Cantonese Cuisine-Morning Tea and DIM SUM

Cantonese Cuisine

Cantonese people like to eat morning tea with dim sum and drink soup, The famous saying, “Guangdong is the paradise of dainty food," reminds people of the delicious Cantonese cuisine and the wisdom of Cantonese eating with limitless fancy.

It said that whatever birds flying in the sky, reptiles on the ground or fishes swimming underwater, Cantonese can make them into delicious dishes all without a reception. These sayings and records show that Cantonese cuisine has rich and varied food materials. Cantonese cuisine pays particular attention to freshness. Let alone a pond fish even a few green vegetables are supposed to be newly picked from the vegetable garden with morning dew on the leaves. Cantonese cuisine has formed the striking characteristic that it is fresh, fragrant, crisp, tender and smooth.

The history of Cantonese cuisine

Cantonese cuisine dates back to the early period of the Han Dynasty, which is 2,000 years ago. At that time, ancient people of the State of South Yue in the south had already cultivated the unique eating habits. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Han people in the central plains of China swarmed into Guangdong and continuously. As a result, the cooking skills of Cantonese cuisine were promoted rapidly.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Cantonese cuisine culture reached its peak. In the 1920s and 1930s, delicious food and snacks with unique features sprang up in large numbers. Also, the Canton Exhibition of Famous Dishes and Dainty Food in 1956, there were as many as 5,457 kinds of dishes and delicious food introduced on the exhibition. Among them, there were even 825 kinds of dim sum. The demonstration fully showed the elegant demeanor of Cantonese cuisine. Thus, Lt can be seen that Guangdong lives up its reputation in the paradise of dainty food.

The characters of Cantonese eating habits

In ancient times of China, a banquet way lasted for several days. The relatives were unwilling to leave since they enjoyed themselves in eating. They collected some wood boards by themselves and set up a group of stoves on the flat roof. Then they could fly, saute, or other activities. They made dishes one by one, so the young generation was able to make all those delicious food when they get old.

In modern: A local Cantonese can leisurely place themselves in 24 hours of one-day eating and drinking. From 5 or 6, he begins morning tea, little by little then he reaches his lunchtime after that he starts the afternoon tea leaving no trace. Evening tea and supper shortly follow it until midnight. Tea runs throughout the whole period. Therefore, whenever people talk about Cantonese cuisine, they start with drinking tea. Cantonese pay particular attention to boiling water and good tea when drinking tea.

Cantonese morning tea

Guangdong morning tea has a history of more than 150 years. There was a type of simple teashop, offering Chinese tea and dim sum for those seeking refreshment. Later on, with the boom of commerce in Guangdong, more and more people in business needed a place for social activities. Teahouses soon began to emerge and developed gradually into tea restaurants.

These tasty snacks and the delicate dim sum is the foundation on which Cantonese cuisine has evolved. They also enrich the tea culture. Tea culture is an essential part of Cantonese cuisine.

For Cantonese, tea-drinking indeed is a kind of pleasant pastime. A pot of tea each morning keeps the doctor away. Whenever it is a weekend or holiday, Cantonese would gather their families or make an appointment with their friends in a tea house to drink morning tea. Cantonese consider drinking morning tea as savoring morning tea. It combines the process of having breakfast and drinking tea. In Guangdong, while sipping tea people can hold talks about business. They can also have a chin chat with their friends. For people in business, the teahouse is a place to negotiate, and for average people, it is a place for easing stress and enjoying leisure in half a day.

In Cantonese cuisine, drinking morning tea has been a long history. Previously to do well in farming, Cantonese cultivated this habit, and they ate dim sum by the way. The pattern has been passed on to today. So drinking morning tea in the restaurant has been away for a business meeting, leisure and enjoyment. Now drinking morning tea has become a kind of fashion. It has been a frequent phenomenon for people, their friends to get together, dim sum and dishes talk about something, doing business, and meet each other.

DIM SUM

However, tea intact is only a supporting role. The real leading characters are this glittering and translucent dim sum in a great variety. In Guangdong, the dim sum is usually small, with only 3 to 4 pieces per serving. Each snack is served in a small steamer or plate, about the size of an adult's palm.

Some like steamed shrimp dumplings, shaomai and steamed chicken paws with sauce.

Let us introduce some DIM SUM

1 Chicken feet: the flavor is peppery hot and sour.

2 Tart: The inside of the pie is made of eggs while the outside is made of baked flour. So it tastes both tender and crisp.

3 Shaomai (Steamed Dumplings): the outside is flour. And inside is pork, shrimp, mushroom.

4 Shrimp dumpling: It looks white as snow. The wrapper is thin as paper. It tastes smooth and fresh.

5 Bun stuffed with BBQ pork: Good barbecued pork with minced pork filling medium, the foreskin is cooked and soft slippery just slightly apart, with pork stuffing, permeability bursts of pork flavor.

6 Steamed bun: when you open the steamed bun, you will see the effusing stuffing. The so-called effusing is the mixture of salty egg yolk and condensed milk.

7 Rice roll: It has a variety of stuffing such as beef, chicken, pork, shrimp or vegetable.

8 Milk custard with the crispy wrapper: holds inside the wrapper. It tastes crispy, tender and smooth. Open it you can see the crispy wrapper. Moreover, mix the crispy wrapper and milk. Then you will find it crispy and appetizing. Pleasant smell and there is a strong smell of milk.

Famous Cantonese cuisine - Long-boiled soup 煲汤

If we say that morning tea with dim sum is an essential part of Cantonese cuisine, then the long-boiled soup is its soul. The reason is Cantonese prefer a long-boiled soup that is closely related to the subtropical climate which is muggy in Guangdong area all year-round. No dinner is without soup, and no banquet is without soup. From high-class banquet, average people’s dinner in Guangdong long-boiled soup has always been requisite. Also, the materials used to make soup range from common vegetables and poultry to delicacies from the mountains and the ocean. No one could be missed. Most especially, in the long-boiled soup, many Traditional Chinese Medicine materials with efficacy to some extent would be added. Traditionally. It best explains the saying that diet is better than medicine in conventional meaning.

Regarding soup, Cantonese has a clear category for each season. Cantonese must drink soup before dinner to moisten their stomachs, then-then they begin their lunch. In this way, they will eat less amount of food than we should eat. Thus, a healthy diet style is formed in Cantonese soup culture. A pot long-boiled soup can be rated the combination of the essence in the world and the mixture of miracles in nature.

In Cantonese cuisine, soups not only differ in each season but also even vary on each day. In restaurants of Cantonese cuisine, the menus always witness the renewal and form the renewal and flow of soups. Each restaurant has dozens of or hundreds of various soups with different efficacy, which always reminds people of the transition of seasons.

The first soup is Herba Abari Boiling Simmered with Pork Pancreas. This soup should be drunk in spring. After a gloomy winter, our liver needs relaxation, protection, and relaxation.

Dried Orange Peel Simmered with Old Duck. The soup should be drunk in summer. At the beginning of summer, old duck soup is the most nourishing.

Old Chicken Soup with Pepper and Sliced Whelk, like honeydew melon, added the soup luscious and smooth. This soup should be drunk in fall. For it can nourish our skin and kidney.

Old Chicken Soup with Pepper and Pork Tripe should be drunk in winter because pepper can warm our stomach. It dispels cold and warms our belly. Now it is winter. To stew a pot of perfect soup, we need time and patience. Usually, the average time differs from 3 to 4 hours. During the process, we can listen to the boiling water to adjust the fire and try our best to control the right timing. While we are waiting for someone to knock our soup, all the feelings related to soup begin to emerge. Then the nourishment of soup, as well as the satisfaction and happiness from soup all, exudes on the face. Therefore, a Cantonese mother always connects the warmest and the unique love in the family with soup. With a pot of soup on the table, the whole room is filled with love.

Famous Cantonese cuisine - Steamed fish 清蒸鱼

Cantonese cuisine pays particular attention to freshness. Guangdong is located in the land of rivers and lakes in the south of the Five Ridges. It has dense river nets on the brink of tea therefore fresh fruit, vegetables, as well as new and alive fishes and shrimps, are easy to obtain.

Steamed fish is the most common and the most straightforward dish among Cantonese cuisine, which also can show that Cantonese cuisine pays attention to the original flavor. In the way of homely cooking, they always choose common carp crucians, mandarin fish and so on. Moreover, those high-grade Cantonese restaurants in the country from north to east and around the whole world always choose Grouper from the deep sea as the best choice to make steamed fish. When steaming fish is it necessary to use this fresh and alive fish. How to distinguish that is the dish cooked with live fish or dead fish or frozen fish? Generally to see if fish eyes stick out or skin-pops. After that, we can know how to tell if the steamed fish is steamed with a live fish.

How to cook: Select a fresh and alive fish is the foundation of cook delicious sweet steamed fish. Then the process of steamed fish is more mysterious. After killing the fish, you need to clamp the fish with forceps to clean its blood. Then put the fish on scallion and sprinkle a little oil after steaming it.

Famous Cantonese cuisine - Abalone 鲍鱼

Abalone also is the most precious food. On one aspect, its growth period is probably 15 years. To raise an abalone, it needs about 15 to 20 years. That is why the bigger, the more expensive. Dried abalone is more nutritious for health.

Abalone produced in deep-sea Japan, Australia, and Africa. Abalone is considered as the champion among delicacies from the sea. As its tender, smooth meat and very delicious taste cannot be compared with other seafood. However, the period needed in the process of cooking abalone is also the longest Cantonese cuisine.

How to cook: The whole process of cooking abalone needs two days and one night. Old chicken, sparerib, and chicken soup are put in the casserole and stewed from morning to evening until 10 p.m. When the chef is going to be off duty, stop the fire. After finishing the fire, let the abalone stay inside, and the tastes of chicken soup, sparerib, old chicken, and abalone will fuse together and infiltrate in the abalone. Then the juice of abalone will also penetrate to the soup, and then they will mix. Until the next day, chef simmers once again to make its fiber as loose as rice cakes.

After the abalone has been simmered for two days and one night, before people are put on the table, there is also the last process named cooking juice. The process is always completed by the highest- grade chef himself, which is also the honorable status of the guest. After the chicken soup is finished, we can put it into the abalone and braise slowly for a while. Then the abalone will become very beautiful with golden color. The abalone will grow smoother, and its color also becomes darker. Also, put the oyster sauce in it. After that, we may add some juices, so it tastes to be more delicious. The most critical point for the abalone is delightful to eat and put the oyster sauce the abalone can be delicious.

Famous Cantonese cuisine - Lobster 龙虾

Abalone is a dish of Cantonese cuisine, and it is young and a sign of high grade and fashion. Also, what enjoys equal popularity is lobster. Relative to the preciousness of abalone, lobster brings people a good sense and the enjoyment of having a square meal. Because of different producing areas and different varieties, there are different cooking approaches, such as sashimi and baking. The coral Lobster is suitable for sashimi and baking Australia lobster is more suitable. Because after cooking color will become more bright red with soft meat.

Why do people like eating lobster so much?

Because the lobster’s meat is thick, and every mouthful is full of lobster, which is both cold and sweet. Thus it is of great value. Colorful lobsters are merely the pronoun of fresh and lively seafood among Cantonese cuisine. The tastiness of lobster firstly is that, when compared with general shrimps, it is thick and rich in meat. Besides, it bears unique ostentation and extravagance at the banquet. Its appearance is good-looking with liveliness. Therefore the host is bestowed with the high honor. It is famous in the areas of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Famous Cantonese cuisine - Roast sucking pig 烤乳猪

On traditional or modern wedding reception, or birthday feast or a feast celebrating the first month of a newborn baby, even the sacrifice, roast-suckling pig must be the primary course on the table. People’s fondness for roasted sucking pig seemingly is not only because of its fresh and tender meat quality. More importantly, it has the auspicious meaning of perfection in every way. As to sucking pig, firstly whole pig is considered to be with good luck. Secondly, it means carrying something through to the end. Thirdly, it has both hands and feet, which mean wholeness.

Roast sucking pig is the top delicatessen in the mouth of the Five Ridges with more than 2000 years of history in Guangdong. Among the mortuary objects unearthed from the tomb of King of State of South Yue in the Western Han Dynasty there include the oven and fork especially used for roast suckling pigs. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Jia Sixie（图片） had regarded roast sucking pig as an essential achievement of cooking skill. In "Important Arts for the Peoples Welfare” it is recorded that of amber, the color is like that of amber, but it looks like the genuine gold. It just melts when eating, and it is marvelous as heavy snow. Roast sucking pig of Cantonese cuisine in the Qing Dynasty was even included as one course of the Chinese Feast. The charm of Cantonese cuisine is in its not only deliciousness and tastiness.

What does Cantonese cuisine stand for

Through the delicious food, people always entrust their good wishes. Good luck implied in Cantonese cuisine pursued by Cantonese can be said to be ubiquitous during the traditional festivals, fried snacks, which are the requisite n every family is also embodied with the meaning that piles of fired stacks are profits pouring in from all sides. 

It is just like the saying goes that having fried stacks at the end of the year is a common thing.

When blazing fireworks and having a reunion of the entire family, people attach great importance to the reunion dinner on New Year's Eve, which raises the curtain on the happy and best wishes. The braised pig feet means everything will be done with high proficiency. The shrimp means laugh heartily. The fresh oyster means do business with good fortune and high profit. The fish says the family will have surplus year after year.

Cantonese cuisine’s influence

Since modern times, many overseas Chinese from Guangdong have been introducing Cantonese culture to the world. Now Cantonese cuisine has been a name card of foreign Chinese culture. Wherever on the islands in South Pacific, or in American metropolises, Cantonese teahouses can be everywhere. Even in English Cantonese refreshment is named Dim Sum, whose pronunciation is the pronunciation of refection in Cantonese.

A table of authentic Cantonese cuisine gathers the whole family together. The word “harmony” reflects the Cantonese's inheritance of Chinese traditional culture. Also, the tastiness of Cantonese cuisine seeks everyday things while accepting the actual difference, which shows the soul of Cantonese cuisine. Now Cantonese cuisine has already stepped out from the south of the Five Ridges. It not only pervades all over the country but also enjoys a high reputation abroad. A table of delicious Cantonese cuisine let people taste the freshness. However, the memory left is an endless aftertaste of harmony between man and nature.

Chinese Great Eight Cuisines

1. Shandong Cuisines: Salty fresh, thick oil sauce, food therapy health;
2. Sichuan Cuisines: Heavy oil, heavy salt, spicy hot;
3. Cantonese Cuisines: Original, salty, fresh and light;
4. Jiangsu Cuisines: Sweet and yellow wine;
5. Fujian Cuisines: Salty-sweet (southern), spicy (northern);
6. AnHui Cuisines: Heavy oil, heavy salt;
7. Hunan Cuisines: Heavy oil, heavy salt, heavy spicy, preserved flavor;
8. Zhejiang Cuisines: Special, fresh, tender, with yellow wine.