Chinese Food and Cuisine Traditions

Food and Cuisine in China - Beside the eight great Chinese culinary traditions, in China there are other traditions, including some minority cuisines. Some of them are the following:

Beijing Cuisine

Beijing cuisine is famous for its imperial cuisine (long banquets and dishes that take a lot of work to prepare). A popular Beijing dish is the ‘Peking Duck’. Beijing cuisine prefers Chinese noodles food noodles, bread and dumplings to rice.

Shanghai Cuisine

Shanghai cuisine – the culinary tradition from this Chinese city has been influenced by a lot of different traditions. Its dishes are mellow, sweet and a sweet and sour flavour is favourite by Shanghainese chefs. In Shanghainese cuisine rice is preferred over noodles.

Taiwanese Cuisine

Taiwanese cuisine – its flavour are bland and it is influenced a lot by Japanese cuisine, thus the popularity of raw dishes. As Taiwan is an island, its cuisine offers a great variety of fresh fish.

Dongbei cuisine

Dongbei cuisine – this variety of Chinese food is typical of the north east of China. Dongbei cuisine uses a lot of meat and potatoes in thick and fairly salty sauces.

Uygur cuisine

Uygur cuisine - the Uygurs are a Muslim ethnic group from Xinjiang Autonomous Region in the Northwest. Some of Uygur typical dishes are roast fried spicy mutton, square noodles in tomato sauce and nang bing a round type of bread, good when eaten hot.

Hui cuisine

Hui cuisine – this variety of Chinese food involves the use of mutton, lamb, beef and poultry meat. Hui cuisine has a great reputation in China because of its taste and it can be found everywhere in China.

Tibetan cuisine

Tibetan cuisine – Tibetans eat a lot of milk, yoghurt, cheese and meat (mutton and other animals). They drink greasy green tea with their meals and they do not like spices very much. The only things they use to flavour their dishes are salt, garlic and green onions.