Flavours of China - All you want to know about Chinese cuisine on The Worldwide Gourmet

Although people almost everywhere in the world claim to be familiar with Chinese cooking, it is often misunderstood. Cantonese cooking, which first gained a foothold in Hong Kong, spread around the planet and erroneously came to be thought of as representative of all Chinese cooking, perhaps because the refined and mild Cantonese cuisine was well-suited to western palates. Meanwhile, Peking Duck is often reduced to the level of "a recipe," though in fact its refinement perfectly and concisely sums up the whole philosophy of northern imperial cuisine. While Szechuan cooking has lately gained favour amongst enthusiasts of spicy foods, many of them remain unfamiliar with Hunan cooking. As for the cooking of Shanghai, it remains strangely secret and regional.

Many so-called "Chinese" dishes came into being far from China - for instance chop suey (whose literal translation is "garbage can") was created in New York by a chef who threw together the last remaining ingredients he had to offer. Other recipes were born in America and crossed the oceans with tourists, finally ending up on the menus of certain "western-style" restaurants.

In order to better understand the complex and many-faceted world of Chinese cooking - which is not one single cuisine at all, but rather numerous distinct ones - we will examine the various characteristics that define China's four main culinary schools. In China, eating is not simply a matter of nourishing the body; it is a daily ritual that is based on a whole philosophy of harmonies, textures and flavours.

We should point out that English spellings of Chinese words sometimes vary from one text to another, and the names of cities or regions may appear differently depending on their source. For instance, you may see Szechuan, Szechwan or Sichuan. On the other hand, some place names become something completely different when one letter is changed: Hunan is to the east of Szechuan while Yunan is far to the southwest of Szechuan, one in the middle and one in the south of the country.