What do Chinese eat every day? Chinese diet

Each of the numerous peoples of our planet has its own dish, which differs both in the way it is made and in the way it is used. Different nationalities give preference to unidentical cutlery: some like to eat with the help of kuaizi, others with spoons and forks, others, in general, with their hands.

These preferences are promoted by differences in history, traditions, culture. Quite different from ours - Chinese traditional cuisine, which has centuries of experience because their culture and way of life is not one thousand years old.

Products that are traditionally used by the Chinese, for our understanding, are often completely unsuitable for food. The methods of feeding food and the place of its reception are absolutely exotic, from the point of view of the European.

What do the Chinese eat?

Traditional cereal for Asian countries - Fig. It is suitable for making alcoholic drinks, side dishes and even vinegar. There is a legend that the wild thickets of this herb were domesticated about nine thousand years ago, and it was the Chinese who did it. Today rice is not only a food product. We can say that this is a gastronomic symbol of the culture of the East.

How do the Chinese eat rice? What are they preparing from it? The most famous dishes in China:

• Rice flour cakes;
• Rice fried with duck;
• Wrapped in a bamboo leaf filling of sticky cereal;
• Rice (boiled) in the form of a garnish.

What else do people in this country eat? The answer is simple: Chinese noodles. It is already widely known in our country. There are several common types, and there are special, promising, long life. Prepare it from rice flour, and less often from wheat flour.

Chinese people also eat soy beans. Of them, tofu is prepared - soy cottage cheese, milk and the famous sauce of the same name.

Favorite vegetables on the Chinese table are carrots, broccoli, celery, watercress and bitter melon.

Spices are an especially revered piece of Chinese cuisine. They greatly enrich the taste of food. In the Middle Kingdom often use sesame, garlic, cinnamon, anise with fennel.

Do the Chinese eat desserts? Certainly. In particular, light baking, cream custard as a separate dish and any fruits for the season.

Without Chinese tea, figuratively speaking, life in the country is impossible. Rumor has it that it appeared before the citizens themselves.

Approximate daily Chinese menu: breakfast

If in Europe breakfast is a light snack: coffee, a freshly squeezed juice roll, then in China this is a solid meal. In the family, a rice decoction is prepared for breakfast (something between soup and porridge), well spiced with spices. This is necessary for warming the body. Dumplings are always served. They have been cooked in China for over 1,800 years. This is familiar to us - with minced meat, but often with tofu, vegetables or shrimp. There are special dumplings called Zongzi - sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. Noodles also have morning food together with a special, steam roll.

It is filled with either a sweet filling or salted (eggs, spinach, chopped vegetables or meat). The dish, for the time being unknown to us, is milk tofu (Ma Po Tofu). Served with chopped green onions and beef.

Dinner

Traditional Chinese dinner consists of several delicious dishes. For example, pieces of pork in sweet and sour orange caramel. Pork is sometimes replaced with chicken or beef.

What the Chinese eat a dish, called Wonton, is known to everyone. These are special triangular pelmeni, which are deep-fried. The main filling is pork and shrimp. The famous Peking duck is a special bird with tender meat and a crisp crust. A dish that has conquered the whole world is served portion by piece with garlic puree, pancakes or bean sauce. Pancakes in China are one of the most favorite dishes. Start them with sweets or vegetables. The original chicken Gong Bao is meat, chopped in cubes, with the addition of roasted nuts, chili and flavored with garlic paste.

A peculiar warm salad, called Chowmein - Chinese noodles, chicken (beef, pork or shrimp), plus celery and onions is also included in the lunch menu.

Dinner

Evening meal is slightly similar to breakfast. The main course is served with rice, noodles, vegetables, fruits and pastries. And necessarily tea. In the evening it is drunk, stretching pleasure. During the day, the Chinese also drink a lot of other drinks.

Chinese food is almost all correctly combined. Any meal is at least five dishes, only small portions. Therefore, among the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire there are practically no full people.

Tradition or way of life?

The traditions of modern nutrition in the People's Republic of China originated thousands of years ago. The country occupies an area with different climatic zones, from the Arctic to the subtropics, which has long influenced food preferences and ways of eating products.

Why do the Chinese eat special food, but are negative towards the modern? They believe that it does not benefit the body, but only leads to premature aging. Therefore, their diet is very similar to the correct diet. Chinese medicine believes that the use of a product may affect the health of the body as a whole. Therefore, citizens of this country eat so that it is beneficial to affect the respiratory system, digestive tract and slow the aging of the body.

Seasonal food

Correct food is based on seasonal theory. It states that every time of the year (and there are five in China: spring, summer, winter, autumn and off-season) is suitable only for certain products. Because each of them prepares the body for the transfer of certain climatic conditions and strengthens a specific part of the human body: bone, skin, blood or muscle system.

Sticks and spoons

Why do Chinese eat with chopsticks? This question is plagued by more than one generation of the peoples of the Old World. How, for example, do they eat soup?

A long time ago, at the dawn of civilization, the ancient inhabitants of the Heavenly Empire ate with their hands. After a while it became clear that it was completely inconvenient: it was hot and the palms were always dirty. And then they took in their hands the sticks, which became the continuation of the fingers. There is another common theory that sticks are a lever, and two crossed sticks are its core.

Soup, the population of China eats, like all Europeans, a spoon, only special - porcelain. First, following the tradition, chopsticks are selected vegetables and meat. Then the soup is brewed with broth. Some prefer alternately, choosing a thicket to seize with broth. Some just drink it.

But never a table in a Chinese family will not be served with knives and forks. They consider them a weapon. This means that such appliances will never lie next to sacred food. It's clear that it's also not necessary to eat with weapons. This was also written by the famous Confucius, indignant at the barbarity of the peoples of Europe.

The Chinese eat chopsticks from a tree. Plastic and other novelties in the production of quaizza, take root only in public canteens.

Dishes of Chinese cuisine consist mainly of finely chopped products. Therefore, cooking takes from three to five minutes. All vitamins remain intact and intact.

Rules for the use of sticks

Concerning rods there are several immutable rules of use:

• You can not knock them on a bowl or plate, as others will perceive it as begging (begging in beggars so quarters);
• When the sticks in the hand, you can not extend the index finger, directing people - this is regarded as an accusation;
• It is very impolite to lick your wand;
• It is forbidden to stick chopsticks in all the dishes in a row, as if choosing;
• They can not be placed vertically either - this indicates ill-bredness.

Spicy menu of Chinese cuisine

There is an opinion that the Chinese eat insects. Few know, but such components are a hallmark of Thai cuisine. And in China, insects are a delicacy. You can buy them, already cooked, in restaurants and night markets. Vendors necessarily "flavor" each insect with a legend, claiming that it is true. Here is an approximate list for those who want exotic:

• Pupae of silkworm are served fried (taste like shrimp);
• The larvae of the singing cicadas also roast on high heat;
• Scorpions cook for a couple, rarely roast; Then they sell like a shish kebab: strung on wooden sticks, and sometimes they can be found in soup or stew; Cooked in this way, they are not dangerous, but bitter;
• Locusts, crickets and grasshoppers are fried with salt;
• In Yunnan Province like to fry and eat bamboo worms - it is believed that this dish resembles popcorn to taste;
• Europeans think that they eat Chinese and centipedes - indeed, it is; They are fried and even added to salads;
• Water beetles eat fried, but without paws and wings.

Secrets of the Chinese New Year's table

More important than a holiday than the New Year in China there. It is called the Spring Festival - Chunjie. Lasts up to two weeks - this time of masquerade processions, balls, carnivals, fireworks.

And at home is a festive decoration and a table with traditional Chinese dishes. Although China is large and each province has its own, special New Year's dishes, but there is one common tendency - to make a year's advance material prosperity and well-being. Therefore, each meal on the table is a symbol of prosperity.

The principle of the New Year's feast differs little from ours: the table must break with food. I wonder what the Chinese eat for the New Year? Almost in all provinces - this is jiao-tzu. Mysterious name hides nothing more than traditional dumplings with a variety of fillings, which according to popular belief symbolize prosperity and well-being. For example, if peanuts are peanuts, then the year is sweet, and if the date or chestnut, you need to expect the birth of a boy.

Mandatory on the table of a resident of the Middle Kingdom in the New Year should be Chinese cabbage. Its name is similar in meaning to the term "close". Therefore, it is fried, as if saying that the night will be hot and cheerful.

Another obligatory dish is fried fish. The Chinese believe that if you leave a piece on a plate on New Year's Eve, then the sky will give you such a sum, which you will not have time to spend.

What do the Chinese eat on the first day of the coming year? Traditionally - Fig. He is an ancient symbol of prosperity and good harvest. In some provinces, candy rice, called nyonggao, and sweet wine are put on a table. In other provinces, the first day of the year begins with chicken soup, as this bird is a symbol of appeasement and tranquility.

Young must necessarily eat a few chicken wings. Then in the coming year they will rise high on the career ladder or there will be a change in status for the better.

On the table in any province should be traditional Chinese noodles, so that the year is a success. Obligatory snack New Year's table - eggs. It is an invariable symbol of precious metals: gold and silver.

The New Year's table is always full of various sweets. But a cookie with wishes and predictions is mandatory. These are small leaves with citations of wise men, by which it will be possible to judge the next twelve months of life.