Various Chinese cuisines

[Ce'nedra]

Is Manchurian cuisine very close to modern day Korean food?

When we toured Beijing a few years ago, we were treated with a "so-called" Imperial feast (touristy thing), which was supposed to be based on the imperial dishes in the Ching dynasty.  It was my impression that the setting and the food were very close to Korean banchans - many small dishes, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

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From what I've read (which isn't that much), Manchurian cuisine does have similarities with Korean cuisine, however it is not at all "very close" to modern day Korean food. The main linkage between the two is plentiful pickled vegetables (like kimchi, though the Manchu version is a bit different and isn't nearly as spicy) and lots of side dishes (I'm guessing due to the pickled vegies).

However, Manchus eat alot of pork, chicken and other meats. Koreans, on the other hand, don't eat too much meat. Apart from a couple of the obvious differences, Manchurian cuisine is actually much more likened to the common Chinese cuisine. But then again, this could be because of heavy influence.

Their eating customs are still very similar to any other Chinese though.

I assume that some of the similarites between Manchurian/Korean cuisine is simply because of the location. Both regions share borders and so I'm sure the common climate and such will allow for commonalities in the foods.

[faine]

Is the food in Beijing primarily influenced by Northern or Manchu cooking? I certainly did notice a lot more noodles, mutton, breads and (AWESOME) pickles up there then in the other parts of the country I visited. (With the exception of Xinjiang of course where mutton and noodles are..pretty much your option.)

[Ce'nedra]

Is the food in Beijing primarily influenced by Northern or Manchu cooking? I certainly did notice a lot more noodles, mutton, breads and (AWESOME) pickles up there then in the other parts of the country I visited.

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I thought Peking cooking IS Northern cooking hehe

Wait, better check up with more knowledgeable people though lol. I'm sure there were some influences; Manchu probably from the Qing dynasty? Northern...which northern are you referring to? Mongolian? Because I think there are some Mongolian influences too (though not much). It's said the practice of eating mutton came from the Mongolians though because they didn't have a very refined cuisine, the Mongolians adopted more Chinese eating customs than they gave

(With the exception of Xinjiang of course where mutton and noodles are..pretty much your option.)

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[Ce'nedra]

Correction: Before I said the inclusion of mutton in Peking/Northern cuisine is due to the Mongolian invasion, however, now I think it could also be due to the Muslims.

[Fengyi]

My grandmother was pure-blood (well, as pure as one can ascertain..) Manchu. In fact, that side of the family still has one or two older ladies who are still famed for their shoe/slipper making, apparently one of the skills that good Manchu girls should acquire to secure a good marriage.... Modern Manchu women are also famed for their cigarette smoking - something that my grandma *did* do (until she quit in her 50s).

anyway, one thing that made her food stand out (particularly in Hong Kong, where she lived for about 50 years) was her love of millet. Millet used to be hard to buy in HK (Don't know about now!) and she loved a bowl for breakfast 'to remember her roots'. However, as millet gruel seems popular through north-eastern China...that just may be a regional preference.

I am off to visit my Machurian cousins in Shenyang sometime this autumn so I will ask them lots of questions about their food!

BTW, with regard to Imperial Cooking - it is much more influenced by Shangdong (Lu) cuisine than Manchurian. By all accounts, the Qing imperial court shook off a lot of Manchu-isms to become essentially Han.

[Ce'nedra]

My grandmother was pure-blood (well, as pure as one can ascertain..) Manchu. In fact, that side of the family still has one or two older ladies who are still famed for their shoe/slipper making, apparently one of the skills that good Manchu girls should acquire to secure a good marriage.... Modern Manchu women are also famed for their cigarette smoking - something that my grandma *did* do (until she quit in her 50s).

anyway, one thing that made her food stand out (particularly in Hong Kong, where she lived for about 50 years) was her love of millet. Millet used to be hard to buy in HK (Don't know about now!) and she loved a bowl for breakfast 'to remember her roots'. However, as millet gruel seems popular through north-eastern China...that just may be a regional preference.

I am off to visit my Machurian cousins in Shenyang sometime this autumn so I will ask them lots of questions about their food!   

BTW, with regard to Imperial Cooking - it is much more influenced by Shangdong (Lu) cuisine than Manchurian. By all accounts, the Qing imperial court shook off a lot of Manchu-isms to become essentially Han.

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Thanks for your contribution

I can't wait for you to come back with stories about Manchu food -please do remember!

Did your grandma ever cook authentic Manchurian meals for you? Or did she pass down any recipes to your mother/father? How would she serve the millet? I've never eaten it before unfortunately.

I'm very much fascinated by Manchu history and cuisine -maybe partially by the fact that it's slowly disappearing. Which I find to be fairly upsetting

Oh you're right about the Imperial Cooking. This wasn't just the Manchus though; the few Mongolian influences were ridden of as well. Basically anything of non-Han origin as you said. With that said, the mutton eating and hot pot were not essentially Han, were they? Some say the practice of hot pot was introduced by the Manchus, other say it was the Mongolians. I'm sure there are more than a few other food contributions from various ethnic minorities too.

[Fengyi]

Did your grandma ever cook authentic Manchurian meals for you? Or did she pass down any recipes to your mother/father? How would she serve the millet? I've never eaten it before unfortunately.

I'm very much fascinated by Manchu history and cuisine -maybe partially by the fact that it's slowly disappearing. Which I find to be fairly upsetting

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Ha! ha! The very thought of my grandmother cooking has me in stitches! She came into kitchens only to scold the servants and to make sure they were making her exactly what she wanted....

In the days before the Communists, my granddad and she managed to 'get by' with about 4 cooks (including a White Russian whose sole job it was to bake bread and make chocolates and skewers of Shaslik!). After fleeing to Hong Kong, staffing levels went down but she still managed to avoid the kitchen even thought she was a great gourmet!

Luckily, my mother spent most of her childhood hiding in the kitchen from her own set of servants She learned a lot!

[Ce'nedra]

Ahh. Too bad for me then because I was going to ask if you could ask your granny (or maybe even your mum) for some Manchu recipes!

Wow that sounds very grand -a Russian chosen to specifically make breads, etc?!

Edited October 18, 2007 by Ce'nedra (log)

[buyo]

fengyi's stories about her grandmother and mother almost identical to my own! My

grandmother smoked cigarettes as well until the war broke out and couldn't cook a \

thing~ Even though they were broke, there had to be a servant!

I guess how my story differs is that they ate more like Northeasterners. Noodles, jiao

zhis, man tous... anything flour-based. I've never seen my mother pickle anything but

she'd be wanting to have a big bowl of beef noodles every day! She does have a

preference for pork. She says that she can still sometimes taste the 'cowness' (?) in the

beef if prepared improperly.

I don't know if I would say that northeastern cuisine is like regular chinese cuisine. If you

asked my dad (he's han), he'd say that northerns don't know how to eat

[Ce'nedra]

buyo: What do you mean by 'regular Chinese cuisine'? It's too vast I can't think of how to describe the 'norm' exactly.

About your dad's comment, that's my dad's way of thinking too (and mum...now that I know of it) hahaha. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Cantonese are most renowned for their style of cooking?

[zhiweiguan]

I am so agree with you! Back to thousand years ago, in Song dynasty, the greatest poet Su Dong Po, has already praised hangzhou food in his poem: " No other place in the world has better banquet like in Hangzhou." Hangzhou is known to be the Paradise on Earth among almost all Chinese people, not just because it's beautiful silk and west lake, also because rich soil land and soft water system that grow delicious food. there is no any other place in China like Zhejiang Province, expecially Hangzhou, has always been prosperity, rich, plenty of delicious food, even when the whole country was suffering from poverty and went through difficult time. It has another name of the "Hometown of Fish and Rice", In Chinese “鱼米之乡"， Read as "Yu Mi Zhi Xiang". I need to mention Dong Po Meat got the name after Su Dong Po.

When Hangzhou was the capital city of anxient China for several dynasties, Canton, which now is famous for its cantoness food, was just a very remote place, where the center govenment of anixient China Empire exile prisoners , crimials, or peole who would not being accepted by the society there for life time sentence, in chinese “流放”， read as " liu fang". That's why even today, most Cantoness people insist to only speak Cantoness language while most people of all other provinces can speak Chinese Mandarin. I saw a post about Cantoness food here, it introduced how cantoness food got into United States. A good article, only one thing I could not agree with is that, "even Chinese people think Cantoness food is best ". I guess lots of Chinese people from Northern China or East Coast China will not agree with that. And because it is very difficult to get visa to US, so lots of real good chef in China would not be able to come US cook the authentic Chinese food other than Cantoness food.

I am openning a small restaurant in Philadelphia, PA offering Hangzhou and Yangzi River South area food, unfortunetly, we have to start from small, currently only offering noodles and dumplings. Because it is very difficult to get the exactly the same materials we use in China, we have do lots of experiment to make sure we handle the american materials right. For example, when broil duck, our original receip is need to cook one and half hour, but here we cook the duck for about 45 mininutes and the duck meat already start to melt. Also we need to figure out what herb to use to take away the unpleasent smell of the chicken. Traditional chinese herb would not enough to take away that smell. It was a surprise to find out that there was certain herb that US people use does a better job to process those Chicken. Of course only delicate nose and tongue can tell the difference.

Hangzhou food use less salt, less grease, less sugar, more natural material and vegetable, which is consistent with health requirment of mordern life. Hangzhou has always been a prosperity place, not starving people hunger for heavy oil type of food, so the food is just like the silk, which hangzhou is famous for, fresh, light, graceful, and natural.

When I visited China in 1987, Hangzhou was the place where I had the best food, with Wuxi also memorable for the great Wuxi Spareribs I had. If Hangzhou is not a top Chinese city for fine food, which ones are?

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[Ce'nedra]

Very interesting Anthony Bourdain video where he samples Bai, Naxi and Tibetan cuisine in Yunnan. Gosh it all looks sooo good (and peculiar)! Really eye-opening.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J0IPNWxkQU0

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0wUBCYEZpXE

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ADD1O-CG3Xg

The Naxi savoury bean jelly reminds me of the Korean jelly I've had at bbqs. I wonder if there's any link?

Oh and I thought eating raw pork was considered a no no?

[Ce'nedra]

Hangzhou food use less salt, less grease, less sugar, more natural material and vegetable, which is consistent with health requirment of mordern life. Hangzhou has always been a prosperity place, not starving people hunger for heavy oil type of food, so the food is just like the silk, which hangzhou is famous for, fresh, light, graceful, and natural.

I guess the 'best' regional Chinese cuisine is really just a matter of taste, aye?

I myself am not 100% confident with my most preferred one, but at this point in time, I suppose I have a stronger love affair with Eastern Coastal and South-Eastern Chinese cuisine. Although the buns and dumplings of the north (and East) are really a pulling force that's making me more and more indecisive everyday...I say, I love them all!

Anyway, in regards to your healthier Hangzhou cuisiine, would you say Fujian-Teochew cuisine would fall into the 'healthy choice' too? There's a heavy presence of steaming and poaching in that region I think. Not so much oil is used. Also, fresh produce is of utmost importance.

Actually, freshness is a huge deal in Cantonese cuisine too.

It's probably in Sichuan and/or Hunan where freshness is of lesser concern (correct me if I'm wrong).

Edited July 29, 2008 by Ce'nedra (log)

[liuzhou]

It's probably in Sichuan and/or Hunan where freshness is of lesser concern (correct me if I'm wrong)

I'd say "wrong".

Freshness seems to be important everywhere. I lived in Hunan for a few years and a trip to the market was an education in how to buy fresh. Hundreds of housewives berating the rogue behind the stall who was allegedy attempting to sell them vegetables picked two hours ago rather than one. Same in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi...

Edited July 29, 2008 by liuzhou (log)

[Ce'nedra]

It's probably in Sichuan and/or Hunan where freshness is of lesser concern (correct me if I'm wrong)

I'd say "wrong".

Freshness seems to be important everywhere. I lived in Hunan for a few years and a trip to the market was an education in how to buy fresh. Hundreds of housewives berating the rogue behind the stall who was allegedy attempting to sell them vegetables picked two hours ago rather than one. Same in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi...

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I guess I have to take back my words shamelessly then

I suppose it was my misunderstanding from reading Chinese cuisine books and from my previous 'understanding', Sichuan cooking was heavily based on dried and preserved foods and not so much of fresh.

Thanks for your correction