Chuancaipengrenjiyi
01 · Historical Records
Sichuan cooking technique originated in the Shang and Zhou periods and matured and took fixed form by the late Qing, becoming a local cuisine with pronounced characteristics and a fairly complete system. The late-Qing Comprehensive Survey of Chengdu records more than 1,000 varieties of Sichuan dishes along with numerous cooking techniques, flavour types and food establishments, and is a marker of the maturity of Sichuan cuisine.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Sichuan cooking technique is an important representative of Ba-Shu culture and Chinese food culture. It has a fairly wide distribution, with its core area being present-day Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality and its radiating area including parts of Yunnan, Guizhou, Hubei, Shaanxi and other provinces. Sichuan Province lies on the upper reaches of the Yangtze, with a large range of elevation. Its varied topography, favourable climate, dense rivers and fertile soil have nurtured rich plant and animal resources, and the Dujiangyan irrigation system has made the Chengdu Plain a place where "flood and drought alike follow human will, and people know no famine". The abundant and high-quality produce provided a good material basis for the formation and development of Sichuan cooking technique. Sichuan cooking technique fully embodies the culinary wisdom of the Ba-Shu people. Its core techniques and forms of expression have the following characteristics. First, ingredient selection is broad and strict, frugal and sparing of materials. Second, knife work is fine and highly varied. Different cutting methods are chosen according to the requirements of cooking and of the finished dish. Third, preservation is ingenious. Methods such as salting in sauce, curing, air-drying and making preserved meats are rationally used to preserve ingredients and enhance flavour, as the saying goes: "without cured meat and sausage, there is no taste of the New Year." "Fourth, it esteems flavour and favours pungent aromatics. Sichuan cuisine gives equal weight to lightness and freshness and to richness and intensity, and it skilfully uses numbing and hot flavours; it has 27 common composite flavour types. After chilli peppers entered Sichuan, the people of Sichuan combined chilli with Sichuan pepper to create multi-layered numbing and hot flavour types, originating 10 distinctive composite flavour types such as mala (numbing and hot), fish-fragrant, strange-flavour and red-oil, satisfying both health-preserving and gustatory needs. Fifth, cooking is diverse and attention is paid to heat control. There are more than 50 common cooking methods; it excels in quick stir-frying, dry-frying, steaming with rice flour and pickling in brine, with particular emphasis on rapid stir-frying over high heat and drawing the treasure from the fire. Sichuan cooking technique is rooted in the daily life of the Ba-Shu people and contains the philosophical ideas of the unity of heaven and humanity and of nourishment through diet. Its course of development is an epitome of the history of Ba-Shu culture and of the development of Chinese food, and it also reflects the exchange and blending of food customs from different regions.
Quick-frying over a fierce fire
The most demanding technique: a very hot wok, fast addition, constant turning, and the dish out in a few breaths, so the ingredients must be dry and thinly cut and the cook never leaves the stove.
Dry-frying and pickling
Dry-frying slowly in little oil drives off moisture while keeping the aroma, giving a dry fragrance and a chew; pickling in brine or wine preserves and seasons at once, and is where the flavour of preserved meat and sausage comes from.
Steaming in a flour coating
Ingredients are coated in rice flour before steaming; the flour absorbs fat and locks in flavour, so little oil is needed and the result is soft rather than greasy, and the tray is lifted the moment the steam has done its work.
Twenty-seven composite flavour types
Sichuan cooking is organised around flavour types — twenty-seven in common use — with fixed proportions; chilli combined with Sichuan peppering gave the layered numbing and hot tastes from which ma-la, yi-xiang, guai-wei and red-oil profiles were derived.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Ingredients are drawn and graded according to the characteristics of the food, with attention to seasonality and regional character, and good use is made of trimmings and leftovers.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Since the start of reform and opening up, Sichuan cooking technique has been passed on by word of mouth and personal instruction through family transmission and through professional chefs taking on apprentices, and it has continued to develop on the basis of inheriting traditional techniques; the number and quality of Sichuan restaurants have kept rising, and the ranks of inheritors have kept growing, making it an important symbol of Ba-Shu culture. At present Sichuan cuisine is found almost all over the world, becoming a friendly envoy for the exchange and spread of traditional Chinese culture, especially food culture, and possessing high social and cultural value.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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