What kind of cuisine is Shanghainese? Why is it also known as the local cuisine?

Shanghai cuisine is also known as the local cuisine. In the early 20th century, Shanghai brought together 16 local flavors such as Suzhou, Tin, Ningxia and Hui, which were called Su Gang Cai and Hui Gang Cai by the Shanghai people, while the local flavors were called Ben Gang Cai.

Ben Gang Cuisine was born at the beginning of the world is not a hall of fame, civilianization is its characteristics. At that time, the main use of local fish, shrimp and vegetables, to braised, steamed, simmered, fried, bad, raw stir-frying, dishes thick oil and red sauce, salty and bland to taste. Later, Shanghai cuisine continues to learn from foreign dishes, especially the strengths of the Suzhou and Wuxi dishes, in the mid-20th century the formation of the material to take fresh, many varieties, taste moderate characteristics, many of the local dishes created by the home dishes, cultivated a number of famous chefs of the local dishes, and greatly improved the taste of the local dishes.

Ben Gang dishes colorful, thick taste, marinade penetrates into the interior of the dishes, especially flavorful, but there is no lack of light and elegant, fresh and beautiful. Famous dishes in this gang, thick oil sauce of the pot roasted river eel, braised circles, Buddha's hand belly, braised paddle, oil sauce, hairy crabs, etc.; light and elegant of the first push the summer and fall seasons of the bad goods, such as bad chicken, bad pig's claw, bad door cavity, bad beans, bad wild rice, etc.; and the caper spring bamboo shoots, crystal shrimp, ice sugar turtle, hibiscus chicken slices, etc. to the tender and light is good at; buckles three silk with ham, chicken breasts, pork cut into thin threads to the longest knife work, beautiful shape.

Regional dishes

The development and evolution of local dishes have a fish-water relationship with the local economy and culture: the development of Lu Cuisine is related to the Confucius Palace, the development of Hui Cuisine is related to the Hui merchants, and modern Shanghai, due to the concentration of industrial and commercial people, cultural figures, and frequent exchanges between inside and outside the city, so that Shanghai's food culture is broadly inclusive, and gradually become the meeting point of the domestic and foreign culinary culture.

Nowadays, Shanghai cuisine has two meanings. In the narrow sense, Shanghai cuisine is called local cuisine, and in the broad sense, Shanghai cuisine is a comprehensive and extensive cuisine formed by absorbing the strengths of various schools of thought, with local cuisine as the main focus. Shanghai is the earliest city to open port after China was invaded by the colonial power, and in the long process of development, it has gradually formed a unique sea culture that blends the East and the West and is inclusive. Shanghai people's taste is also so sea, the traditional sense of Shanghai cuisine has long been unable to adapt to the development of Shanghai: hope to eat a little spicy, but can not eat the authentic Sichuan cuisine spicy; black pepper steak eat more will be tired, but in the local cuisine to add a little black pepper seasoning but a different flavor, and so on and so forth. Traditional Shanghai cuisine only choose soy sauce, salt, monosodium glutamate and other single seasoning, and modern Shanghai cuisine in addition to borrowing the black pepper, butter, Sichuan's red pepper, Xinjiang's cumin, but also the application of a variety of composite seasoning, which makes the Shanghai cuisine has a more novel flavor. In fact, the essence of Shanghai cuisine lies in eclecticism and seeking development in improvement. The new Shanghai cuisine is not the traditional sense of the local dishes, it is in the mature local dishes on the basis of extensive absorption of local flavors at home and abroad, improvement and development so as to form the unique characteristics of the sea cuisine. Shanghai is an immigrant city, the population is large, mixed flavors is its characteristics, the new Shanghai cuisine will certainly adapt to this feature.