This is one of the most detailed and thoughtful (and yes, entertaining) pieces of food writing I have ever encountered.
It accomplishes the impossible—not once but twice.
Not only does it come up with a compelling definition of what constitutes a distinct “cuisine,” it then applies that definition to the world's most complex culinary landscape.
I teach food studies in Beijing and have class this afternoon. We’ll absolutely be discussing this today.
Singaporean here, with some comments on the Straits Chinese portion...
On the lumpia - the pictured variety would probably be more commonly referred to as popiah instead (given its provenance from a Singaporean hawker center), and the primary ingredient for the filling is shredded stewed jicama (known locally as bang kwang). I can't say for sure, but I doubt that variety of popiah would have any glass noodles either.
On Straits Hainanese chicken rice - in practice I don't see a lot of local hawkers adding pandan leaves to the rice when cooking. Also an important difference between the Singaporean and Hainanese varieties is probably the nature of the stock* - in Hainan, they might use pork broth, whereas in Singapore this is rarely done. Though I profess ignorance on other regional styles.
The picture you've chosen to depict a niang tofu dish appears to actually be for a curry laksa dish from a KL stall**, which I wouldn't have thought would have included niang tofu (it looks like green beans, tofu skin, and eggplant). This is entirely subjective (and biased towards Singaporean foodways), of course, but I do agree with you that a more representative example of a niang tofu dish, to my mind, is a clear soup^. That said, it is indeed quite common for yong tau foo stalls to offer a laksa-based soup too.
Just some pedantic nitpicking, but I do love and appreciate what you're trying to do here, so offering some suggested amendments in the most constructive spirit!
Cheers! We're a bit exhausted right now, but we'll try to make some edits in a couple days. The Lumpia correction is well noted, ditto with the Pandan leaves. Re Niang Tofu, I do think that you see the Laksa-based soup enough as a choice in Kuala Lumpur that I don't feel like it's *completely* off - you're absolutely right, of course, that the clear soup is more iconic, but I guess I'm just a sucker for Laksa, and felt like it sold it a little bit better :)
Straits Chinese was *very* difficult for us, as it's very much its own world - I think that someone more knowledgeable about the area could easily blow it up into three cuisines at the very least: the Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang schools, perhaps? We were close to doing so ourselves, but there was a sort of practical matter of finding 'three unique representative dishes' (and from the outside looking in, it feels like a lot of the variation tends to be within certain dishes).
Of the food in the area, we're much more familiar with the Malaysia side of things (from traveling and binging KL Liew, mostly lol), but even that's woefully inadequate. Mostly it felt like it was important to include in any exploration of Chinese food outside of the mainland!
Per Enshi and Tujia.... The fundamental central dish is He Zha, a soupy tofu that's spiced and mixed with mustard greens. Accompanying are a dozen or more small plates that are like the Tujia version of Tapas...peanuts, 1000 year preserved egg, pig ear (a root salad), quan ya (spring time shoot off a specific tree) and a bunch of other stuff i don't feel like typing with my thumbs. if you're interested, I can flesh this out quite a bit. It really is unique due to its previously isolated and remote status.
Taiwanese here. The benshen/waishen split is based on outdated politics that I don't believe accurately describe the reality of our food. For one, both benshen and waishen are not a homogeneous group. Hakka Taiwanese consider themselves distinct from Minnan Taiwanese, while Waishen people each identify with their respective city or province of origin. We don't call it waishen food but Shanghai, Guandong, Shangdong or whatever food. For another, there's already too much fusion. Minnan, Hakka, Teochew, Japanese, Waishen, Indigenous, and American influences have all mingled quite a lot. We have things like Japanese-influenced curry, Taiwanese style miso soup, meat floss sandwich, fried chicken, black pepper steak, Japanese-influenced schnitzel, Taiwanese bread, etc that can't be neatly grouped as either benshen or waishen.
Yeah, we were a bit shaky on the split there too. I do feel as though there's pretty clearly 'Fujian-style Taiwan' and 'Not-Fujian-style Taiwan', but now that I'm thinking on it... it should probably be categorized the same way as we categorized Huaiyang/Tucai in Jiangsu - i.e. one modern cuisine, different component elements. Will edit this comment in as a footnote to that bit - a little exhausted from writing, and altering that section'll need bit of time to re-write :)
Alternatively, perhaps the cleavage could be made geographically - i.e. North vs South?
One thing that makes Taiwan hard to split is the Japanese influence. It has permeated across all social classes and all over the island. We can get cheap sushi and takoyaki at night markets, miso soup and curry at home, good quality sashimi in otherwise pretty Fujianese banquets, and straight up Japanese food incorporating Taiwanese elements made by Japan-trained chefs. It reminds me of your video about Thai-Chinese food.
There's also the ubiquitous breakfast shops that is pretty much in our collective memory. They offer everything from local-developed rice ball, milk tea, and Fujianese egg pancake, radish cake, tea egg, to Northern Chinese soy milk, youtiao, shaobing, meat buns, and to Western influenced egg pancake with cheese, fried chicken hamburger, and ham and egg sandwich.
North vs South probably works under your Rule 2. People here do refer to Tainan food as it's own thing (partly due to a joke about Tainan food being super sweet). However this probably won't pass Rule 1 and 3. There are just as many people of Fujian ancestry living in the north and their food is almost identical to those in the south. And people living in the south also make beef noodles and eat steamed buns without giving much thought.
If separating by geography, another thing worth considering is separating the mountainous area from the seafood-heavy and Minnan-dominant coastal plains. We have 山產店 that focus on wild boar, chicken, snake and civet (now protected), river fish, bee and crickets, foraged vegetables, etc, often with more Hakka or indigenous influence. Some might say it's just a restaurant concept and not a distinct cuisine though.
Hey, so I updated the post :) I think the verbiage is a lot more deliberate now. One note, however:
>good quality sashimi in otherwise pretty Fujianese banquets, and straight up Japanese food incorporating Taiwanese elements
A nitpick, but I wouldn't necessarily be quick to ascribe sashimi to Japanese influence? There's a ton of sashimi eating up and down the east coast, Fujian included. It's definitely a very regional thing, and was historically more popular than it is today. And given Japan's post-war cultural reach, I also wouldn't be overly surprised to see that expressed in a way that *feels* Japanese today (e.g. salmon sashimi, which today you can see in Yusheng mixes in Singapore as well as in Cantonese banquets).
I personally think of 'love of sashimi' as a sort of nebulous "coastal" culinary zone stretching down past Hainan that includes Japan, Korea, the Chinese east coast, etc. It would surprise me if the Qing dynasty era Hokkien population in Taiwan were *not* eating sashimi :)
There are more people of Hakka origin in Taiwan then Waishen. The subway system does announcements in Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and English. Hakka villages in Taiwan are now tourist destinations. As for food, many Taiwanese restaurants I've been to in the US have Hakka dishes, including the explicitly labeled Hakka stir fry (xiao chao).
Wow! Thanks for all the time and angst it took to put together such a painstakingly researched piece 👏🏻
We're not even halfway through yet - will get back to you once we've digested everything. In any case, you're probably too wiped out to handle a lot of comments right now 😂
I am enjoying this so much! As a Guiyang/Guizhou person, I agree with that slightly cliched saying, most of the dishes in Guiyang are pretty spicy. The Guiyang rendition of 辣子鸡 is basically chicken soaked in chili oil. In terms of the taste profile, sour catfish does remind me of tom yum. There are also a lot of products with fermented rice / processed rice products - such as 碗耳糕，绿豆粉，酸粉，米豆腐
This is a coffee table book I would certainly enjoy reading. Thank you for your work here & on youtube. I owe much of what I know about chinese cuisine to years of watching your content.
Wow, I am impressed by this guide! You should definitely publish it as a book and an e-book. Plus I believe this could even pass as a dissertation thesis 😁
Can you explain a little bit about the approved hukou element regarding travel to Taiwan? I had no idea that was a thing - is it based on historical relationships with the people who fled to Taiwan?
It was roughly based off of the economic development of the city in question. For example on the approved list was Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen hukous etc etc. Presumably it was done to minimize risk of illegal immigration - IIRC, Australia has a similar policy.
We were always a little salty because Steph’s hukou comes from a city that is actually one of the most developed in the PRD, but for some reason other lesser developed places seemingly randomly got on the approved list.
And of course these days cross strait travel is very much restricted.
Wow. I’ve watched your YT videos, but this collection is unreal. My only disappointment was when you got to Enshi/West Hubei. It’s quite unique, but you have to get deep into the mountains around Bai Yang Ping and/or Erguanzhai to find it.
Love the list! Quick shoutout to a Southeast Asian Chinese cuisine that I feel has a strong international presence - Filipino Chinese
Not that I think it needs to be added to this list, since similarly to Japanese Chuka it's more integrated with the local cuisine than some other more distinctly Chinese cuisines outside of China, but there are a lot of pretty famous Filipino dishes that originate from Hokkien cuisine and language, like Filipino lumpia(different from straits style), siopao, pancit, etc.
Either way, this list is pretty incredible and I'll definitely refer back to it often!
This is one of the most detailed and thoughtful (and yes, entertaining) pieces of food writing I have ever encountered.
It accomplishes the impossible—not once but twice.
Not only does it come up with a compelling definition of what constitutes a distinct “cuisine,” it then applies that definition to the world's most complex culinary landscape.
I teach food studies in Beijing and have class this afternoon. We’ll absolutely be discussing this today.
Singaporean here, with some comments on the Straits Chinese portion...
On the lumpia - the pictured variety would probably be more commonly referred to as popiah instead (given its provenance from a Singaporean hawker center), and the primary ingredient for the filling is shredded stewed jicama (known locally as bang kwang). I can't say for sure, but I doubt that variety of popiah would have any glass noodles either.
On Straits Hainanese chicken rice - in practice I don't see a lot of local hawkers adding pandan leaves to the rice when cooking. Also an important difference between the Singaporean and Hainanese varieties is probably the nature of the stock* - in Hainan, they might use pork broth, whereas in Singapore this is rarely done. Though I profess ignorance on other regional styles.
*https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article-detail?cmsuuid=ceddd346-4072-4981-b20d-f771bea7dd81#:~:text=One%20difference%20between%20the%20Hainanese,of%20the%20Hainanese%20chicken%20rice.
The picture you've chosen to depict a niang tofu dish appears to actually be for a curry laksa dish from a KL stall**, which I wouldn't have thought would have included niang tofu (it looks like green beans, tofu skin, and eggplant). This is entirely subjective (and biased towards Singaporean foodways), of course, but I do agree with you that a more representative example of a niang tofu dish, to my mind, is a clear soup^. That said, it is indeed quite common for yong tau foo stalls to offer a laksa-based soup too.
**https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=549422163893129&set=pcb.549422247226454/https://maps.app.goo.gl/q3sYroa6iREshQ1U6
^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yong_tau_foo
Just some pedantic nitpicking, but I do love and appreciate what you're trying to do here, so offering some suggested amendments in the most constructive spirit!
Cheers! We're a bit exhausted right now, but we'll try to make some edits in a couple days. The Lumpia correction is well noted, ditto with the Pandan leaves. Re Niang Tofu, I do think that you see the Laksa-based soup enough as a choice in Kuala Lumpur that I don't feel like it's *completely* off - you're absolutely right, of course, that the clear soup is more iconic, but I guess I'm just a sucker for Laksa, and felt like it sold it a little bit better :)
Straits Chinese was *very* difficult for us, as it's very much its own world - I think that someone more knowledgeable about the area could easily blow it up into three cuisines at the very least: the Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang schools, perhaps? We were close to doing so ourselves, but there was a sort of practical matter of finding 'three unique representative dishes' (and from the outside looking in, it feels like a lot of the variation tends to be within certain dishes).
Of the food in the area, we're much more familiar with the Malaysia side of things (from traveling and binging KL Liew, mostly lol), but even that's woefully inadequate. Mostly it felt like it was important to include in any exploration of Chinese food outside of the mainland!
Per Enshi and Tujia.... The fundamental central dish is He Zha, a soupy tofu that's spiced and mixed with mustard greens. Accompanying are a dozen or more small plates that are like the Tujia version of Tapas...peanuts, 1000 year preserved egg, pig ear (a root salad), quan ya (spring time shoot off a specific tree) and a bunch of other stuff i don't feel like typing with my thumbs. if you're interested, I can flesh this out quite a bit. It really is unique due to its previously isolated and remote status.
Taiwanese here. The benshen/waishen split is based on outdated politics that I don't believe accurately describe the reality of our food. For one, both benshen and waishen are not a homogeneous group. Hakka Taiwanese consider themselves distinct from Minnan Taiwanese, while Waishen people each identify with their respective city or province of origin. We don't call it waishen food but Shanghai, Guandong, Shangdong or whatever food. For another, there's already too much fusion. Minnan, Hakka, Teochew, Japanese, Waishen, Indigenous, and American influences have all mingled quite a lot. We have things like Japanese-influenced curry, Taiwanese style miso soup, meat floss sandwich, fried chicken, black pepper steak, Japanese-influenced schnitzel, Taiwanese bread, etc that can't be neatly grouped as either benshen or waishen.
Yeah, we were a bit shaky on the split there too. I do feel as though there's pretty clearly 'Fujian-style Taiwan' and 'Not-Fujian-style Taiwan', but now that I'm thinking on it... it should probably be categorized the same way as we categorized Huaiyang/Tucai in Jiangsu - i.e. one modern cuisine, different component elements. Will edit this comment in as a footnote to that bit - a little exhausted from writing, and altering that section'll need bit of time to re-write :)
Alternatively, perhaps the cleavage could be made geographically - i.e. North vs South?
One thing that makes Taiwan hard to split is the Japanese influence. It has permeated across all social classes and all over the island. We can get cheap sushi and takoyaki at night markets, miso soup and curry at home, good quality sashimi in otherwise pretty Fujianese banquets, and straight up Japanese food incorporating Taiwanese elements made by Japan-trained chefs. It reminds me of your video about Thai-Chinese food.
There's also the ubiquitous breakfast shops that is pretty much in our collective memory. They offer everything from local-developed rice ball, milk tea, and Fujianese egg pancake, radish cake, tea egg, to Northern Chinese soy milk, youtiao, shaobing, meat buns, and to Western influenced egg pancake with cheese, fried chicken hamburger, and ham and egg sandwich.
North vs South probably works under your Rule 2. People here do refer to Tainan food as it's own thing (partly due to a joke about Tainan food being super sweet). However this probably won't pass Rule 1 and 3. There are just as many people of Fujian ancestry living in the north and their food is almost identical to those in the south. And people living in the south also make beef noodles and eat steamed buns without giving much thought.
If separating by geography, another thing worth considering is separating the mountainous area from the seafood-heavy and Minnan-dominant coastal plains. We have 山產店 that focus on wild boar, chicken, snake and civet (now protected), river fish, bee and crickets, foraged vegetables, etc, often with more Hakka or indigenous influence. Some might say it's just a restaurant concept and not a distinct cuisine though.
Hey, so I updated the post :) I think the verbiage is a lot more deliberate now. One note, however:
>good quality sashimi in otherwise pretty Fujianese banquets, and straight up Japanese food incorporating Taiwanese elements
A nitpick, but I wouldn't necessarily be quick to ascribe sashimi to Japanese influence? There's a ton of sashimi eating up and down the east coast, Fujian included. It's definitely a very regional thing, and was historically more popular than it is today. And given Japan's post-war cultural reach, I also wouldn't be overly surprised to see that expressed in a way that *feels* Japanese today (e.g. salmon sashimi, which today you can see in Yusheng mixes in Singapore as well as in Cantonese banquets).
I personally think of 'love of sashimi' as a sort of nebulous "coastal" culinary zone stretching down past Hainan that includes Japan, Korea, the Chinese east coast, etc. It would surprise me if the Qing dynasty era Hokkien population in Taiwan were *not* eating sashimi :)
There are more people of Hakka origin in Taiwan then Waishen. The subway system does announcements in Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and English. Hakka villages in Taiwan are now tourist destinations. As for food, many Taiwanese restaurants I've been to in the US have Hakka dishes, including the explicitly labeled Hakka stir fry (xiao chao).
Im still in shock by the grand scale and epicness of this project.
A ton of respect and huge round of applause guys. well done, great job, bra-fking-vo.
Thank you for your service 🫡🫡🫡
Wow! You guys have gone above and beyond with this treatise!
Thanks so much!
So, will we be seeing a series that recreates each of these dishes (excepting of course the one you said you never ever make)?
My vote for the debut recipe is Three Cup Duck.
This is amazing. You need to publish it as a book (ebook?) so I can assign it to my students.
Wow! Thanks for all the time and angst it took to put together such a painstakingly researched piece 👏🏻
We're not even halfway through yet - will get back to you once we've digested everything. In any case, you're probably too wiped out to handle a lot of comments right now 😂
i want to do this trip
I am enjoying this so much! As a Guiyang/Guizhou person, I agree with that slightly cliched saying, most of the dishes in Guiyang are pretty spicy. The Guiyang rendition of 辣子鸡 is basically chicken soaked in chili oil. In terms of the taste profile, sour catfish does remind me of tom yum. There are also a lot of products with fermented rice / processed rice products - such as 碗耳糕，绿豆粉，酸粉，米豆腐
This is a coffee table book I would certainly enjoy reading. Thank you for your work here & on youtube. I owe much of what I know about chinese cuisine to years of watching your content.
Wow, I am impressed by this guide! You should definitely publish it as a book and an e-book. Plus I believe this could even pass as a dissertation thesis 😁
Can you explain a little bit about the approved hukou element regarding travel to Taiwan? I had no idea that was a thing - is it based on historical relationships with the people who fled to Taiwan?
It was roughly based off of the economic development of the city in question. For example on the approved list was Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen hukous etc etc. Presumably it was done to minimize risk of illegal immigration - IIRC, Australia has a similar policy.
We were always a little salty because Steph’s hukou comes from a city that is actually one of the most developed in the PRD, but for some reason other lesser developed places seemingly randomly got on the approved list.
And of course these days cross strait travel is very much restricted.
Wow. I’ve watched your YT videos, but this collection is unreal. My only disappointment was when you got to Enshi/West Hubei. It’s quite unique, but you have to get deep into the mountains around Bai Yang Ping and/or Erguanzhai to find it.
Love the list! Quick shoutout to a Southeast Asian Chinese cuisine that I feel has a strong international presence - Filipino Chinese
Not that I think it needs to be added to this list, since similarly to Japanese Chuka it's more integrated with the local cuisine than some other more distinctly Chinese cuisines outside of China, but there are a lot of pretty famous Filipino dishes that originate from Hokkien cuisine and language, like Filipino lumpia(different from straits style), siopao, pancit, etc.
Either way, this list is pretty incredible and I'll definitely refer back to it often!