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Published: 19 February 2010
By DAN CARRIER

THERE is a Chinese saying: “The masses regard food as their heaven,” and as Confucius put it, “...diet and love making, all primal needs of every human being.”

And the importance of food in Chinese culture is underlined in a new book by historian Liu Junru. 

Tracing the origins of cuisine in the country, describing regional dishes and how they evolved, discussing the benefits of a Chinese diet and linking it to the climate and terrain that makes some crops and livestock better placed to thrive than others, she claims that only the French and Italians can come close to the originality of the Chinese in the kitchen – and the variety that can be found is immense.

Junru, a teacher at the Cultural School of Beijing Language and Cultural University, explains the vast range of goodies available, and its breadth will surprise people for whom a Chinese meal is a sweet and sour or chow mein.

“There’s probably not another place in this world that has as great a variety of delicious fare as China,” she writes.

“Extremely developed culinary techniques can make seemingly inedible ingredients, to foreign eyes, into dish after dish of delicious treats by the hands of Chinese chefs. 

“The Chinese cook book also contains quite an extensive list of foods, including just about anything edible, with very few taboos.” And food is central to a healthy lifestyle, she adds. “The belief that food has healing powers and therapeutic effects has led to the introduction of many edible plants and herbs,” she says. “And with the benefit of disease prevention and health preservation, they have become regular dishes in Chinese homes.

As the book explains, any Chinese chef has a series of simple sensory tricks they use to stimulate the appetite of diners. They rely on tickling the senses, and also ensure a balanced and healthy diet.

“The Chinese culinary arts rely on the canon of colour – aesthetic beauty– aroma and taste,” she states.

“Missing any one element would not make a good dish. To make the food pleasing to the eye, usually the appropriate meat and non-meat ingredients are selected. It would include a single main ingredient and two or three secondary ingredients of different colours. Blue, green, red, yellow, white, black and brown sauce colours are mixed in the right combination, and through proper cooking techniques, aestheticism in food is achieved.”

Of course, how food smells is just as important – and the Chinese have a vast array of spices and knowledge at their disposal to fill the nose with stomach-rumbling aromas.

With so many grown in the country, Chinese chefs have such spices as scallion, ginger, garlic, aniseed, cassia bark and black pepper to delve into – and ingredients such as cooking wines and vinegars, soy sauces, sesame oil and shitake mushrooms all add to the wonderful smells emanating from a Chinese kitchen.

But you can have the best ingredients in the world and yet, if you don’t cook them properly, they’ll not do justice to the plate.

“Techniques such as fry, stir fry, roasting, steaming, deep fry, quick fry, simmer and others are all used, and all have the goal of preserving the natural taste and juices of the food,” explains Junru.

And then there is how the dish is presented. 

With the Chinese having thousands of years of experience in producing exquisite tableware, food served at grand feasts traditionally has vessels that are works of art – and to accompany them Chinese chefs are known for their skills in creating interesting looks with ingredients.

As Junru describes it: “With tomatoes, turnips, cucumber carrots and other sculptural vege­tables to create elegant and intricate decorations to the plate, and the use of exquisite fine china for dining ware, Chinese cuisine really becomes a true art form complete with aesthetic beauty, wonder­ful aroma and great taste.”

• Chinese Foods is available from Foreign Languages Press, Beijing www.flp.com.cn