On the earth, since the birth of mankind, carnivores have been the majority. Scientists have shown that eating meat will help produce happy moods because the texture of the meat will stimulate a zone in the brain called the "cingulate cortex," which will respond to pleasant experiences such as smelling perfume or winning the lottery. The Chinese people, especially the literati from ancient times to the present, always mention all kinds of delicious food made of fish and meat in their poems, such as Su Dongpo and Du Fu, even if when describing the delicious food they were on the road of exile. In many Chinese novels you can find faithful record of dishes on banquet. A Dream of Red Mansions can be seen as a grand review of food.
The Chinese have always had a broad view of food. In their eyes, everything beneficial to human body is medicine, and is food, too. In the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Sun Simiao, a pharmacist, proposed the idea that the cause of disease should be identified first, and "food therapy should be used, and if of no use, then we come to medication." Even today, in Guangzhou, you will find that many food stores and Chinese herbal medicine stores seem to accompany each other. Flatbread in mutton soup was a delicious food for soldiers in Tang Dynasty to keep energy for fighting in cold winter. Tibetan fried mutton has the same function. Red-braised pigs' feet are the most well-known in the widely acclaimed "braising family," and a good dish for beauty and skin.
Starting from the most popular and well-known "stewed pork in soy sauce", this book will introduce to you 24 classic Chinese dishes cooked with meat or fish as the main ingredients. Each dish has a long history or interesting story, and some of them are also introduced with a simple and easy-to-follow recipe.
The name of the most famous Chinese appetizer sliced beef and ox tongue in chilli sauce is related to the story of a couple working together to live a happy life. Fried salty flounder and lychee pork express the reverie of the ancient Chinese about love and romance. Chinese people love nature and have enough patience to keep their bacon in winter waiting for shoots of spring, just to taste the dish of "bamboo shoots fried with bacon". There is an old Chinese saying that "each place has its own way of supporting its own inhabitants", which reflects the attitude of Chinese people to live in harmony with nature, and Wenchang in Hainan Province, hometown of many talented Chinese, is also the birthplace of Wenchang Chicken. In the vast Gobi desert in Xinjiang and among the white mountains and black soils in Northeast China, the beauty of raw energy is proved by the "big-plate chicken" and "chicken and hazel mushrooms". It takes only a few minutes to cook the stir-fried prawns, which once saved a life, so Chinese gentlemen always treat chefs kindly. Good chefs can use a "coiled-dragon-like" dish to occupy a place in such big events as the struggle for the throne. Meanwhile, good cooks are not exclusive in the emperor's imperial palace; ordinary people also produce their creative dishes, such as Longjing shrimp and piquant pork and refreshing rice. Chinese people are not unable to express their feelings; their feelings and imagination are expressed in food, which can be seen in the so-called "rice killer," or "three minced ingredients in black", with its colour palette inspired by Yuanyang terrace, the only agricultural landscape selected as a world heritage site. The name of "lion's head" (stewed meatball), evolved from "sunflower chopped meat" to "meatball of quadruple happiness," shows the progress from plain description to bold imagination. "Squirrel-like" fish is also a name with beautiful...