Chinese cuisine — 1950s, PRC canteens
Decide the order of Chinese cuisine before the pan is hot. “PRC canteens” in 1950s names that order, and 70 is heat, salt, or time. Do not treat a restaurant photo’s gloss as a quantity. Red-braising in soy, sugar and spices.
The home pantry around Wok hei and the labour behind Dim sum rarely fit a takeaway box. Are restaurant versions "authentic"? Restaurant Chinese cuisine is one register. Home pots and market stalls are others. Authenticity is a marketing word; technique is not. 中餐 is the local name used in this atlas beside Chinese cuisine.
Chinese cuisine is a family of regional systems: Cantonese dim sum and wok hei, Sichuan mala, Jiangsu sweetness, northern wheat dumplings and Islamic-Chinese hand-pulled noodles. Soy sauce, doubanjiang and black vinegar are the bass notes. The overseas menu that taught the world — General Tso, chop suey, fortune cookies — is a real diaspora cuisine. It should not be confused with a Chengdu hotpot or a Chaozhou oyster omelette.
A continental pantry that only looks singular from a takeaway window. The "eight great" list (Sichuan, Cantonese, Shandong, Jiangsu and the rest) is a textbook; the lived map includes Xinjiang lamb, Yunnan fungi and Dongbei sour-cabbage stews. Rice south of the Huai and wheat north of it still predicts whether lunch is a bowl or a dumpling.
70 belongs to “PRC canteens” in 1950s. Chinese cuisine is not a sentence about taste until that measure is there.1950s
Figures to keep
- Year of the method
- 1950s
- Measure
- 70
- Dish
- Chinese cuisine
- Cooking line
- PRC canteens
Chinese cuisine — 1990s, Sichuan waveNext essayAll 1000 essays1000