Food & Cuisine in Fujian
Fujian cuisine, also named Mincai for short, is an important part in Chinese cuisine.
Due to the geographical advantage with mountains in the north and sea to the south, Fujian not only emphasizes seafood but also mountain delicacies. The coastal region produces over 250 varieties of sea products. In addition, the special products like edible bird's nest, cuttlefish, and sturgeon are produced and used in its cuisines.Fujian people are good cooks of sea food. Their ways of cooking feature in stewing, boiling, braising, quick-boiling, and steaming, etc. In addition, many mountain delicacies such as mushroom, bamboo shoots and tremella are often found here.
Fujian cuisine is classified into four types: Fuzhou, Western Fujian, Southern Fujian, Quanzhou. Fuzhou dish is quite popular in eastern, central and northern Fujian province. The taste of this type is lighter than others, often with a mixed sweet and sour and less salty; Western Fujian dish is often salty and spicy from mustard and pepper; Taste of Southern Fujian dish is usually spicy and sweet and the selection of sauces are elaborately used; Quanzhou dish is of least oil but with the strongest taste of Fujian cuisine, and shape of the material for each dish is of high demand in this type of dish, especially seafood, for the dishes will fail to have their true flavorif the seafood is not cut well. But generally speaking, Fujian dishes are slightly sweet and sour, and less salty, and the most characteristic aspect of Fujian cuisine is that its dishes are served in soup, and an important flavoring and coloring material is red distiller’s grain.
Notable Dishes
Buddha Jumps Over the Wall is one of the most famous dishes in Fuijian. It is a complex dish with mixture of seafood, chicken, duck, pork and other ingredients which are put into a rice-wine jar and simmered over a low fire. The name implies that the dish is so delicious that even the Buddha would jump over a wall to have a taste once he smiled at it.
In Xiamen, a local specialty is worm jelly that made from a species of marine peanut worm. There are many eating places offering this cheap dish which just cost two yuan.
One notable dish in Fujian is Yanpi, a thin wrapper made with large proportions of lean pork. The wrapper is used to make a typle of wonton named Rouyan.
The other typical dishes are flaked spiral shell lightly pickled in rice liquor, litchi fish, and mussels quick-boiled in chicken broth.