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!
As a third-generation Malaysian Hainanese, who actually sells Hainanese Chicken Rice for a living, I would say my grandparents would roll in their graves if you don't actually put pandan leaves in your rice when cooking your chicken rice. I mean, pandan leaves are one of the main things that distinguish HCR in Malaysia and Singapore from its Wenchang chicken dish antecedent.
If Singaporean hawkers selling HCR are not putting in pandan leaves in their rice, as claimed by the commenter above, I have to say them are not Hainanese Chicken Rice that they're selling!
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).
Greetings from Singapore! This is an amazing work into the cuisines of China. A whole book and scholarly study by itself.
There is a kind of sub-cuisines super-imposed all schools of Straits Chinese cuisines you mentioned and perhaps even overlapping with Thai-Teochew - Hainanese fushion cuisine of Singapore-Malaysia. The Hainanese, as late comers to the region, found themselves shut out of the traditional livelihoods, had to work in fields deemed lower social status and unappealing - working as domestic for the British colonials and setting up the first "coffeeshops", basically eateries also known as "kopitiam". Through working as domestics, they learnt European cooking techniques and dishes, then popularising these in the kopitiams they run across British Malaya and Singapore. These kopitiams not only served Hainanese interpretations of toast and bread, roasts and pork chops, but also traditional Hainanese dishes with significant modifications adopted from other Chinese regional groups - such as Hainanese chicken rice.
The chicken rice in Singapore/Malaysia not only uses chilli and garlic you mentioned in your writeup, but also cooked with chicken broth. The chicken used was also treated with ice and thus much tender than the wild range type used in Hainan. I would object to your statement that the chicken used is inferior. They are simply different. Many younger generation Singaporean (me, for instance) and Malaysian Hainanese often commented that they prefer the Southeast Asian version after they tried the Wenchang chicken rice on visits to the ancestral hometowns in Hainan.
The Hainanese curry rice is also another fusion category popular across Singapore and Malaysia, often eaten in Hainanese kopitiam. The mix of Southeast Asian spices and curry with Chinese dishes. A whole category of comfort food across many ethnic groups in the region.
I’m Taiwanese and belong to the so-called third generation of mainland Chinese immigrants (my grandfather’s generation came from mainland China).
From my perspective, I’d like to add some supplementary information about Taiwan (if you were Minnan, Hakka, or even Indigenous, the viewpoint might differ greatly).
The text mentions the Hakka ethnic group. In Taiwan, most Hakka people originally came from Guangdong province.
As a result, the food culture they brought with them differs from that of the Fujian Minnan people. The text mentions "梅菜扣肉" (braised pork with preserved mustard greens), which can also be found in Taiwan. Another well-known Hakka dish is "客家小炒" (I'm not sure if there's a more formal name for it).
In my personal view, Minnan cuisine has had a broader influence than Hakka cuisine in Taiwan—perhaps also due to modern health trends, as Hakka dishes are often perceived as being oilier and saltier, which might have led to their decline.
In terms of ingredients, 五香粉(five-spice powder) and 油蔥酥 (deep-fried red shallots) are key flavor components in Taiwanese cuisine. You’ll find this familiar taste in dishes like minced pork rice or braised pork rice. These ingredients clearly have Minnan origins.
However, since Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years, Japanese influence is also evident in Taiwanese cuisine.
One interesting example—which has also been mentioned on your channel—is Yee Mein. In Taiwan, it evolved into a common street dish known as “鍋燒意麵”.
It consists of Yee Mein boiled in a katsuobushi (bonito) broth with slices of meat, vegetables, hot pot ingredients, and finally served with a dollop of shacha sauce. It's quick, cheap, and a popular lunch option.
Because it’s so simple and inexpensive, it rarely appears in gourmet discussions.
Yet the use of a katsuobushi broth is distinctly non-Chinese, making it a fusion dish born from the intersection of Chinese (Yee Mein) and Japanese (bonito) influences. If we also consider shacha sauce as having Southeast Asian origins, it gets even more fascinating.
Indigenous peoples haven’t had much influence on modern Taiwanese cuisine, likely because both during Qing and Japanese rule, government policies deliberately isolated the plains settlers from the mountain-dwelling Indigenous groups.
Aside from 鹹豬肉 (belly pork marinated with unique spices), which is now quite common, most Indigenous dishes are only seen in travel or tourism settings and haven't become part of daily life.
In recent years, due to an increase in migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, more restaurants offering their native cuisines have appeared.
However, dishes that genuinely fuse Taiwanese and Southeast Asian elements are still rare.
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
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 😂
Hi! This is a great comprehensive list, but I do need to point out something important. I am part Uyghur and we don't consider ourselves Chinese. We are Turkic. Xinjiang is the occupied name. Our country is called East Turkistan and one of the tactics of the genocide happening since the 1940's by the CCP is cultural erasure, so categorizing Uyghur food as Chinese is the same as saying Palestinian food is Israeli. Would really appreciate if this is corrected. Thank you!
The fundamental idea - to try our best to avoid what we wanted to be a food project getting political - was that we were fundamentally counting the cuisines that exist within the borders of the political entity of mainland China (where there are certainly more than a few non-Han Chinese ethnic groups). We included a few Han Chinese cuisines outside of the mainland in the post mostly for a bit of fun :)
I’m Taiwanese and belong to the so-called third generation of mainland Chinese immigrants (my grandfather’s generation came from mainland China).
From my perspective, I’d like to add some supplementary information about Taiwan (if you were Minnan, Hakka, or even Indigenous, the viewpoint might differ greatly).
The text mentions the Hakka ethnic group. In Taiwan, most Hakka people originally came from Guangdong province.
As a result, the food culture they brought with them differs from that of the Fujian Minnan people. The text mentions "梅菜扣肉" (braised pork with preserved mustard greens), which can also be found in Taiwan. Another well-known Hakka dish is "客家小炒" (I'm not sure if there's a more formal name for it).
In my personal view, Minnan cuisine has had a broader influence than Hakka cuisine in Taiwan—perhaps also due to modern health trends, as Hakka dishes are often perceived as being oilier and saltier, which might have led to their decline.
In terms of ingredients, five-spice powder and 油蔥酥 (deep-fried red shallots) are key flavor components in Taiwanese cuisine. You’ll find this familiar taste in dishes like minced pork rice or braised pork rice. These ingredients clearly have Minnan origins.
However, since Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years, Japanese influence is also evident in Taiwanese cuisine.
One interesting example—which has also been mentioned on your channel—is Yee Mein. In Taiwan, it evolved into a common street dish known as “鍋燒意麵”.
It consists of Yee Mein boiled in a katsuobushi (bonito) broth with slices of meat, vegetables, hot pot ingredients, and finally served with a dollop of shacha sauce. It's quick, cheap, and a popular lunch option.
Because it’s so simple and inexpensive, it rarely appears in gourmet discussions.
Yet the use of a katsuobushi broth is distinctly non-Chinese, making it a fusion dish born from the intersection of Chinese (Yee Mein) and Japanese (bonito) influences. If we also consider shacha sauce as having Southeast Asian origins, it gets even more fascinating.
Indigenous peoples haven’t had much influence on modern Taiwanese cuisine, likely because both during Qing and Japanese rule, government policies deliberately isolated the plains settlers from the mountain-dwelling Indigenous groups.
Aside from 鹹豬肉 (belly pork marinated with unique spices), which is now quite common, most Indigenous dishes are only seen in travel or tourism settings and haven't become part of daily life.
In recent years, due to an increase in migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, more restaurants offering their native cuisines have appeared.
However, dishes that genuinely fuse Taiwanese and Southeast Asian elements are still rare.
I’m Taiwanese and belong to the so-called third generation of mainland Chinese immigrants (my grandfather’s generation came from mainland China).
From my perspective, I’d like to add some supplementary information about Taiwan (if you were Minnan, Hakka, or even Indigenous, the viewpoint might differ greatly).
The text mentions the Hakka ethnic group. In Taiwan, most Hakka people originally came from Guangdong province.
As a result, the food culture they brought with them differs from that of the Fujian Minnan people. The text mentions "梅菜扣肉" (braised pork with preserved mustard greens), which can also be found in Taiwan. Another well-known Hakka dish is "客家小炒" (I'm not sure if there's a more formal name for it).
In my personal view, Minnan cuisine has had a broader influence than Hakka cuisine in Taiwan—perhaps also due to modern health trends, as Hakka dishes are often perceived as being oilier and saltier, which might have led to their decline.
In terms of ingredients, five-spice powder and 油蔥酥 (deep-fried red shallots) are key flavor components in Taiwanese cuisine. You’ll find this familiar taste in dishes like minced pork rice or braised pork rice. These ingredients clearly have Minnan origins.
However, since Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years, Japanese influence is also evident in Taiwanese cuisine.
One interesting example—which has also been mentioned on your channel—is Yee Mein. In Taiwan, it evolved into a common street dish known as “鍋燒意麵”.
It consists of Yee Mein boiled in a katsuobushi (bonito) broth with slices of meat, vegetables, hot pot ingredients, and finally served with a dollop of shacha sauce. It's quick, cheap, and a popular lunch option.
Because it’s so simple and inexpensive, it rarely appears in gourmet discussions.
Yet the use of a katsuobushi broth is distinctly non-Chinese, making it a fusion dish born from the intersection of Chinese (Yee Mein) and Japanese (bonito) influences. If we also consider shacha sauce as having Southeast Asian origins, it gets even more fascinating.
Indigenous peoples haven’t had much influence on modern Taiwanese cuisine, likely because both during Qing and Japanese rule, government policies deliberately isolated the plains settlers from the mountain-dwelling Indigenous groups.
Aside from 鹹豬肉 (belly pork marinated with unique spices), which is now quite common, most Indigenous dishes are only seen in travel or tourism settings and haven't become part of daily life.
In recent years, due to an increase in migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, more restaurants offering their native cuisines have appeared.
However, dishes that genuinely fuse Taiwanese and Southeast Asian elements are still rare.
I’m Taiwanese and belong to the so-called third generation of mainland Chinese immigrants (my grandfather’s generation came from mainland China).
From my perspective, I’d like to add some supplementary information about Taiwan (if you were Minnan, Hakka, or even Indigenous, the viewpoint might differ greatly).
The text mentions the Hakka ethnic group. In Taiwan, most Hakka people originally came from Guangdong province.
As a result, the food culture they brought with them differs from that of the Fujian Minnan people. The text mentions "梅菜扣肉" (braised pork with preserved mustard greens), which can also be found in Taiwan. Another well-known Hakka dish is "客家小炒" (I'm not sure if there's a more formal name for it).
In my personal view, Minnan cuisine has had a broader influence than Hakka cuisine in Taiwan—perhaps also due to modern health trends, as Hakka dishes are often perceived as being oilier and saltier, which might have led to their decline.
In terms of ingredients, five-spice powder and 油蔥酥 (deep-fried red shallots) are key flavor components in Taiwanese cuisine. You’ll find this familiar taste in dishes like minced pork rice or braised pork rice. These ingredients clearly have Minnan origins.
However, since Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years, Japanese influence is also evident in Taiwanese cuisine.
One interesting example—which has also been mentioned on your channel—is Yee Mein. In Taiwan, it evolved into a common street dish known as “鍋燒意麵”.
It consists of Yee Mein boiled in a katsuobushi (bonito) broth with slices of meat, vegetables, hot pot ingredients, and finally served with a dollop of shacha sauce. It's quick, cheap, and a popular lunch option.
Because it’s so simple and inexpensive, it rarely appears in gourmet discussions.
Yet the use of a katsuobushi broth is distinctly non-Chinese, making it a fusion dish born from the intersection of Chinese (Yee Mein) and Japanese (bonito) influences. If we also consider shacha sauce as having Southeast Asian origins, it gets even more fascinating.
Indigenous peoples haven’t had much influence on modern Taiwanese cuisine, likely because both during Qing and Japanese rule, government policies deliberately isolated the plains settlers from the mountain-dwelling Indigenous groups.
Aside from 鹹豬肉 (belly pork marinated with unique spices), which is now quite common, most Indigenous dishes are only seen in travel or tourism settings and haven't become part of daily life.
In recent years, due to an increase in migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, more restaurants offering their native cuisines have appeared.
However, dishes that genuinely fuse Taiwanese and Southeast Asian elements are still rare.
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!
As a third-generation Malaysian Hainanese, who actually sells Hainanese Chicken Rice for a living, I would say my grandparents would roll in their graves if you don't actually put pandan leaves in your rice when cooking your chicken rice. I mean, pandan leaves are one of the main things that distinguish HCR in Malaysia and Singapore from its Wenchang chicken dish antecedent.
If Singaporean hawkers selling HCR are not putting in pandan leaves in their rice, as claimed by the commenter above, I have to say them are not Hainanese Chicken Rice that they're selling!
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).
Greetings from Singapore! This is an amazing work into the cuisines of China. A whole book and scholarly study by itself.
There is a kind of sub-cuisines super-imposed all schools of Straits Chinese cuisines you mentioned and perhaps even overlapping with Thai-Teochew - Hainanese fushion cuisine of Singapore-Malaysia. The Hainanese, as late comers to the region, found themselves shut out of the traditional livelihoods, had to work in fields deemed lower social status and unappealing - working as domestic for the British colonials and setting up the first "coffeeshops", basically eateries also known as "kopitiam". Through working as domestics, they learnt European cooking techniques and dishes, then popularising these in the kopitiams they run across British Malaya and Singapore. These kopitiams not only served Hainanese interpretations of toast and bread, roasts and pork chops, but also traditional Hainanese dishes with significant modifications adopted from other Chinese regional groups - such as Hainanese chicken rice.
The chicken rice in Singapore/Malaysia not only uses chilli and garlic you mentioned in your writeup, but also cooked with chicken broth. The chicken used was also treated with ice and thus much tender than the wild range type used in Hainan. I would object to your statement that the chicken used is inferior. They are simply different. Many younger generation Singaporean (me, for instance) and Malaysian Hainanese often commented that they prefer the Southeast Asian version after they tried the Wenchang chicken rice on visits to the ancestral hometowns in Hainan.
The Hainanese curry rice is also another fusion category popular across Singapore and Malaysia, often eaten in Hainanese kopitiam. The mix of Southeast Asian spices and curry with Chinese dishes. A whole category of comfort food across many ethnic groups in the region.
Translated using ChatGPT
I’m Taiwanese and belong to the so-called third generation of mainland Chinese immigrants (my grandfather’s generation came from mainland China).
From my perspective, I’d like to add some supplementary information about Taiwan (if you were Minnan, Hakka, or even Indigenous, the viewpoint might differ greatly).
The text mentions the Hakka ethnic group. In Taiwan, most Hakka people originally came from Guangdong province.
As a result, the food culture they brought with them differs from that of the Fujian Minnan people. The text mentions "梅菜扣肉" (braised pork with preserved mustard greens), which can also be found in Taiwan. Another well-known Hakka dish is "客家小炒" (I'm not sure if there's a more formal name for it).
In my personal view, Minnan cuisine has had a broader influence than Hakka cuisine in Taiwan—perhaps also due to modern health trends, as Hakka dishes are often perceived as being oilier and saltier, which might have led to their decline.
In terms of ingredients, 五香粉(five-spice powder) and 油蔥酥 (deep-fried red shallots) are key flavor components in Taiwanese cuisine. You’ll find this familiar taste in dishes like minced pork rice or braised pork rice. These ingredients clearly have Minnan origins.
However, since Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years, Japanese influence is also evident in Taiwanese cuisine.
One interesting example—which has also been mentioned on your channel—is Yee Mein. In Taiwan, it evolved into a common street dish known as “鍋燒意麵”.
It consists of Yee Mein boiled in a katsuobushi (bonito) broth with slices of meat, vegetables, hot pot ingredients, and finally served with a dollop of shacha sauce. It's quick, cheap, and a popular lunch option.
Because it’s so simple and inexpensive, it rarely appears in gourmet discussions.
Yet the use of a katsuobushi broth is distinctly non-Chinese, making it a fusion dish born from the intersection of Chinese (Yee Mein) and Japanese (bonito) influences. If we also consider shacha sauce as having Southeast Asian origins, it gets even more fascinating.
Indigenous peoples haven’t had much influence on modern Taiwanese cuisine, likely because both during Qing and Japanese rule, government policies deliberately isolated the plains settlers from the mountain-dwelling Indigenous groups.
Aside from 鹹豬肉 (belly pork marinated with unique spices), which is now quite common, most Indigenous dishes are only seen in travel or tourism settings and haven't become part of daily life.
In recent years, due to an increase in migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, more restaurants offering their native cuisines have appeared.
However, dishes that genuinely fuse Taiwanese and Southeast Asian elements are still rare.
So what is Taiwanese cuisine?
I think this BBC video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfCdSY3rD_s) presents an interesting perspective. It’s ultimately a matter of identity.
Just like how 波蘿油 and 鹹檸七 are now considered quintessentially Hong Kong-style, even though their origins lie elsewhere, the same applies to Taiwan.
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
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 😂
Hi! This is a great comprehensive list, but I do need to point out something important. I am part Uyghur and we don't consider ourselves Chinese. We are Turkic. Xinjiang is the occupied name. Our country is called East Turkistan and one of the tactics of the genocide happening since the 1940's by the CCP is cultural erasure, so categorizing Uyghur food as Chinese is the same as saying Palestinian food is Israeli. Would really appreciate if this is corrected. Thank you!
Hey! So we discussed a bit more in the video about the project's definition of 'Chinese cuisine' here: https://youtu.be/fTa_T2pVwuk?si=p8CnDR5jIMVQWX09&t=754
The fundamental idea - to try our best to avoid what we wanted to be a food project getting political - was that we were fundamentally counting the cuisines that exist within the borders of the political entity of mainland China (where there are certainly more than a few non-Han Chinese ethnic groups). We included a few Han Chinese cuisines outside of the mainland in the post mostly for a bit of fun :)
Translated using ChatGPT
I’m Taiwanese and belong to the so-called third generation of mainland Chinese immigrants (my grandfather’s generation came from mainland China).
From my perspective, I’d like to add some supplementary information about Taiwan (if you were Minnan, Hakka, or even Indigenous, the viewpoint might differ greatly).
The text mentions the Hakka ethnic group. In Taiwan, most Hakka people originally came from Guangdong province.
As a result, the food culture they brought with them differs from that of the Fujian Minnan people. The text mentions "梅菜扣肉" (braised pork with preserved mustard greens), which can also be found in Taiwan. Another well-known Hakka dish is "客家小炒" (I'm not sure if there's a more formal name for it).
In my personal view, Minnan cuisine has had a broader influence than Hakka cuisine in Taiwan—perhaps also due to modern health trends, as Hakka dishes are often perceived as being oilier and saltier, which might have led to their decline.
In terms of ingredients, five-spice powder and 油蔥酥 (deep-fried red shallots) are key flavor components in Taiwanese cuisine. You’ll find this familiar taste in dishes like minced pork rice or braised pork rice. These ingredients clearly have Minnan origins.
However, since Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years, Japanese influence is also evident in Taiwanese cuisine.
One interesting example—which has also been mentioned on your channel—is Yee Mein. In Taiwan, it evolved into a common street dish known as “鍋燒意麵”.
It consists of Yee Mein boiled in a katsuobushi (bonito) broth with slices of meat, vegetables, hot pot ingredients, and finally served with a dollop of shacha sauce. It's quick, cheap, and a popular lunch option.
Because it’s so simple and inexpensive, it rarely appears in gourmet discussions.
Yet the use of a katsuobushi broth is distinctly non-Chinese, making it a fusion dish born from the intersection of Chinese (Yee Mein) and Japanese (bonito) influences. If we also consider shacha sauce as having Southeast Asian origins, it gets even more fascinating.
Indigenous peoples haven’t had much influence on modern Taiwanese cuisine, likely because both during Qing and Japanese rule, government policies deliberately isolated the plains settlers from the mountain-dwelling Indigenous groups.
Aside from 鹹豬肉 (belly pork marinated with unique spices), which is now quite common, most Indigenous dishes are only seen in travel or tourism settings and haven't become part of daily life.
In recent years, due to an increase in migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, more restaurants offering their native cuisines have appeared.
However, dishes that genuinely fuse Taiwanese and Southeast Asian elements are still rare.
So what is Taiwanese cuisine?
I think this BBC video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfCdSY3rD_s) presents an interesting perspective. It’s ultimately a matter of identity.
Just like how 波蘿油 and 鹹檸七 are now considered quintessentially Hong Kong-style, even though their origins lie elsewhere, the same applies to Taiwan.
Translated using ChatGPT
I’m Taiwanese and belong to the so-called third generation of mainland Chinese immigrants (my grandfather’s generation came from mainland China).
From my perspective, I’d like to add some supplementary information about Taiwan (if you were Minnan, Hakka, or even Indigenous, the viewpoint might differ greatly).
The text mentions the Hakka ethnic group. In Taiwan, most Hakka people originally came from Guangdong province.
As a result, the food culture they brought with them differs from that of the Fujian Minnan people. The text mentions "梅菜扣肉" (braised pork with preserved mustard greens), which can also be found in Taiwan. Another well-known Hakka dish is "客家小炒" (I'm not sure if there's a more formal name for it).
In my personal view, Minnan cuisine has had a broader influence than Hakka cuisine in Taiwan—perhaps also due to modern health trends, as Hakka dishes are often perceived as being oilier and saltier, which might have led to their decline.
In terms of ingredients, five-spice powder and 油蔥酥 (deep-fried red shallots) are key flavor components in Taiwanese cuisine. You’ll find this familiar taste in dishes like minced pork rice or braised pork rice. These ingredients clearly have Minnan origins.
However, since Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years, Japanese influence is also evident in Taiwanese cuisine.
One interesting example—which has also been mentioned on your channel—is Yee Mein. In Taiwan, it evolved into a common street dish known as “鍋燒意麵”.
It consists of Yee Mein boiled in a katsuobushi (bonito) broth with slices of meat, vegetables, hot pot ingredients, and finally served with a dollop of shacha sauce. It's quick, cheap, and a popular lunch option.
Because it’s so simple and inexpensive, it rarely appears in gourmet discussions.
Yet the use of a katsuobushi broth is distinctly non-Chinese, making it a fusion dish born from the intersection of Chinese (Yee Mein) and Japanese (bonito) influences. If we also consider shacha sauce as having Southeast Asian origins, it gets even more fascinating.
Indigenous peoples haven’t had much influence on modern Taiwanese cuisine, likely because both during Qing and Japanese rule, government policies deliberately isolated the plains settlers from the mountain-dwelling Indigenous groups.
Aside from 鹹豬肉 (belly pork marinated with unique spices), which is now quite common, most Indigenous dishes are only seen in travel or tourism settings and haven't become part of daily life.
In recent years, due to an increase in migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, more restaurants offering their native cuisines have appeared.
However, dishes that genuinely fuse Taiwanese and Southeast Asian elements are still rare.
So what is Taiwanese cuisine?
I think this BBC video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfCdSY3rD_s) presents an interesting perspective. It’s ultimately a matter of identity.
Just like how 波蘿油 and 鹹檸七 are now considered quintessentially Hong Kong-style, even though their origins lie elsewhere, the same applies to Taiwan.
Translated using ChatGPT
I’m Taiwanese and belong to the so-called third generation of mainland Chinese immigrants (my grandfather’s generation came from mainland China).
From my perspective, I’d like to add some supplementary information about Taiwan (if you were Minnan, Hakka, or even Indigenous, the viewpoint might differ greatly).
The text mentions the Hakka ethnic group. In Taiwan, most Hakka people originally came from Guangdong province.
As a result, the food culture they brought with them differs from that of the Fujian Minnan people. The text mentions "梅菜扣肉" (braised pork with preserved mustard greens), which can also be found in Taiwan. Another well-known Hakka dish is "客家小炒" (I'm not sure if there's a more formal name for it).
In my personal view, Minnan cuisine has had a broader influence than Hakka cuisine in Taiwan—perhaps also due to modern health trends, as Hakka dishes are often perceived as being oilier and saltier, which might have led to their decline.
In terms of ingredients, five-spice powder and 油蔥酥 (deep-fried red shallots) are key flavor components in Taiwanese cuisine. You’ll find this familiar taste in dishes like minced pork rice or braised pork rice. These ingredients clearly have Minnan origins.
However, since Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years, Japanese influence is also evident in Taiwanese cuisine.
One interesting example—which has also been mentioned on your channel—is Yee Mein. In Taiwan, it evolved into a common street dish known as “鍋燒意麵”.
It consists of Yee Mein boiled in a katsuobushi (bonito) broth with slices of meat, vegetables, hot pot ingredients, and finally served with a dollop of shacha sauce. It's quick, cheap, and a popular lunch option.
Because it’s so simple and inexpensive, it rarely appears in gourmet discussions.
Yet the use of a katsuobushi broth is distinctly non-Chinese, making it a fusion dish born from the intersection of Chinese (Yee Mein) and Japanese (bonito) influences. If we also consider shacha sauce as having Southeast Asian origins, it gets even more fascinating.
Indigenous peoples haven’t had much influence on modern Taiwanese cuisine, likely because both during Qing and Japanese rule, government policies deliberately isolated the plains settlers from the mountain-dwelling Indigenous groups.
Aside from 鹹豬肉 (belly pork marinated with unique spices), which is now quite common, most Indigenous dishes are only seen in travel or tourism settings and haven't become part of daily life.
In recent years, due to an increase in migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, more restaurants offering their native cuisines have appeared.
However, dishes that genuinely fuse Taiwanese and Southeast Asian elements are still rare.
So what is Taiwanese cuisine?
I think this BBC video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfCdSY3rD_s) presents an interesting perspective. It’s ultimately a matter of identity.
Just like how 波蘿油 and 鹹檸七 are now considered quintessentially Hong Kong-style, even though their origins lie elsewhere, the same applies to Taiwan.
Wow. I will refer to this often.