That Chinese people have a passion bordering almost on obsession for food is no secret, and as many of us quickly discover upon arriving, the variety of “local” dishes is about as plentiful as this country’s population, taking us miles beyond Chop Suey and Chow Mian.
The regional variation in food is in fact so vast, that the Chinese have a long-standing system of classification for their cuisine. In its latest incarnation, the Chinese regional cooking style guide includes 8 different major regions.
This guide is meant to help you get an overview over the different types of local cuisine, so next time you don’t end up mistakenly walking into a Hunanese restaurant that unexpectedly kills your taste buds (yes, we’ve been there).
Different Systems of Classification
The broadest differentiation in Chinese cuisine is probably, as with many other aspects in Chinese life, the North South divide. This has been present since the Tang Dynasty and in its simplest form is summed up as Northerners like noodles and Southerners eat rice. During the early Qing this rather crude definition was expanded and four major cuisines identified: Sichuanese, Cantonese, Huai’Yang and Lu cuisines. By the end of the Qing dynasty, the menu has been extended by another four styles to make up a total of eight major cuisines 八大菜系, which we will introduce in the following.
鲁 Lu (Shandong)
Lu cuisine can be seen as one of the founding members of Chinese cooking; mentioned in chronicles as early as over 2750 years ago. Lu cuisine as it is still eaten today goes back to the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongolian reign of China proclaimed in 1271. Many modern cuisines in China, such as Beijing, Tianjin and Northeastern, are branches of the original Lu cuisine.
Characteristic of Shandong cuisine are corn and peanuts; in fact big platters of roasted peanuts are often served at banquets. Vegetables are more restricted than in the Southern parts of China and typically include potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, mushrooms and eggplants, meat-wise pork is heavily features. Finally, the area is famed for its vinegar production.
川 Chuan (Sichuan)
The spice of Sichuan cuisine is infamous throughout the country, the ma la 麻辣 cooking style, which translates to numbing spice is particularly well-known, as the little pepper corns literally make your mouth go numb when you bite them.
Most Sichuan food has a tell-tale fiery red colour drenched in chilis oil or populated by hordes of dried chilis. The taste for spicy came originally from necessity rather than a culinary preference; due to the incredibly humid and muggy climate in Sichuan, which means many foods have to be preserved. Since this sometimes leaves a less enjoyable taste, one argument is that the heavy use of chilis is a way of masking the not-so-fresh taste of the ingredients. In addition, in traditional Chinese medicine, chili serves to reduce internal dampness, the ideal way of dealing with the humidity surrounding one from outside.
Typical Sichuan style goods are Dandan Noodles 担担面，Chongqing spicy chicken 重庆辣子鸡, a dry fried chicken, sometimes with batter casing and way to many chilis than is safe, Mapo Tofu 麻婆豆腐 or water-poached fish 水煮鱼, though ironically the water has a thick layer of, you might have guessed, red hot chilli oil floating on top, so calling it “water” is just ever so slightly misleading.
苏 Su (Jiangsu)
Jiangsu cuisine, ah yes, our very own province is also represented among the big 8. Down here in Jiangsu provinces, cooking is not just a matter of getting food on the table; it is subject to detailed rules. There is a strict selection of ingredients according to season, e.g. eating aubergines in autumn reportedly causes loss of hair (still, who can resist an aubergine?!). Furthermore, colours and shapes are matched up in Jaingsu style cooking for an aesthetic dining experience. Textures are generally soft, but not mushy. Famous Jiangsu dishes include the “hongshao: 红烧 or “red-braised” sauce, a combination of soy sauce and sugar, as well as lion’s head meatballs 狮子头, and seafood such as crayfish, the blazing red little baby lobsters that are piled into huge towers at local restaurants when in season or crab-meat dumplings 蟹黄汤包.
A subcategory of Jiangsu cuisine is the Huai’yang cooking style; it often overshadows its parent having belonged to the original four traditional cooking styles during the early Qing dynasty. Huai’yang cooking can be found in the region surrounding the lower reaches of the Huai and Yangtze rivers, mainly in the cities of Huai’an, Yangzhou and Zhenjiang. Such is the fame of Huai’Yang cuisine it has been served on a number of historically important occasions, i.e. during the first state banquet of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and again for its 50th anniversary and finally during the visit of US president Bush. Taste-wise, Huai’yang is very light, sparingly using ingredients such as salt, pepper or chili. Famous representatives of this region are Yangzhou fried rice 扬州炒饭, tofu noodles 干丝 or sauerkraut fish 酸菜鱼.
粤 Yue (Guangdong/Canton)
Cantonese cuisine is not only famous in China, but has a reputation on an international scale. Since many Chinese migrants hail from these regions, overseas China towns still brim with Cantonese restaurants. Having long been a trading port, Cantonese cooking uses many imported ingredients.
However, much more importantly. Cantonese have a reputation of eating anything that has legs (or rather any part of the animal a human could technically chew or swallow), including offal, chicken feet, duck’s tongue and many other slightly controversial animal parts.
Dishes feature a wise variety of sauces the most famous of which are Hoisin (seafood) and Oyster sauces, as well as Cha Siu marinade. Furthermore, although generally Cantonese cooks value the freshness of ingredients, a number of preserved foods are often used in combination with fresh items, such as dried small shrimps or salted fish. To keep dishes from being too greasy and heavy, steaming and blanching are quite common cooking techniques in this area. Famous dishes include sweet and sour pork, steamed vegetables with oyster sauce, chow mien, shrimp wonton and dim sum or roasted goose.
闽 Min (Fujian)
Fujian province cuisine is especially focused on soups and stews as well as elaborate use of sauces. Its taste is light but flavourful, as umami flavours are strongly used. Due to its closeness to the sea, this regions works a lot with seafood, as a result of which it developed its famous fermented fish sauce. Furthermore, the region is well-known for its “drunken” cooking style, in which dishes are marinated in wine.
One of the most famous soups hailing from the region is “Buddha Jumps Over The Wall”; this is made of many different and exclusive (if not slightly contested) ingredients such as shark’s fin, abalone, sea slug, dried scallops, duck, chicken breast, pig’s trotters, pigeon’s eggs and many others. In total, the soup reportedly contains 30 ingredients. The curious name hails from a legend that the lingering fragrance of this soup tempted a monk to jump over the wall of his monastery to taste the dish, forgetting his vows to be a vegetarian.
浙 Zhe (Zhejiang) Zhejiang province, so close to Jiangsu, characteristically favours fresh and soft flavours. Due to its many and large lakes, the area has many freshwater fish and seafood dishes to offer. Futhermore, especially Hangzhou has a leaning towards adding bamboo shoots to a majority of its dishes.
A famous local dish is Dongpo Pork 东坡肉, in which the fatty meat is pan-fried and then red-braised (红烧) with soy sauce and wine. Beggar’s chicken is another dish which is typically associated with the region, although it actually originates in Jiangsu province.
徽 Hui (Anhui)
As our neighbouring province, Anhui is influenced by cooking of the Huangshan mountains and as such shares certain similarities with Jiangsu cuisines. Typical of this area is the use of wild herbs from both land and sea. Preparation methods are rather simple.
Well-known Anhui dishes include Luzhou Roast Duck. While our minds tend to jump to Beijing almost instantaneously at the mention of the feathery friends, actually the Anhui method of preparing this bird is nationally renowned, so much so that it has won awards in China.
Egg dumplings are another classic, often seen as “rural cooking”. Instead of heavy dough made from flour to wrap up the filling, thin sheets of egg are used as rapper. Filled often with minced pork and soaked in a soy sauce, these little gems are also a commonly found treat in Nanjing.
湘 Xiang (Hunan)
Xiang cuisine encompasses the Xiang River, Dongting Lake and Western Hunan province. This character is one you should pay attention to, as walking into a Hunan restaurant amounts to somewhat of a death wish. If you thought Sichuan with its numbing peppers and chilis was difficult to handle, stay away as Hunan cooking features a peppery spice which to many is way worse than anything Sichuan can throw at you.
A hotspot for agriculture, dishes from this region have a great variation of ingredients, including many cured meats. Similarly to Jiangsu, dishes change depending on the season, with cold dishes in summer, such as cold meats, cooling down the body in the humid heat of Hunan. In winter, hot pot is very popular since it is thought to warm up the body when it is cold outside, which in all fairness is quite accurate if you have ever experienced the steam emanating from the boiling bad boys. In Hunan, a famous hot pot variety is the Yuanyang hot pot, which translates as lovers hot pot and is made up of two broths, one non-spicy and one spicy one.
Other Famous Styles
Of course, things are never as simple as they seem and while these eight styles cover a vast majority of the food you will encounter in the big Chinese cities, there are quite a number of more niche types of food, that are also very common and famous. The major ones are
North-Eastern cuisine 东北菜
Think jiaozi, potato dishes and stews, heavy dishes for a cold climate, many inspired by closeness to Russia
Shanghai cuisine 本帮菜/沪菜
Small wonton soup, the famous Xiaolongbao 小笼包, dumplings filled with pork and sweet soup, yes sweet, not savoury as you tend to get them abroad and the heartier fried Shengjianbao 生煎包 are some Shanghai classics.
Jiangxi cuisine 赣菜
Spicy, with chilis used a vegetable rather than ingredient to enhance flavour, Jiangxi cuisines is also heavy on tofu and famous for freshwater fish banquets.
Hubei cuisine 鄂菜
With over 2,000 years of culinary history, Hubei dishes feature fresh water produce with a focus on steaming. Matching colours plays a big part in this cooking style, which considers aesthetics aside from taste.
Beijing cuisine
Heavily influenced by the Shandong style of cooking, Beijing is most famous for its duck and Shuanyangrou, a mutton-heavy, non-spicy hot pot, as well as Zhejiang noodles.
Hebei cuisine 冀菜
Touted as the “ninth big cooking style”, Hebei cuisine is prestigious especially due to it being the home of Chengde, the imperial summer resort, and therefore imperial cooking. Savoury, save heavy and deep fried all describe the cooking characteristics of the province surrounding Beijing.
Henan cuisine 豫菜
Though technically a Northern province, Henan shares many commonalities with our own Jiangsu province in terms of food, i.e. using rice vermicelli as opposed to thick wheat noodles and cooking based on seasonality, just as is the case in Jiangsu.
Hakka cuisine 客家菜
Especially prominent in Guangdong province, where many of the Hakka minority migrated to in the past, this cooking style is very present in other countries such as Hong Kong, Malaysia or Singapore. In 2014, it was listed on the first Hong Kong inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Some classics include salt-baked chicken, tofu with minced meat or aubergine with salted fish.
Halal cuisine/Chinese Islamic cuisine 清真菜
Developed by muslim minorities such as Hui or Uighur. As is generally the case with Halal food, there is no pork; instead more of a reliance on lamb. Most famously, lamb skewers and the famous Lanzhou noodle soups represent this cooking style.
