What is the difference between cantonese and mandarin food?!
What is the difference between cantonese and mandarin food?
Answers: One thing is there is more seafood in the Canotnese diet, and they eat more pork and chicken, were Mandarian is more beef and less seafood, they eat more wheat products like noodle and steam flour based products.
The noodle in the south are more the gg variety and there diet id more based on rice, the north like in mandarin cuisine tend to be more spicy and not as heavy.
Frying is more used and in the north uses more steaming and braising, flavours are similar but more garlic and certain sauces in the south and more hoisin, chili paste and sweet based sauce for the mandarin palate.
I am a former chef and like the 2 cuisines, in fact I am quite fond of the wheat based mandarin style of food over the southern cantonese style. CANTONESE CUISINE:
originates from Guangdong Province in Southern China, or more precisely, the area around Guangzhou (Canton). Of the various regional styles of Chinese cuisine, Cantonese is the most well-known outside of China. A "Chinese restaurant" in a Western country will serve mostly Cantonese food, or an adaptation thereof. The prominence of Cantonese cuisine outside China is likely due to the disproportionate early emigration from this region, as well as the relative accessibility of some Cantonese dishes to foreign palates.
Cantonese cuisine can be characterized by the use of very mild and simple spices in combination. Ginger, spring onion, sugar, salt, soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, bean starch and oil are sufficient for most Cantonese cooking. Garlic is used heavily in dishes, especially those with internal organs that have unpleasant odors, such as entrails. Five-spice powder, white pepper powder and many other spices are used in Cantonese dishes, but usually very lightly. Cantonese cuisine is sometimes considered bland compared to the thicker, richer and darker sauces found in other Chinese cuisines.
Cantonese cooking methods, steaming, stir-frying, shallow frying, double boiling, braising and deep-frying are the most popular cooking methods in Cantonese restaurants due to the short cooking time, and philosophy of bringing out the flavor of the freshest ingredients.
******************************...
MANDARIN CUISINE:
BEIJING CUISINE is a cooking style in Beijing, China. It is also formally known as Mandarin cuisine.
Since Beijing has been the Chinese capital city for centuries, its cuisine has been influenced by culinary traditions from all over China, but the cuisine that has exerted the greatest influence on Beijing cuisine is the cuisine of the eastern coastal province of Shandong. Beijing cuisine has itself, in turn, also greatly influenced other Chinese cuisines, particularly the cuisine of Liaoning, the Chinese imperial cuisine, and the Chinese aristocrat cuisine. "The Emperor's Kitchen" (御膳房; pinyin: yùshànfáng) was a term referring to the cooking places inside of the Forbidden City, Beijing where thousands of cooks from the different parts of China showed their best cooking skills to please royal families and officials. Therefore, it is at times rather difficult to determine the actual origin of a dish as the term "Mandarin" is generalized and refers not only to Beijing, but other provinces as well. However, some generalization of Bejing cuisine can be characterized as follows: Foods that originated in Beijing are often snacks rather than full courses, and they are typically sold by little shops or street vendors. There is emphasis on dark soy paste, sesame paste, sesame oil, and scallions, and fermented tofu is often served as a condiment. In terms of cooking method, methods relating to the different way of frying is often used. so call the mandarin food is a very general term.
Chinese food can be divided into several major branches:
1. Cantonese style
2. sichuan/hunan style
3. shanghai style
4. Peking style - i think this is so call the mandarin style in the U.S.
These are the major styles you can find in the United States. Of course due to the demographic, all these "styles" are forced to modify their dish to meet the local taste buds, that's why you find the so call Chinese restaurants across the U.S. serve similar menus, regardless what style they call themselves.
Other branches of food such as Taiwanese style and Muslin style (yes! there is a large Muslin population in China!) Chinese food are also very popular in Asia.