Ancient Chinese FoodAncient Chinese Foodby Matthew Linskyby Matthew Linsky

Traditional Ancient Traditional Ancient Chinese RiceChinese Rice

Rice was the first grain that people farmed in China. So it was like the first food in China, but not. China is the largest rice producer. Also, rice is the staple food of Chinese people in everyday meals. There is also a rich collection of rice dishes in China. There is a lot of rice in China!! People in China even have been growing and eating rice for about 7000 years!! That’s a lot of time!! Anyway, sometimes people in China steam rice and serve it with vegetables and meat or seafood. Sometimes, people even fry rice with meat and vegetables.

Noodles are a staple food in Chinese cuisine. Also, among the thousands types of noodles, in Ancient China, the most famous ones are the soy bean paste noodles and the dandan noodles. If you want noodles to be served in different ways, they can be. Noodles can be served and eaten hot or cold, boiled, steamed, stir-fried, or even in soup.

Traditional Ancient Traditional Ancient Chinese NoodlesChinese Noodles

Traditional Ancient Traditional Ancient Chinese TeaChinese Tea

Did you know people in China have began drinking tea since 5000 years ago!! That’s a lot of centuries!! Tea grows very wild in China and in 3000 BC (or much earlier) people started to drink tea in China.  

Traditional Ancient Traditional Ancient Chinese FishChinese Fish

During festivals, fish is a very essential dish at the family dinner table. Fish is also one of the courses of the Chinese New Year feast. Fish is very important because it belongs in lots of meals. Popular fish and shellfish that are in China include sea bass, shrimp soft-shell, turtle, squid, and more. Fish is also very important because in China, especially at banquets, its very customary to serve the whole and entire fish with the fish’s head pointed toward the guest. So fish can be an essential dish, a course of an important meal, and it can be special at banquets.  

Traditional Ancient Traditional Ancient Chinese TofuChinese Tofu

Tofu (bean curd) is made from soy milk, a curdling agent, and water. If you don’t want to have fat in your stomach and be healthy, don’t worry. Tofu doesn’t contain lots of fat and is very high in protein. Again, tofu is a staple food of Asian cuisines since ancient times. There is a very wide variety of tofu that can be split up into 2 groups which are Fresh tofu: produced from soy milk and Processed tofu: processed from some way from the fresh tofu. So tofu can be split up into groups of different tofu.

Traditional Ancient Traditional Ancient Chinese EggsChinese Eggs

Eggs can be really important to Ancient China and China. They are important because well, eggs represent rebirth and fertility in great traditional view. Also the Chinese people make a lot of dishes out of eggs and the most unique and famous ones are probably the Salted Duck Eggs and Century eggs. If you want to know how to make Century Eggs, you can use duck, chicken or even quail eggs.

Ancient Chinese MeatAncient Chinese Meat

Meat and Poultry was very common in China. It was also eaten for a very long time. If you want to go get meat, go to China!! By 4000 or 3000 BC, the Chinese started to eat pork, which was native to China. Also, by 5500 BC, the Chinese were eating domesticated chicken, which came originally from Thailand. Ancient China also had other animals like sheep and cattle. Sheep and cattle (which weren’t native) got to China from West Asia also around 4000 BC. Since meat was very expensive and because Buddhists didn’t eat it, starting around the Sung Dynasty (1000 AD) people also put tofu or bean curd in their food.

Lots of Chinese MeatLots of Chinese Meat

There are also lots of animals that Chinese people eat such as meat, pork, beef, chicken, duck, mutton, and pigeon as well with many other animals. Although, pork is the most common meat and appears in almost every meal. Meat can be cooked in lots of ways like being either boiled, stir-fried, roasted, stewed, baked, poached and pickled. Though, the most famous dish might be the Beijing Roast Duck. It is also considered one of China’s most national foods. The duck is served with pancakes, cucumber, spring onions, and seafood paste. Now that is all about China’s most famous foods.