Chinese menu offer a wide variety of food.

Chinese menu

In China, having a meal is all about socializing. Inauthentic Chinese restaurants, there are many dishes on the menu you are supposed to share with everyone sitting at your table. That’s why guests sit around a table with various dishes placed in the centre. Chinese society greatly valued gastronomy, and developed an extensive study of the subject based on its traditional medical beliefs.

Chinese culture initially centered around the North China plain. The first domesticated crops seem to have been the foxtail and broomcorn varieties of millets, while rice was cultivated in the south. By 2000 BC, wheat had arrived from western Asia. These grains were typically served as warm noodles soups instead of baked into bread as in Europe. Nobles hunted various wild game and consumed mutton, pork and dog as these animals were domesticated. Grain was stored against famine and flood and meat was preserved with salt, vinegar, curing, and fermenting.

The flavor of the meat was enhanced by cooking it in animal fats though this practice was mostly restricted to the wealthy. There are a variety of styles of cooking in China, but Chinese chefs have classified eight regional cuisines according to their distinct tastes and local characteristics. A number of different styles contribute to Chinese cuisine but perhaps the best known and most influential are Cantonese cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine (specifically Huaiyang cuisine) and Sichuan cuisine.These styles are distinctive from one another due to factors such as availability of resources, climate, geography, history, cooking techniques and lifestyle.

One style may favour the use of garlic and shallots over chili and spices, while another may favour preparing seafood over other meats and fowl. Jiangsu cuisine favours cooking techniques such as braising and stewing, while Sichuan cuisine employs baking. Zhejiang cuisine focuses more on serving fresh food and is more like Japanese food. Fujian cuisine is famous for its delicious seafood and soups and the precise use of scintillating spices. Hunan cuisine is famous for its hot and sour taste. Anhui cuisine incorporates wild food for an unusual taste and is wilder than Fujian cuisine.

Apart from the host country, the dishes developed in overseas Chinese cuisines are heavily dependent on the cuisines derived from the origin of the Chinese immigrants. In Korean Chinese cuisine, the dishes derive primarily from Shandong cuisine while Filipino Chinese cuisine is strongly influenced by Fujian cuisine. The large population having Chinese ancestors in the United States operates many restaurants, has developed distinctive dishes (such as chop suey) based originally on Cantonese cuisine, while those are not popular among Chinese-American people.