Cultural Lecture: Culinary Arts

The cooking lecture was held in a building off campus and was given by Quan Laoshi. He began his lecture with a lesson in the kinds of cooking styles most common in China, as well as informing students about how to appreciate Chinese culinary styles.

Cooking in China has evolved from roasting, stone cooking, and copper cooking to stainless steel, which is used today. There are 3000 ingredients available to Chinese chefs and over 500 spices and seasonings. China is a vast country and the various regions add their own style of cooking to the options available to Chinese chefs. There are over 100 different cooking techniques and 40 ways of chopping, cutting ingredients.

When learning to appreciate what Chinese culinary arts have to offer, there are six elements to consider: color, freshness, aroma, taste, shape and texture. In order to appreciate Chinese food, a combination of the senses is in order. There is a greater emphasis on the color of ingredients in determining nutritional value and freshness, as well as the best way for preparing ingredients. The simple decision of whether to cook using low versus high heat can amount to whether a dish will ultimately be worth eating or not.

While there are ten cooking styles taught in culinary training, there are essentially for major regional differences. The first comes from Shandong province, the home of Tsingtao beer, Confucius and the Yellow River. This style is called “Lu Cai” and it is known for capability with both clear and creamy soups. The senses are focused on pure taste, thick texture, color, freshness, crispness, softness and purity. It is prized for its eclectic mixture of focuses.

The second style comes from the far Western part of the Yangtze River and is known as “Sichuan Cai”, or Sichuan style. This style focuses on spiciness and pungency. “Su Cai” is the third style and comes from the lower, Eastern part of the Yangtze River, around Shanghai. This style focuses on freshwater fish and seafood, and delicacy in cutting, preparing of ingredients and a light flavor.

The fourth main style is “Yue Cai” from Guangdong and also known as Cantonese style. This style focuses on seafood and a fresh taste and is constantly reforming style and method to continually perfect their art of cooking.

Quan Laoshi repeated to the group that the most outstanding feature of Chinese cooking is the vast number of ingredients used and the endless possibility of tastes created with the number of spices and seasonings available. Once he had finished his lecture, he took the students into his kitchen and showed them how to cut and prepare a number of ingredients for the list of dishes the group had decided on earlier in the week.

He cut up a chicken for the group, as well as small slabs of pork. He cut tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, glass noodles, garlic and ginger (having a special and delightful smashing technique with the side of his cleaver), tofu and onions, celery, carrots, and on and on. The students also watched as the huge cookers were lit and prep chefs used large woks to prepare the food cut and chopped by Quan Laoshi. Once all of the food was prepared, the students were able to sit and enjoy the huge meal prepared with love and care and devotion to the culinary art form.