The China food differs from one region to another, but with major differences found between the north and the south. The spiciest cuisine in China is that found in Sichuan cooking. They tend to use garlic and pepper in all of their dishes, while Cantonese cooking has less oil and spices in their vegetable, fish and seafood dishes. Beijing and Shandong cooking tends to use more cereal products (noodles, and pastry pouches either steamed or boiled) and use simple ingredients with spices and chili.
However, a typical and common Chinese meal at home is quite different on composition from a Chinese banquet. At a daily home meal an adult may consume one or two small bowls of steamed rice, or a large bowl of noodles, accompanied by several meat or vegetable dishes, but not the other way round. For most Chinese, about 65 percent of an average meal’s calories come from grain sources instead of meat or vegetable dishes.
Visitors to china are often surprised when a typical dinner for a table of eight people consists of four courses of cold dishes, four courses of hot dishes, couple with soup and steamed rice; they consider this a lavish spread. But in the Chinese mind, a dinner prepare as above for guests in the minimum requirement. A standard banquet will consist of four to eight prepared cold dishes, eight hot dishes served one at s time, two or four whole-sized showpiece dishes, such as a whole fish or a whole suckling pig.
MLA: Citation
Food and Restaurants. Films Media Group, 2004. Films On Demand. Web. 08 December 2011. <http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=12207&xtid=43458>.
http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=12207&xtid=43458