1. World's Biggest Variety of Flavours
Interestingly, Chinese food features 5 key flavours that are to be balanced according to traditional Chinese medicine. These five flavours are; sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and spicy. However, these vary to different degrees across different parts of China. For example, Sichuan cuisine is famous for its spiciness, Hong Kong favours sweet or savoury dishes, northern cuisine is usually salty, and southern minority cuisine can be quite sour.
2. China's North/South Divide
The north of China where it is normally colder and drier, favours wheat production therefore you will find mostly foods such as dumplings, wheat noodles, steamed buns and stuffed buns.
On the other hand, in the south of China, Chinese people eat predominantly rice or rice noodles with almost every meal (as well as far greater varieties of fruit and veg), and only occasionally will eat wheat.
3. Chinese will eat most things that move!
Visitors are often shocked when discovering some of the things that Chinese people eat. Many of these shocking dishes include, dog hotpot, insects, scorpions, snakes, rats, pig's ears, heads, feet, hearts, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines, and boiled blood!
4. Keeping it fresh in China
All food is brought fresh in China whether it is at the market down the street or at a supermarket.This includes all meat and vegetables. Very little is frozen and you definitely won't find anything tinned!
Also, according to Chinese medicine, vegetables must be eaten in season to combat the imbalance of too much yin (cold weather) and yang (hot weather), dryness, or dampness. For example, huge white radishes (with high yang) are very popular in winter.
5. Chinese Eat Bones Or Spit Bone Splinters
Chinese people don't like to waste anything, and this goes for food as well. In food outlets or restaurants, whole animals are often served on the plate. For example, fish is not filleted, simply gutted, with the head and bones intact. Sometimes bones are soft enough to chew up but sometimes they must be de-mouthed and spout out onto a side plate.
In China it is believed that the meat near the bones is the best part, and that marrow is very nutritious, therefore bones are deliberately chopped to splinters to release the marrow, so watch out while taking a bite!
6. Dishes Are Shared Lazy-Susan-Style
In traditional Chinese meals, various dishes are shared communally amongst guests at a round table. Various meat and vegetable dishes are placed in the middle of the table, where guests sit with their rice bowls around it.
In restaurants, tables of more than 10 guests usually feature a lazy Susan (a turntable) to ease the sharing experience amongst diners.
There are so many food and variety to discover in China but now you know what to expect when eating in China!
The above contents are provided by Aihua Mandarin.
Supervisor: Crystal Huang
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