Chinese cuisine guide
Where it comes from
Chinese cuisine is a set of regional traditions that share a written language and diverge almost everywhere else. The eight great traditions — Sichuan, Cantonese, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan and Anhui — differ in staple grain, fat, heat and technique. Cantonese cooking prizes freshness and steaming; Sichuan builds on the numbing má of Sichuan pepper alongside chilli.
Naming the tradition is the highest-value thing an English-language Chinese menu can do. It sets expectations that “Chinese food” cannot.
Allergens and dietary needs
Allergens concentrate in the sauces and finishing oils: wheat in most soy sauce, peanut and sesame oil added at the end, oyster sauce and shrimp paste bringing shellfish into vegetable dishes, doubanjiang carrying both soy and wheat.
Heat needs describing rather than rating. Má and là are different sensations and English flattens both to “spicy”, which misinforms the guest who ordered expecting one and got the other.
Naming it on an English-language menu
Say which regional tradition the kitchen cooks in. Sichuan, Cantonese and Hunan set entirely different expectations, and “Chinese” sets none.
Where a dish has a poetic name, keep it and explain it — “ants climbing a tree, glass noodles with minced pork”. The name is part of what the guest is buying.
Staple ingredients
- rice
- soy sauce
- wheat noodles
- ginger