Historical elements influencing Chinese food culture

As a Chinese old saying goes:"mountaineers rely on mountains, just like those by the waterside profit from water." People in different regions choose the food mainly by the materials they have. For instance, in southeastern coastal areas, people are fond of fish and shrimp, which are not accepted by the local people in the northwest area. In addition, politics, economic and technology are main factors which contribute to the area differentiation of Chinese food. Beijing ,an important city from very early time in Chinese history, attracts a lot of famous cooks, which makes different food habits from the whole country affect each other and mingle. The development of economic also performs a role. For example, the northeast China had been relayed on gathering-----fishing, hunting and nomadism. However, as more and more Han Chinese person moved in and reclaim, the agriculture in the central China has already take root there.

Let’s make it more concrete.

I’d like to divide the north China into northeast and northwest.

First talk about the northeast. This area includes Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia, in which, the soil is rich without large population nor frost period. The economic there is made up of farming, hunting, fishing and gathering. Compared with the food in the middle or lower reaches of the Yellow River and Yangtze River valley, the food in northeast consist of more animal albumen. Furthermore, because of the low temperature, people there like frozen food specially. The frozen food in northeast China being a large number of kinds and quantity, as well as a long eating period, is a big characteristic of northeastern food. Such as ,frozen meat, frozen fish, especially the frozen tofu. Because of a short nonfrost period, the fresh vegetable is in short supply. As a result, people like to stock a large number of them for the winter.

Then about the northwest. This food circle in made up of Shanxi, Gansu, Jiangxi and so on. From Qin dynasty on, this area is fine for the growth of grain and wheat. So until now, the wheaten food is popular there, especially in Shanxi and Jiangxi. Because the agriculture’s prior place, animal husbandry is not very advanced.

Food in south China presents another view.

The Yangtze River alley consists of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shanghai. This area is the important cradle land of rice. Centuries ago, it already had an advanced technology of growing rice and other food materials. And until period in spring and autumn and warring states, the “a land of milk and honey” pattern had taken shape. Anhui food promoted with the development of Huizhou merchants and spread to the whole country. In Ming and Qing dynasty, Jiangsu was a reliable taxpaying province. And some books published that time such as <eating rules of Tong> push the polarization of Jiangsu food. The northeast area includes Fujian, Guangdong, Taiwan and places surrounded where Vegetables and fruits, seafood and poultry are abundant. From the end of Qing dynasty, the evasion of western countries result in the change of food habit here. Western food made a great influence on the food culture of south of the Five ridges. Commercial advantages, tradition and atmosphere make the food culture commercial.