Cantonese Cuisine and Recipes
Information about Cantonese Cooking plus lots of
Cantonese Recipes
Cooking
by Country -
November
2005
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Cantonese Cuisine is by far most famous
of the Chinese regional cuisines in the West. It hails from the
Guangdong Province sometimes referred to as "Canton Province”, which
is situated in the South of China. The capital city, Guangzhou is also
known as Canton City.
It is also the most diverse of Chinese
cuisines due to several factors including its temperate/tropical climate
and abundant rainfall which enables tropical fruit, rice and a wide
array of vegetables to be easily grown plus its proximity to the sea
plus a coastline of 3368km enables an abundance of fresh fish and
seafood to be readily available through the province.
Although Guangdong’s terrain is quite
mountainous it does have a fertile delta, many rivers and lakes and some
forest areas. |
Ancient
times and Influences on Cantonese Cooking
Although Guangdong was only made its own province
in 226AD, archaeological evidence shows that farming and keeping livestock was
being practised in some parts of the area at least 5,000 years ago. Certainly by
the 1st Century AD, the breeding of cattle and other livestock, the use of iron
tools, the development of paddy fields and the growing of a wide variety of
crops on hillsides was widely practised. Irrigation systems had been set up by
means of digging ditches and building troughs which drew water from springs.
Hunting and foraging, in particular for medicinal herbs and fungi, was
also done on a regular basis.
Its city of Guangzhou was China’s earliest international trading port main and
by the 16th century, Guangdong Province had extensive trade links with the rest
of the world in particular the Europeans. This also explains the prominence of
Cantonese cuisine outside of China, as Guangdong was also the major port of exit
for labourers.
In past times poor or failed harvests in the region led to the old Cantonese
saying: "Any animal, whose back faces sky, can be eaten”. In order to survive,
people had to resort to eating some very strange things such as wood ears and
lily buds. Even today, Cantonese cuisine includes almost all edible food in
addition to the usual items such as pork, beef and chicken. These include
snakes, snails, insects and worms.
A further major influence on Cantonese cooking was the overthrow of Ming Dynasty
in 1644. Many of the Imperial chefs fled to the Canton region, bringing with
them their talents and variations on the culinary habits already established in
that province.
Current
Day Cantonese Cuisine
The temperate climate in the Guangdong region has encouraged the use of light
and simple seasonings in Cantonese cooking, unlike the hot spicier flavourings
in Hunan or Szechuan dishes. Ginger, soy sauce, spring onion, shrimp paste and
rice wine are frequently used as are other pre-pared sauces such as Hoisin,
Black Bean and Oyster sauce. Ground Five-spice is also used, but very sparingly.
Stir-frying is a popular cooking method which was brought about because of the
lack of cooking fuel from thousands of years of settlements so although some
dishes require a lot of preparation by way of chopping, they often only a few
minutes cooking time. Steaming is also a widely used method of cooking in this
cuisine as is roasting, in particular pork or duck.
Slow cooked soup is a speciality, not to be found in many of China’s other
regional cuisines, with the soup usually being a clear broth prepared by
simmering meat and other ingredients for several hours. Quite often the bulky
ingredients are discarded in favour of the well flavoured broth. Traditional
Cantonese families will eat his type of soup once a week and partake of Dim Sum
at weekends. You can read all about Dim Sum in the Speciality Dish section.
Fish, shellfish, beef, chicken and pork are staples along with the ubiquitous
boiled white rice which is served at most meals and as with the rest of China,
meals generally consist of 2 or 3 main dishes for example, meat, seafood and
vegetable dish plus rice which are all served at the same time and eaten with
chopsticks. Desserts don’t feature prominently.
As mentioned above, Cantonese cuisine is very popular in the west and indeed,
most Chinese restaurants or take-aways feature many Cantonese dishes. Believe it
or not, Sweet and Sour Pork is actually an authentic Cantonese dish.
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