Chinese Cuisine - by food author Howard Hillman

Chinese cuisine

An insightful guide

to Chinese cuisine for

diners and travelers

by an established authority

Why Chinese cuisine

is special

Chinese cuisine stresses a harmonious blending of foods - a dynamic balance between sweet and sour, rich and lean, bright-colored and neutral, smooth and crunchy. Chefs and diners alike insist that each food ingredient should be at its peak of flavor and quality.

Learn about these

regional Chinese cuisines

Click the 5 regional cuisine buttons:

Overall

Chinese cuisine

insights

Cooks makes use of comparatively few herbs. Spices, condiments and dried foods are used more frequently.

For most Chinese, a traditional Chinese family dinner consists of communal dishes equaling the number of diners at the table. All the Chinese cuisine dishes are set in the middle of the table at the same time. The diners help themselves, using chopsticks to transfer small morsels from the communal serving dishes to the top of their rice in their individual rice bowls.

Rice is the main food of south China, while other cereal grains, such as wheat (in the form of noodles, dumplings and steamed buns) reign in the north.

Pork and chicken are the two leading Chinese cuisine meats, though in the north, lamb is very popular.

China's Buddhist monks, forbidden to eat meat, evolved a rich and diversified vegetarian cuisine. They developed recipes for bean curd and wheat gluten (developed from wheat flour) that mimic meat or simply provide variety.

Several famous preparations known as "Chinese" beyond China's borders are not Chinese. These include fortune cookies and Chop Suey (both American inventions).

Learn about these

regional Chinese cuisines

Click the 5 regional cuisine buttons:

Also learn
about these exciting
world cuisines

My food & wine
credentials
My books have been critically acclaimed by major magazines and newspapers. Click the button below to read a sampling (in Acrobat format).