Chinese Food, Mapped

there is a problem with Chinese food but I'm not talking about the food itself How It's Made or what it's made with I'm talking about its name where we are right now they don't refer to it as Chinese food it's just called food it's a problem because I love Chinese food but I also don't like Chinese food now that's a really confusing thing to say but sometimes I kind of have to say it like this because the name Chinese food makes us Envision the cuisine to look like this when in actuality food in China looks a lot more like this these are some of China's Regional Cuisines every Cuisine has this because of History climate Etc if Cuisine is like a genre then these are sub genres but in China a lot of these Regional Cuisines don't feel like they come from the same country some are different enough that I think they deserve to be their own cuisines in this video I'm going to give a personal rundown of some of these Cuisines to illustrate just how diverse this country's food is I say personal because I'm only going to talk about food that I've had because I want to speak from experience and speak of what I know now I've never properly been to Mainland China but I did grow up as an American Chinese and had a lot of Chinese food while growing up and this will show you that even outside of China you can try a lot of these different Cuisines and a good place to start are the four Great traditions of Chinese cuisine these Cuisines were listed during the Ching Dynasty to represent the diversity of Chinese cuisine they Sichuan Cantonese jangu and shangdong Cuisine you might have heard of some of them already actually in 1980 four more Regional Cuisines were added to the list of great Traditions but I haven't really tried any food from these other four Cuisines so I won't focus on them instead let's start with one of my favorites sishan Cuisine this Cuisine is known for being spicy mouth numbing and using a lot of garlic and chilies Sichuan despite being in the middle of the mountains uses a lot of ingredients from outside of China in the Middle Ages Middle Eastern crops like Sesame and walnuts reached here and when China started trading with Europe in particular the Portuguese Chili Peppers from Latin America made its way to Sichuan one of the most famous seasonings from Sichuan is mala which is a mix of native Sichuan pepper corns with Latin American Chili Peppers and the result is this amazing mouth numbing spice that is heavily used in a lot of their food including malatang a Sichuan Hot Pot Sichuan also sits in a basin that gets pretty humid in the summer and the food here is set to draw out extra moisture from the body hence why it's so spicy from mapo tofu kungpow chicken to sour fish soup spiciness and strong flavors make Sichuan Cuisine unique from the rest of China next is another favorite of mine Cantonese cuisine this one is more personal to me my family is from Hong Kong and while I'd say Hong Kong has its own very unique special Cuisine Cantonese food plays a big role here this Cuisine is sweeter focusing on stews and brazing and has a lot more Mild flavors than Sichuan Cantonese food is also known for including a lot of meats that let's say put some people off from Duck tongues chicken feet snakes to snails the cantones pretty much eat anything that's edible by the way I'm sorry but I really don't understand chicken feet like this does not look appealing to me at all the reason why Cantonese food is so varied is because of climate and trade guong sits on the Pearl River delta this agriculturally Rich patch of land with a lot of natural deep ports for big big ships this has made this region one of the largest trading hubs in the world which has led to the creation of dimsum this style of eating small plates of ingredients from everywhere it's legit one of the best parts of Chinese food and is something that Hong Kong Lives off of it also brought us chasu which is another personal favorite now let's move up north to jangu Cuisine modern jangu Cuisine comes from the wealthy cities of the Ching Dynasty people in this region in places like hjo and Nang Jing were much more affluent than most of the country in the past and still are in some ways today Banquets were a big thing here under the Ching Dynasty which is why this Cuisine is well known for being meticulous and elaborate this is one of the reasons why this Cuisine is noticeably more colorful than the others just look at the fried rice from here the last of the four Great Cuisines is shangdong Cuisine I actually quickly mentioned it in my earlier video about Taiwan which you should definitely check out this Cuisine is famous for creating the famous sweet and sour sauce in a lot of Chinese dishes shangdong Cuisine began during the Spring and Autumn period of China some of the dishes that exist today were eaten in the Royal Court of the jaia dynasty this was also a time where Confucianism had a stronghold over the kingdom meaning confucious had a lot of influence on this Cuisine he once said that food can never be too clean and meat can never be sliced too thinly and you can see aspects of this today in shangdong food like Guangdong shangdong also sits on the mouth of another major river the Yellow River which is where some of the most famous dishes come from also shangdong is famous for its salt trade even today it's one of the largest salt producers in the world this is why a lot of dishes from here have a salty element even the sweet stuff okay so while these are the four Great Traditions there's still a lot of popular Chinese dishes we have haven't covered yet like in hyan which is where hyan chicken rice is from this dish is special to hyan because it uses chicken specifically Bread on this island but if you're from Southeast Asia you're probably thinking your own country has this as well after all Chinese immigrants have created variations of this dish like ham Chicken in Vietnam and kongai in Thailand one of Singapore signature dishes is Singaporean chicken rice another big dish that's kind of related to the four major Cuisines is peeking duck a signature dish of peeking or Beijing however peeking duck is actually from hung Joo in the 13th century this is the region where a jangu Cuisine is from and duck here is a really big part of this Cuisine the dish grew really popular in Nan Jang which was where the capito city was and was brought over to Beijing around 1420 when the emperor of the main Dynasty moved to capito here in the beginning it was actually known as Nan Jang Rose duck but over time Royal chefs bred a local du du in Beijing to use instead peing duck to this day still has an important position for the Chinese government it was served to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger when the US was establishing a relationship with communist China this speaking duck diplomacy has also been used with other leaders like a German chancellor and Fidel Castro and speaking of jungu Cuisine within this Regional Cuisine is its own Regional Cuisine Shanghai cuisine Shanghai is the largest city in China and has its own Cuisine that's very popular among Chinese people the most famous dish from this Cuisine is Jong bow this amazing dumpling with soup inside but another interesting dish from here is Kong yuin Kong yoin sorry I don't speak Mandarin it's basically a Chinese scallion pancake that likely originates from Shang high but it's something you can also find in Korean cuisine and was even potentially inspired by Indian Cuisine oh yeah there's also a Chinese theory that like this was the origin of pizza that Marco Polo brought the idea back to Europe which isn't true for the record it's extremely extremely unlikely that pizza and pasta came from China on the flip side there is actually a strong European influence on this next Regional Cuisine Hong Kong Cuisine now as someone whose family is from Hong Kong I was a little bit hesitant to include the city on the list because reasons but Hong Kong is internationally recognized as a part of China so it's on the list and to be fair this is one of my favorite Cuisines from China because it's so influenced by Portuguese and British Cuisine from stuff like pineapple bun baked pork chop rice to beef cha fun a lot of unique dishes were invented in Hong Kong during British rule I actually really want to make a video about this in Hong Kong someday so I will focus on this more in a future video but I just wanted to say that I love this Cuisine for mixing Chinese and Western culture because that's basically what I am next we're moving on to a wildly different flavor the cuisine of shinan or more specifically weager Cuisine Okay now what's happening to the weager community in China is beyond the scope of this video but I do want to pay tribute to the weaker people and their food which is wildly different from any anything else in China this Cuisine is much closer to the Cuisines of Central Asia and the Middle East weers even have their own version of pilaf which they call weager Polo another interesting dish year is lman which adapts Chinese noodles with the flavors of Central Asian food found in usbekistan or Kazakhstan Wagers have lived in the middle of the Silk Road for centuries meaning flavors from China Russia and the Middle East have all converged here bread is a huge staple here for that reason unlike the rest of China wegers often eat Nam and samsa which are baked in these pots called tandoors finally Beyond these Regional Cuisines are some random dishes that are huge in the country but don't really have a clear origin to them like kanji or juk this is a watery rice dish that's usually for sick people or kids I don't like J at all but it's insanely popular in China another one is steamed pork B which come from northern China which is a personal favorite and the last one I'm going to talk about today is something that's very common in home cooking stir fried tomatoes and scrambled eggs this dish came from the Ching Dynasty a time when China was trading a lot with the West Tomatoes aren't native to China so the Chinese experimented a lot with them and ended up using them with eggs and it's often something that I make whenever I'm homesick this Cuisine is something something that is both important and foreign to me I grew up in Brooklyn so I ate all different kinds of Cuisines when I was a kid but Chinese food has always been this one Cuisine that has brought my larger family together even though I've never been to Mainland China I've been to Hong Kong and maau but also paradoxically this Cuisine of my family's country is as foreign to me as it is to I think any other American in the end I consider myself more American than Chinese because I was born there and lived in the US for basically almost my whole life I mean the first time I went to Hong Kong was when I was 21 but the fact that I can have all of this diverse food outside of China shows that this video is just scratching the surface of this insane Cuisine I'd love to go to China someday though after making my video about Taiwan I'm not really sure if it's even safe for me to go right now anyways I hope this video gives you a better understanding of food from China and gives you a different view of this Cuisine this is a pretty different vibe from the rest of my videos so if there's any like Regional Cuisines or dishes that I didn't mention that you think should be mentioned please let me know down in the comments and if you're interested in Chinese or Asian Cuisines I highly recommend checking out the previous video about food in Taiwan I don't usually want to shout out my previous videos but I do think my video on Taiwan is the best thing I've ever made so far and if you already haven't please like And subscribe it really helps this channel keep going and I just like to look at big numbers [Music]

Channel: Matthew Li

Views: 10,878

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Id: i8RyeNbsvDA

Length: 12min 44sec (764 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024