【Learn Chinese】Interesting Facts about Chinese Food (Part 1)

Chinese food has become one of the most popular food in the world. A large amount of Chinese restaurants worldwide have proven that. But do you really know Chinese food? Here are engaging Chinese food facts that you may not know.

1. Chinese Staple Food: Noodle Vs. Rice
Northern people like to eat noodles and regard it as the main food, because the dry northern climate is suitable for the growth of wheat. There are all kinds of noodles in the north such as Hand-pulled Noodles, Minced Noodles, and Noodles with Soybean Paste. Southerners are more likely to eat rice as their staple food. In the south, the climate is hot and rainy, and paddy fields are the main cultivated land, so rice is abundant. Southerners also eat noodles, but most of them are rice noodles. Nowadays, generally both noodles and rice are offered in the restaurants in China.

2. The Healthiest Food Around the World
This is probably the most attracting Chinese food fact. Chinese like fresh ingredients and always try to achieve a balanced portion of vegetables and meat, to provide all nutrition the body needs. Some healthy cooking methods also have been invented, such as steaming and boiling, which destroys the nutrition in the ingredients to the least extent. Some Chinese herbal medicine is adopted to make dishes with medicinal functions, such as jujube and ginseng.

3. A Wide Usage of Ingredients
Chinese are good at utilizing what the nature gives them. Poultry, birds, animals, seafood, aquatic products, and various kinds of vegetables and fruits are all the ingredients for Chinese food. People in Guangdong and Yunnan even cook snakes and insects!

4. A Rich Variety of Vegetables
There are a plenty kinds of vegetables in China, including the plants’ leaves, flowers, roots, branches, and seeds. Many of them you may have never seen or heard of, such as bitter melon, bamboo shoots, and fungi.

5. Various Cuisines
A number of cuisines have been formed in China thanks to the differences of climate, geography, products and dietary customs. The most famous and influential 8 Chinese Cuisines are Shandong Cuisine, Sichuan Cuisine, Cantonese Cuisine, Jiangsu Cuisine, Fujian Cuisine, Zhejiang Cuisine, Hunan Cuisine and Anhui Cuisine. Other cuisines like Beijing cuisine, northeast cuisine, and Uygur cuisine are also worthy to taste.

6. Rich Flavors
One of the Chinese food facts is that it is of multiple flavors, among which sour, spicy, bitter, sweet and salty are the most common. Generally, the northern food is salty, the southern sweet, and the southwestern sour and spicy. No matter which flavor you like, you can always find your fond Chinese food.