The Four Major Styles
Chinese diets were historically defined by the kind of crops grown and animals that could be reared or hunted in a given area. Thus wheat-based noodles, bread and, to a lesser extent, potatoes are the staples in the north while the balmy south is a land of rice, which has been cultivated in China since 5000 BC! Outside influences also had their part to play as you will find when sampling Macanese and Portuguese delights in Macau. Local cuisines further developed according to the quality and availability of particular ingredients. As you travel through the country you will be confronted by new local specialties at every turn, and if you take advantage of these it will add both flavor and understanding to the regional differences in your journey. But in this modern day the various styles have managed to permeate most areas of the country and, while less popular and probably less tasty than the local delicacies, Cantonese dim sum can be chosen in Beijingor Mongolian hotpot ordered in Guangzhou. The four major regional styles are detailed below, though these can be subdivided countless more times.
Southern (Guangdongcai)
Cantonese food is the epitome of the southern style and is the most globally renowned, though it's still very different in Guangdong than London or New York. Sweet and sour dishes are a case in point, rarely offering any of their contrasting "sour” promise outside of China. Hong Kong and Guangzhou are at the heart of Cantonese cuisine, but the surrounding provinces, including Guangxi, are strongly influenced by the style. Southerners are famous within China for eating "anything whose back faces the sun” and as such the southern style can offer some of the most unsettling dishes the country has to offer, including dog, cat and snake. But these dishes won't come unless you order them and Cantonese food is typified by super fresh ingredients, lots of seafood and light palatable sauces. Best of all, dim sum(dian xin in pinyin) includes an astounding variety of miniature buns, dumplings and spring rolls served from trolleys circulating the restaurant, typically at breakfast time. The fact you can see the dishes before ordering makes dim sum an easy way for the non-Chinese speaker to choose! Other dishes to try include sandpots (sha bao), one-person pots of steamed rice, vegetables and meat.
Northern (Beifangcai)
Mandarin cuisine is the elite of the Northern style, derived from the food of emperors, and Beijing duck is its most celebrated offering. More generally though, Northern food is less glamorous, but no less tasty, with salty garlic, ginger and onion flavored dishes and staples of mantou (steamed buns), noodles (mian) and pancakes (bing), as well as numerous varieties of jiaozi (dumplings usually filled with pork and leek or cabbage), for which Xi'an is particularly famous.
Dishes for the Fearless
Seahorses in sticks
A host of seemingly unpalatable foods, including cow's blood, chicken's feet, duck's tongue, rat, scorpion, snake and shark's fin, are eaten in China, particularly in the south. The reason for the amazing diversity of food consumed is partly rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine following beliefs about balancing the various elements of the body to improve health. Thus, dog is seen as warming in the winter, cat is cooling in summer and snake offers male virility! This variety is also partly borne of necessity – many of the insects consumed today were initially eaten due to famine. The purported health benefits do little to encourage most visitors to try such dishes, but don't worry about mistakenly being served them – they're fairly easy to spot even on Chinese-only menus, as they tend to be the most expensive. If you're feeling adventurous, there are some tamer dishes to try which are still well out of the ordinary – try a green centered Thousand Year Old Egg (pidan), which has been preserved for months in straw and ash!
Eastern (Huaiyangcai)
Eastern cooking uses lots of bamboo, mushrooms, seafood and freshwater fish, although its often heavy use of oil can make it unpalatable to some. Shanghainese (shanghaicai) cuisine is at the refined end of the eastern scale and offers wide varieties of lightly cooked, miniscule treats akin to dim sum, most notably xiaolongbao (steamed pork dumplings).
Western (Szechuancai)
Szechuan and Hunan are famed for their spicy dishes, which are arguably the hottest you'll find anywhere in the world. In Szechuanese cooking the meat or tofu is merely a vehicle allowing the chili-laden sauce to deliver its knockout punch. Flavors are carefully constructed to produce strange-sounding but delicious dishes such as fish-flavored pork (which contains no fish), but the real trick is being able to differentiate any of the manifold tastes after your mouth has been numbed by the fragrant, potent huajiao (flower pepper).
Culinary Experiences Not to Miss
African Chicken – this very un-Chinese sounding spicy dish has its roots in the Portuguese trade routes of yesteryear and can be enjoyed throughout Macau.
Beggar's Chicken (jiaohuaji) – this delicious eastern dish allegedly first came into being when a beggar who had no cooking utensils was given a chicken and ingeniously packed mud around the bird to cook it in his fire. To his surprise this method not only cooked the chicken perfectly, but also removed the feathers when the baked mud casing was cracked open.
Beijing duck (beijing kaoya) – crispy oven-roasted duck in wafer-thin pancakes with spring onions and plum sauce is the dish to try in the capital.
Caramelized Apples (basi pinguo) – other than seasonal fresh fruit, desserts aren't that common in Chinese restaurants and this dish of sliced apples coated in caramelized sugar makes for a wonderfully sweet change.
Mapo Tofu (mapo dofu) – the spiciest tofu Szechuan has to offer.
Crossing the Bridge Noodles (guoqiaomian) – a kind of miniature one-person hotpot, this Yunnanese dish was supposedly devised by a Qing scholar's wife in order to keep his food warm when she carried it out to his place of study, by covering it in a layer of insulating oil.
Dim Sum (dian xin) – the archetypal Cantonese breakfast made up of dozens of miniature taste sensations (see The Four Major Styles, Southern, above).
Drunken Prawns (zuixia) – prawns marinated in alcohol.