Legends and allusions: the origin of Guangdong Cantonese cuisine

The origin of Cantonese cuisine can be traced back to the early Han Dynasty. In ancient times, before the arrival of immigrants from the Central Plains, the ancestors of the Yue nationality in Lingnan had a unique diet style, such as insects, snakes, fish, clams and raw food. It is recorded in Liu An of the Western Han Dynasty that "the more people get pythons, the better they eat". In the Song Dynasty, Zhou Qufei's "A Generation Beyond the Ridge" also recorded that Guangzhou people "don't ask birds, animals, insects and snakes what they eat". This is inseparable from the geographical environment of Guangzhou. Guangzhou belongs to the subtropical water network zone, where insects, snakes, fish and clams are particularly rich and easy to get, cook and eat, forming a lively and vigorous eating habit.

Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Han people in the Central Plains have been wandering southward to Guangzhou. They not only brought advanced production technology and cultural knowledge, but also brought the Central Plains diet style of "never tired of cooking in detail and never tired of eating in essence". During the Tang and Song Dynasties, a large number of businessmen from all over the Central Plains entered Guangzhou, and Guangzhou's cooking skills were rapidly improved. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Guangzhou's food culture reached its peak. According to the related documents in the second year of Qing Daoguang (1822), "Nehrig wine sea in Xiguan, Guangzhou, has no cold and heat, no day and night."

In the 1920s and 1930s, Guangzhou's food customs, North-South compatibility, integration of Chinese and Western, and special food snacks emerged in large numbers. Over the years, Guangzhou has not only inherited the tradition of the central plains food culture, but also absorbed the essence of foreign and various cooking, and then continuously absorbed, accumulated, improved and innovated according to local tastes, hobbies and habits, thus forming the food characteristics of diverse dishes, exquisite cooking skills, high quality and delicious taste. In the past hundred years, it has become one of the most representative food cultures in China and one of the most influential food cultures in the world. This is based on the development of three major cuisines, namely, Shandong Cuisine in the Yellow River Basin, Sichuan Cuisine in the Yangtze River Basin, Jiangsu Cuisine, Shanghai Cuisine and Guangdong Cuisine in the Pearl River Basin, or four major cuisines (namely, Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Guangdong), or eight major cuisines (namely, Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Guangdong). Whether it is the variety and quality of dishes, or the number and scale of restaurants and restaurants, Guangzhou cuisine. At present, there are nearly 20,000 restaurants with 900,000 seats in the city.