is sometimes explained by Sichuan's climate. The fertile agricultural basin is covered with clouds much of the year and there is enough rain to permit two crops of rice in many places. Strong spices provide a pick-me-up in cold and humid weather, and make a useful preservative. The most popular spices are chilies and Sichuan peppercorns (prickly ash), tempered with sugar, salt, and vinegar. Despite the province's incendiary reputation, many of the famous dishes are not spicy at all, for example, the famous camphorand tea-smoked duck, made by smoking a steamed duck over a mixture of tea and camphor leaves. But it is the mouth burners that have made Sichuan's name known all over the world, dishes like ma po doufu-stewed bean curd and ground meat in a hot sauce; hui guo rou-twice-cooked (boiled and stir-fried) pork with cabbage in a piquant bean sauce; yu xiang qiezi, eggplant in "fish flavor" sauce; and dou ban yu-fish in hot bean sauce.
When the Grand Canal was built in the Sui dynasty AD 581-618, it gave rise to several great commercial cities at its southern terminus, including Huaian and Yangzhou, after which this regional cuisine (Hunan) is named. Its location on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China's "land of fish and rice" gave it an advantage in terms of agricultural products, and it was renowned for seafood such as fish, shrimp, eel, and crab, which were shipped up the canal to the imperial court in Beijing. Hunan cuisine is not well known outside of China, perhaps because it rejects all extremes and strives for the "Middle Way". Freshness (xian) is a very important concept in the food of this region, but xian means more than just fresh. For a dish of steamed fish to be described as xian, the fish must have been swimming in the tank one hour ago, it must exude its own natural flavor, and must be tender yet slightly chewy. Xian also implies that the natural flavor of the original ingredients should always take precedence over the sauce. Some of the best known dishes from this region are steamed or stewed and require less heat and a longer cooking time, for instance chicken with chestnuts, the glorious pork steamed in lotus leaves, duck with a stuffing made from eight ingredients, and the evocatively named "lion head" meatballs.
The cuisine of Beijing has perhaps been subjected to more outside influences than any other major cuisine in China. First came the once-nomadic Mongols, who made Beijing their capital during the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). They brought with them mutton, the chief ingredient in Mongolian hot pot, one of Beijing's most popular dishes in the autumn and winter. The Manchus, as the rulers of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), introduced numerous ways of cooking pork. As the capital of China for the last eight centuries, Beijing became the home of government officials who brought their chefs with them when they came from the wealthy southern provinces. But the most important influence comes from nearby Shandong province, which has a pedigree that goes back to the days of Confucius C. 550 Be. Shandong cuisine features the seafood found along China's eastern seaboard: scallops and squid, both dry and fresh, sea cucumber, conch, crabs, and shark's fins, often teamed with the flavors of raw leek and garlic.
Beijing's most famous dish, Peking duck, owes as much to the culinary traditions of other parts of China as to the capital itself. The method of roasting the duck is drawn from Hunan cuisine, while the pancakes, raw leek, and salty sauce that accompany the meat are typical of Shandong.
Beijing is also famous for its steamed and boiled dumplings (jiaozi), which are filled with a mixture of pork and cabbage or leeks, or a combination of eggs and vegetables.
The Food of the People
The proliferation of refrigerators in China today is making inroads on an institution that for centuries has been an essential part of daily life: shopping in the local food market. Many housewives and househusbands go to the market two or three times a day. In some state-run offices in Beijing, half-hour rest periods are allotted to enable its employees to shop for fresh produce.
In addition to fresh food markets, there are shops selling a huge variety of prepared and packaged food. Along with food markets, most cities have areas where snack foods are sold in stand-up or sit-down stalls. Breakfast may be a fried egg wrapped in a pancake; an "elephant ear" plate-sized piece of fried bread; noodles; con gee (rice gruel) or bean curd jelly accompanied by a deep-fried cruller (you tiao); or a slice of cake and a jar of milk. Lunch or dinner could be noodles from a food stall or careful preparation of the just-bought produce from the market.
Esoteric and often extremely expensive ingredients such as shark's fin, dried scallops and dried oysters go into some of China's prized dishes.
Every region has its own particular snacks, very often sold on the street. Snack food is very inexpensive and includes such regional specialties as Beijing's boiled tripe with fresh cilantro, fried starch sausage with garlic, sour bean soup, and boiled pork and leek dumplings Uiaozi). Shanghai is known for its steamed baozi dumplings, sweet glutinous rice with eight sweetmeats (babaofan) and yeasty sweetened wine lees (the sediment of the wine left after fermentation). Sichuan is noted for spicy dan dan noodles, dumplings in hot sauce, and bean curd jelly (dou hua), while Cantonese dim sum is a cuisine unto itself.
The average urban family eats its main meal of the day in the evening. This meal usually consists of a staple such as rice or noodles, one or two fried dishes, at least one of which contains meat or fish, and a soup. Northerners eat more wheat than rice, in the form of steamed buns or noodles, which are fried or simmered in stock.
Beer regularly accompanies meals at home; stronger spirits are reserved for special occasions. The whole family gets involved in the business of shopping and cooking, and friends or relatives may be invited to join in the feast.
Western foods have made tentative inroads into the 6000-year-old bastion of Chinese cuisine, but fast-food outlets succeed mainly because of their novelty and location in Chinese tourist cities.
China's Gourmet Culture
As the Son of Heaven, the emperor of China enjoyed a status so elevated above the common mortal that it is difficult to conceive of the awe in which he was held and the power that he enjoyed. There are no dining rooms in the Forbidden City; tables would be set up before the emperor wherever he decided to eat. Every meal was a banquet of approximately 100 dishes. These included 60 or 70 dishes from the imperial kitchens, and a few dozen more served by the chief concubines from their own kitchens. Many of the dishes served to the emperor were made purely for their visual appeal, and were placed far away from the reach of the imperial chopsticks. These leftovers were spirited out of the palace to be sold to gourmets eager to "dine with the emperor."
From the palace, this gourmet culture filtered down to the private homes of the rich and powerful and to the restaurants where the privileged entertained. Banquets are important social and commercial events in China today and many high officials attend banquets five or six nights a week. Almost any event can supply the reason for a banquet: the completion (or non-completion) of a business deal, wedding, graduation, trip abroad, return from a trip abroad, promotion, moving house and so on. One can also give a banquet to save or give "face" in the case of some unpleasant situation or mishap.
Some of the best restaurants in China today are the pre-1949 enterprises that have managed to survive by virtue of the quality of their cooking and by their location. One example is Fangshan Restaurant in Beihai Park in Beijing, set in a former imperial palace on the shores of an artificial lake, where many of the recipes are taken from the late-Qing dynasty Forbidden City. Fangshan is renowned for its Manchu-Chinese Banquet, a three-day dining extravaganza that consists of over 100 different dishes, a souvenir of Qing dynasty court banquets. At another famous restaurant. Listening to the Orioles Pavilion, in the gardens of the famed Summer Palace (known to the Chinese as Yi He Yuan), dinners for 10 at around $1000 per table are reputedly not uncommon.
The Chinese Kitchen and Table
Rice is essential to a Chinese meal. This is particularly true in South China, although this division is not hard and fast. One reason the Grand Canal was built
