China Travel Guide

The Chinese love to eat, and from market-stall buns and soup, right through to the intricate variations of regional cookery, China boasts one of the world's greatest cuisines. It's also far more complex than you might suspect from its manifestations overseas, and while food might not initially be a major reason for your trip, once here you may well find that eating becomes the highlight. However, the inability to order effectively sees many travellers missing out, and they leave desperate for a "proper meal", convinced that the bland stir-fries and dumplings served up in the cheapest canteens is all that's available. With a bit of effort you can eat well whatever your budget and ability with the language, though it can be monotonous eating solo for any length of time - meals are considered social events, and the process is accordingly geared to a group of diners sharing a variety of different dishes with their companions.

Though fresh ingredients are available from any market stall, there are very few opportunities to cook for yourself in China, and most of the time eating out is much more convenient and interesting. The principles of Chinese cooking are based on a desire for a healthy harmony between the qualities of different ingredients. For the Chinese, this extends right down to considering the yin and yang attributes of various dishes - for instance, whether food is "moist" or "dry" - but can also be appreciated in the use of ingredients with contrasting textures and colour, designed to please the eye as well as the palate. Recipes and ingredients themselves, however, are generally a response to more direct requirements. The chronic poverty of China's population is reflected in the generally scant quantity of meat used, while the need to preserve precious stocks of firewood led to the invention of quick cooking techniques, such as slicing ingredients into tiny shreds and stir-frying them. The reliance on eating whatever was immediately to hand also saw a readiness to experiment with anything edible; so, though you'd hardly come across them every day, items such as bear's paw, shark's fin, fish lips and even jellyfish all appear in Chinese cuisine.