The Techniques

Learning to cook in the Chinese way is not difficult. I have taught many people who have had no previous experience to cook everything from perfectly boiled rice to the exotic dish of the Hakka, salt-baked chicken. Although food from all of China’s regions is served in restaurants these days, that is no reason for not learning what is surely one of the most creative and varied cuisines in the world.

Of particular interest should be the cooking of Canton, at once the most enjoyed and least understood cuisines of China. People who have eaten food in their neighborhood Chinese restaurant and take it for granted are always amazed when they go to Hong Kong and find “real” Chinese food. What they eat, of course, is the finest Cantonese cooking in the world, and perhaps without realizing it, they are set down square in the middle of a living cuisine, one in constant flux, as opposed to cuisines such as those of western China, where repertoires, while exquisite and delicious, are limited. Cantonese cooking is limited only by the creativity of its practitioners.