Regional Cuisine of China: Cantonese Flavors
Cantonese cuisine, one of the earliest of China’s eight primary regional cuisines to become known internationally, arose from the Guangdong province in southern China. The word Cantonese stems from a French mispronunciation of the name of the province that made it into common usage. Cantonese cuisine has evolved from China’s more than five thousand years of history, which began to be recorded in writing from about 1500 BC, with the first city in Guangdong province being built in 214 BC.
Cantonese cuisine stands out from other regional Chinese cuisines because its primary methods of cooking and spicing food are meant to bring out and complement the natural flavors of the main ingredients of the dishes prepared. Throughout culinary history, it is common to find that heavily spiced sauces and other preparations served to mask less than fresh meats or other foods, whereas when an abundance of fresh ingredients are at hand, as have been traditionally available in China’s Guangdong province, there is a tendency towards the development of ‘clean’ culinary techniques, spices used to enhance, rather than to mask, natural flavors.
The southern location of Guangdong provides it with a climate that allows many types of fruits and vegetables to flourish. Its coastal access offers a variety of fresh seafood. These conditions combine to make this area among the most food secure in China, with residents enjoying access to a plentiful and varied diet of fresh foods. It is from these particular circumstances that the Cantonese culinary traditions arose.
Cantonese cuisine uses a more delicate spicing technique than do other traditional Chinese regional cuisines. Because of the quality and freshness of the food supply, there is a marked preference for simple spices, used in various combinations, with a light hand. Among the more commonly used spices are ginger, rice wine, aged soy sauce, salt, sugar, cornstarch, oil, white pepper, and a spice mixture referred to as five spice powder.
As with the cuisines of a few other countries, the cuisine of China is influenced by something deeper a bit than day-to-day culture, reflecting a fundamental life philosophy. Five spice powder, common to most regional cuisines of China, offers an insight into the philosophical aspect of Chinese cuisine. While five spice powder is itself mostly a commercial creation, used in restaurants and sold in grocery and spice stores to facilitate the cooking of Chinese cuisine, it is based upon the blend of spices that people use in their homes, prepared by blending the individual spices, as opposed to buying a prepared version.
Most generally, five spice powder is a blend of cinnamon, black pepper, star anise, fennel and cloves, with individual cooks or manufactures differing in the ratios of individual spices and some using slightly different varieties producing similar effect. These represent the five elements considered in regional Chinese cooking, which are sweet, sour, bitter, salty and pungent, which are in turn representative of the fundamental balance of yin and yang, of male and female, of complementary opposites. This spice mixture is used with a very light touch in Cantonese cuisine, serving to complement ingredients and enhance natural flavors.
Cantonese cuisine has developed from centuries of culinary tradition and culture, spiced with life philosophies of simplicity and balance. Cantonese cuisine is enjoyed throughout the world for its attention to freshness, as well to cooking techniques and spicing methods that enhance natural flavors, allowing for a true experience of both the abundance and the harmony of sea and land.