China Eight: Guangdong (Cantonese) Cuisine

Guangdong Province is in Southeast China on the South China Sea. It occupies 180 square kilometres and has a population of 90 million. It has a 3,368-kilometre coastline.

Definition

A lightly flavoured, lightly spiced food that benefits from a geographically abundant resource of local fresh produce, fish and other live seafood, and freshly killed meats. Snakes, snails and ox genitals make an appearance.

History

Since the 16th century, Guangdong has had extensive trade links with the rest of the world, through ports in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, bringing the silk, porcelain, ivory and spices that journeyed along the Silk Road to the rest of the world. While the culinary influence of the trade routes was absorbed into local cooking, the greatest influence of the cuisine was in being taken and spread around the world as “Chinese Cooking.”

Guandong cuisine traces its origins to the foods of regional ethnic minorities such as the Hakka people, with their distinctive dialects and customs.

Recipe Book

In the kitchen: five-spice powder and gelatine. Preserves: dried mushrooms, seafood and vegetables. Salted: fermented bean curd (tofu), duck, fish and pork

At the cooker: steaming, soft and deep frying, stew frying

On the table: pickled radish, white cabbage and breadsticks

Local Flavour

Thousand-year eggs -- actually only 100-day old duck eggs -- are a Chinese delicacy and a favourite of the province. Preserved in a mixture of charcoal and lime, the egg white turns gelatinous and dark brown and the yolk dark green. It has a creamy, cheese-like flavour and a very strong taste and smell.  They are often served with rice congee to soften the taste. A Gaungdong speciality is to wrap egg chunks with slices of pickled ginger.

Sound Bite

Name: Kong Cheuk Ming

Age: 40

From: Hong Kong

In my childhood: “We are a family of cooks. My grandfather was a cook and my father majored in dim sum! At home, my mother cooked ordinary dishes and my father made dim sum. So delicious!”

In my kitchen: “I make broth, a simple vegetable soup. It is really very good for your health.”

 

 

Words

Live, local, salted, fresh, dried, lightly spiced, pickled, aged

Dishes

Slow-cooked soup, Dim Sum, barbecued pork, shark’s fin soup, steamed dumplings, roast suckling pig, three-coloured lobster and dragon and tiger fight