China is an ancient civilization with a history of 5,000 years. It has a rich cultural heritage and is also home to a long food culture. Chinese food culture has the following characteristics:

First, the flavor is diverse. Due to my country's vast territory, vast land and abundant resources, there are differences in climate, products, and customs in various regions. For a long time, many flavors have been formed in the diet. There has always been a saying in our country that "southern rice and north noodles". The taste is divided into "sweet in the south, salty in the north, spicy in the east, and sour in the west". The main flavors are Bashu, Qilu, Huaiyang, Guangdong and Fujian.

Second, the four seasons are different. Eating according to the seasons throughout the year is another major feature of Chinese cooking. Since ancient times, our country has been seasoning and garnishing according to the changes of the seasons. The taste is mellow in winter, light and cool in summer; stewed and simmered in winter, and cold in summer.

Third, pay attention to beauty. Chinese cooking is not only exquisite in technology, but also has a tradition of paying attention to the beauty of dishes, paying attention to the harmony of food color, aroma, taste, shape and utensils. There are many aspects of the beauty of the dishes. Whether it is a carrot or a cabbage heart, it can be carved into various shapes and unique, achieving the harmony and unity of color, fragrance, taste, shape and beauty, giving people a spiritual and material height Unified special enjoyment.

Fourth, pay attention to fun. Chinese cooking has long focused on taste and taste. It not only has strict requirements on the color, aroma and taste of food and snacks, but also has certain requirements on their naming, taste, rhythm, and entertainment. The name of Chinese cuisine can be said to be supernatural, elegant and popular. The names of the dishes are not only based on the realistic naming of the main, auxiliary, seasoning and cooking methods, but also based on historical anecdotes, myths and legends, celebrities’ appetites, and the image of the dishes, such as family portrait, general crossing the bridge, lion head, beggar chicken, dragon and phoenix Chengxiang, Hongmen Banquet, Dongpo Meat...

Fifth, the combination of food and medicine. Our country’s cooking technology is closely related to medical and health care. Thousands of years ago, there was a saying that medicine and food have the same effect as medicinal food. The medicinal value of food raw materials is used to make various delicacies to treat certain diseases. The purpose of prevention.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb called "The people take food as the sky". It can be seen from the source time of this proverb that in ancient China, people knew how important eating or food was to us humans. In China, food can be divided into several different types. Some are based on tradition; some are based on color, flavor and delicacy; some are based on medicated diet for strengthening the spleen and replenishing the body... In short, when it comes to eating, the Chinese are not sloppy at all.

The diversity of Chinese food is not only a factor caused by the geographical environment, but also because the innovative spirit of the Chinese has inspired the Chinese to continuously improve their food. Therefore, Chinese people have higher and higher requirements for food.

The ancient Chinese also emphasized the coordination and synchronization of eating with the rhythm of the universe, eating different types of food in spring, summer, autumn and winter, day and night, and even processing and cooking food to consider factors such as seasons and climate. These ideas have been formed as early as the pre-Qin period, and they are clearly recorded in the "Book of Rites·Yue Ling", and they are opposed to reversing the seasons. For example, the spring "summer order", "autumn order", "winter order" must be bad; Of course, he also opposes the consumption of off-season food. Confucius’s "don’t eat from time to time" has two meanings: one is eating regularly, and the other is not eating off-season food. Contrary to contemporary people’s consciousness, some people eat off-season food. It is to show off. In the Western Han Dynasty, greenhouses began to be used to grow green onions and chives in the imperial palace, and Shi Chong, a wealthy man in the Western Jin Dynasty, also had a greenhouse. This ideology that emphasizes adapting to the rhythm of the universe is indeed unique to China's food culture. This kind of consciousness has spread to modern times only about festival food customs (there are also some in Chinese medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, but they are not taken seriously).

The theory of "Yin Yang and Five Elements" is a world model set by traditional thinking, and it is also regarded as the law of the universe. Man is one of the "three talents", and diet is indispensable for human life, and cooking must follow this rule. Therefore, not only is the taste divided into five, and the theory of "five flavors" (in fact, there are more than five "flavors" that people can feel, but two or three thousand years ago, it is not too small to be able to distinguish five kinds), but also Cut the foot to fit the land and put a large number of grains, livestock, vegetables and fruits into the fixed pattern of "five grains", "five meats", "five vegetables" and "five fruits" respectively (people had realized this at the time). This makes people feel absurd. What is even more surprising is that "every drink, nourish yang qi; whatever food, nourish yin qi" ("Book of Rites·Jiao Special Sacrifice"). He also believes that only when drinking and eating are coordinated with the yin and yang of the heavens and the earth, can they "communicate with the gods" and communicate with the heavens, so as to achieve the effect of "the harmony between heaven and man". Therefore, when offering sacrifices to the sky, we must strictly follow the theory of Yin and Yang and the Five Elements. This argument was inherited by later Taoism and became a starting point of their diet theory. For example, they believed that eating food can increase the body's yin qi, such as "five grains can fill the body but not longevity", "the one who eats qi", etc., must practice , To obtain Yang Qi, you must eat as little as possible. The best state is not to eat and go to the state of "bigu".