Practices
Over the centuries, as new food sources and techniques were invented, the Chinese cuisine as we know it gradually evolved. The "Silk road" is the conventional term for the routes through Central Asia linking the Iranian plateau with western China; along this trade route passed exotic foodstuffs that greatly enlarged the potential for Chinese cuisines, only some of which preserve their foreign origin in the ideogram for "foreign" that remains in their name: "it would surprise many Chinese cooks to know that some of their basic ingredients were originally foreign imports," Frances Wood observes: sesame, peas, onions, coriander from Bactria, and cucumber were all introduced into China from the West during the Han dynasty". Chopsticks, which are made from all sorts of materials and which are one of the hallmarks of the Chinese table, have been used as eating utensils at least as far back as the Zhou Dynasty. Stir-fried dishes became popular during the Tang Dynasty. The stir-fry method of cooking was invented out of necessity, in order to conserve expensive and scarce fuel.
Read more about this topic: History Of Chinese Cuisine
Famous quotes containing the word practices:
“Money made through dishonest practices will not last long.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Of all reformers Mr. Sentiment is the most powerful. It is incredible the number of evil practices he has put down: it is to be feared he will soon lack subjects, and that when he has made the working classes comfortable, and got bitter beer into proper-sized pint bottles, there will be nothing left for him to do.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Such is the art of writing as Dreiser understands it and practices it—an endless piling up of minutiae, an almost ferocious tracking down of ions, electrons and molecules, an unshakable determination to tell it all. One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)