with a unique distilling process that involves seven iterations of the brewing cycle. This wine is made famous to the western world when the Chinese government served this in state banquets entertaining the US presidents. Alcohol content by volume: 54-55%.
Gao Liang jiu (高粱酒) - Goa Liang is the Chinese name for sorghum. Besides sorghum, the brewing process also use barley, wheat etc. The wine was originated from DaZhiGu (大直沽, east of Tianjin) since the Ming Dynasty. Nowadays, Taiwan is a large producer of gao liang jiu. Alcohol content by volume: 61-63%.
Mei Gui Lu jiu (玫瑰露酒 rose essence wine) - a variety of gao liang jiu with distill from a special species of rose and crystal sugar. Alcohol content by volume: 54-55%.
Wu Jia Pi jiu (五加皮酒) - a variety of gao liang jiu with a unique selection of Chinese herbal medicine added to the brew. Alcohol content by volume: 54-55%.
Da Gu jiu (大麴酒) - Originate from Sichuan with 300 year of history. This wine is made of sorghum and wheat by fermenting in a unique process for a long period in the cellar. Alcohol content by volume: 52%.
Yuk Bing Shiu jiu (玉冰燒酒) - a rice wine with over 100 year history. It is made of steamed rice. It is stored a long period after distillation. Alcohol content by volumne: 30%.
Sheung Jing (雙蒸酒 double distill) and San Jing (三蒸酒 triple distill) Jiu - two varieties of rice wine by distilling twice and three times respectively. Alcohol content by volume: 32% and 38-39% respectively.
San Hua (三花酒 three flowers) jiu - a rice wine made in Guilin with allegedly over a thousand year history. It is famous for the fragrant herbal addition and the use of spring water from Mount Elephant in the region. Alcohol content by volumne: 55-57%.
Fujian Glutinous Rice wine (福建糯米酒) - made by adding a long list of expensive Chinese herbal medicine to glutinous rice and a low alcohol rice wine distill. The unique brewing technique use another wine as raw material, not starting with water. The wine has an orange red color. Alcohol content by volume: 18%.
Hua Diao jiu (花雕酒) - a variety of yellow wine originates from Shaoxing, Zhejiang (浙江省紹興市). It is made of glutinous rice and wheat. Alcohol content by volume: 16%.

Food

Chinese Islamic Cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:22:25 -0700

Due to a large Muslim population in western China, many Chinese restaurants cater to Muslims or cater to the general public but are run by Muslims.

A Chinese Islamic restaurant (清真菜館) can sometimes be similar to a Mandarin restaurant with the exception that there is no pork in the menu.

In most major cities in China, there are small Islamic restaurants typicially run by migrants from Western China (i.e. Uighurs), which offer inexpensive noodle soup. These restaurants are typically decorated with Islamic motifs such as pictures of Islamic rugs and Arabic writing.

Another difference is that lamb and mutton dishes are more commonly available than in other Chinese restaurants.

In the US, Chinese Islamic restaurants are frequented by non-Chinese as well. Pakistanis, Arabs and Iranians are among the regular clientele.

Food

Cantonese Cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:20:28 -0700

Cantonese cuisine originates from the region around Canton in southern China's Guangdong province.

There is a Cantonese saying: "We eat everything on the ground with four legs except tables and chairs. We eat everything in the sky except airplanes." [1] Cantonese cuisine includes almost all edible food in addition to the staples of pork, beef and chicken -- snakes, snails, insects, worms, chicken feet, duck tongues, ox genitals, and entrails. A subject of controversy amongst Westerners, dogs are raised as food in some places in China, though this is not a common food you find in restaurants, and is illegal in Hong Kong and will soon be in Taiwan.

Despite the countless Cantonese cooking methods, steaming, stir frying and deep frying are the most popular cooking methods in restaurants due to the short cooking time, and philosophy of bringing out the flavor of the freshest ingredients.

Elements of Cooking:

Spices
Cantonese cuisine can be characterized by the use of very mild and simple spices in combination. Ginger, spring onion, sugar, salt, soy sauce, rice wine, corn starch and oil are sufficient for most Cantonese cooking. Garlic is used heavily in dishes especially with internal organs that have unpleasant odors, such as entrails. Five spices powder, white pepper powder and many other spices are used in Cantonese dishes, but usually very lightly. Cantonese cuisine is sometimes considered bland by Westerners used to thicker, richer and darker sauces of other Chinese cuisines.

Freshness
Spicy hot dishes are extremely rare in Cantonese cuisine. Spicy hot food is more common in very hot climates, such as those of Szechuan, Thailand, etc. where food spoils easily. Canton has the richest food resources in China in terms of agriculture and aquaculture. The copious amount of fresh food and mild weather allows Cantonese cuisine the bring out, rather than drown out, natural flavors.
As an example of the high standard for freshness in Cantonese meals, cows and pigs used for meat are usually killed earlier the same day. Chickens are often killed just hours beforehand, and fish are displayed in tanks for customers to choose for immediate preparation. It is not unusual for a waiter at a Cantonese restaurant to bring the live flipping fish or the crawling lobster to the table to show the patron as proof of freshness before cooking.

Seafood
Due to Guangdong's proximity to the southern coast of China, fresh live seafood is a specialty in Cantonese cuisine. In the Cantonese viewpoint, strong spices are added only to stale seafood to cover the rotting odor. The freshest seafood is odorless, and is best cooked by steaming. For instance, only a small amounts of soy sauce, ginger, and spring onion is added to a steamed fish. The light seasoning is used only to bring out the natural sweetness of the seafood. However, most restaurants gladly get rid of their stale seafood inventory by offering dishes loaded with garlic and spices. As a rule of thumb in Cantonese dining, the spiciness of a dish is usually inversely proportional to the freshness of the ingredients.

Soup
Another unique Cantonese specialty is slow cooked soup. This is almost unheard of in any other Chinese cuisines. The soup is usually a clear broth prepared by simmering meat and other ingredients for several hours. Sometimes, Chinese herbal medicines are added to the pot. The ingredients of a rather expensive Cantonese slow cooked soup are: fresh whole chicken, dried air bladder of cod fish, dried sea cucumber and dried abalone. Another more affordable example includes pork bones, watercress with two types of almonds, etc. The combinations are varied and numerous.
The main attraction is the liquid in the pot, the solids are usually thrown away unless they are expensive ingredients like abalones or shark fins. A whole chicken may simmer in a broth for six hours or longer. The solids are usually unpalatable but the essences are all in the liquid. Traditional Cantonese families have this type of soup at least once a week. Though in this day and age, many families cannot afford this tradition due to the long preparation time required. For the same reason, not many restaurants serve this type of soup either. Even if they do, it can only be served as soupe du jour.

Preserved food
Though Cantonese cooks pay much attention to the freshness of their cooking ingredients, Cantonese cooking also uses a long list of preserved food items. Some items gain very intense flavors during the drying/aging/preservation/oxidation process, similar to Italian style sun-dried tomatoes' intensified flavor from drying. Some chefs combine both dried and fresh variety of the same items in a dish to create a contrast in the taste and texture. Dried items are usually soaked in water to rehydrate them before cooking, such as mushrooms. Or they are cooked with water over long hours until they are tender and juicy. For example, dried abalone and dried scallop have much stronger flavors than the fresh one without the undesirable strong fishy odor. Not only do preserved foods have a longer shelf life, sometimes the dried foods are preferred over the fresh ones because of their uniquely intense flavor or texture. Some favorite dried/preserved food products include:
Dried Shiitake mushroom
Dried abalone
Dried scallop
Dried sea cucumber
Dried air bladder from various fishes
Dried shrimp
Dried shark fin
Dried bird nest
Dried Bok Choy - a kind of chinese green vegetable
Pickled Bok Choy
Pickled raddish
Fu Yu - Salted and fermented tofu
Salted preserved fish
Salted preserved duck
Salted preserved pork
Salted egg - preserved in brine until the egg white turned watery and the yolk turned solid
Thousand year old egg - preserved in lime until the egg white turned gelatinous and dark brown, the yolk dark green
various dried fruits, herbs and flowers, etc.

Sample Dishes
Some notable Cantonese dishes include:
Dim Sum - (literally touch of heart), small dishes served with tea usually at lunch
Shrimp wonton noodle soup
Char shiu - BBQ pork usually with a red outer coloring
Braised squabs
Thick rice porridge with various toppings and deep-fried breadsticks
Pork rind curry
Dace fish balls
Steamed fish
Steamed fish intestines
Salted preserved fish
Steamed chicken
Slow cooked soups
Shark fin soup
Braised dried abalone
Herbal turtoise gelatin
Various steamed desserts and sweet soups
Steamed shrimp dumplings (har gow)
Lo mein - noodles served a unique way

Other favorites with unique Cantonese style:
Roasted suckling pig
Roasted duck
Braised crispy chicken
Soy sauce chicken
Beef entrails
Beef stew
Hot pot
Pan-fried crispy noodles - two sides brown fried egg noodles
Black tea with condensed milk
Various dessert drinks served with shaved ice

Food

Buddhist cuisine

data — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:15:54 -0700

Buddhist cuisine is known as 齋菜 (pinyin: zhai caì) among Chinese.

One basic tenet of Buddhism is that of reincarnation and there is a belief that animals can been reincarnated as humans and vice versa. As a result, many Buddhists do not eat animals because this is considered to be bad for their karma. Compassion for other beings is another common reason.

Buddhist dietary restrictions are structured very differently than those of the Abrahamic religions such as Judaism and Islam. In those religions, the dietary restrictions make a clear distinction between permitted foods and unpermitted foods. By contrast, there is no such clear distinction between permitted and unpermitted foods.

The theory behind Buddhist dietary restrictions is that eating certain foods necessitates actions that result in bad karma. For example, it is common for Buddhists to believe that vegetarianism is better for their karma than eating meat, but to eat meat anyway and consider it something of a bad habit. In some areas, such as Japan, vegetarianism is not a large part of Buddhism. Even Buddhist monks in some parts of the world eat meat.

Buddhist cuisine is not necessarily vegan. Many adherents allow milk and (unfertilized) eggs in their diet, but some strict believers do not. Such beliefs may be due to objections about the environment in which the animals producing such products are raised. Some Buddhist vegetarians, particuarly those from China and Vietnam, also don't eat onion, garlic or leek either, referring to these as the 'five strong-smelling vegetables' (五葷; wu hun).

Buddhist vegetarian chefs have become extremely creative in imitating meat using gluten, tofu, agar and other plant products. Gluten and tofu are very versatile materials, because they can be manufactured into various consistencies and textures. With the proper seasoning and flavour, they can mimic various kinds of meat quite closely. Many fermented soy products provide a meaty favour.

Buddhist vegetarian restaurants can be profitable businesses because the material cost is much cheaper than meat, but dishes are sometimes priced similarly. Also, particularly in Taiwan and Hong Kong there are many Buddhist vegetarians, ensuring a constant supply of customers.

Food