- published: 15 Apr 2013
- views: 183253
Shanghai cuisine (上海菜), also known as Hu cai (沪菜, pinyin: hù cài) is a popular style of Chinese cuisine. The city of Shanghai itself does not have a separate and unique cuisine of its own, but modifies those of the surrounding provinces, is Jiangsu and Zhejiang coastal provinces. What can be called Shanghai cuisine is epitomized by the use of alcohol. Fish, crab, chicken are "drunken" with spirits and are briskly cooked/steamed or served raw. Salted meats and preserved vegetables are also commonly used to adjuntify the dish.
The use of sugar is common in Shanghainese cuisine, especially when used in combination with soy sauce. Non-natives tend to have difficulty identifying this usage of sugar and are often surprised when told of the "secret ingredient". The most notable dish of this type of cooking is "sweet and sour spare ribs" ("tangcu xiaopai" (糖醋小排) in Shanghainese). "Red cooking" (红烧) is a popular style of stewing meats and vegetables associated with Shanghai.
"Beggar's Chicken" is a legendary dish of a southern origin, called "jiaohua ji" (叫花鸡) in Mandarin, wrapped in lotus leaves and covered in clay. Though usually prepared in ovens, the original and historic preparation involved cooking in the ground. The lion's head meatball (狮子头) and Shanghai-style nian gao (粘糕) are also uniquely Shanghainese, as are Shanghai fried noodles, a regional variant of chow mein that is made with Shanghai-style thick noodle. Lime-and-ginger-flavoured thousand-year eggs (皮蛋) and stinky tofu (臭豆腐) are other popular Shanghainese food items.
Shanghai is the largest city by population of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the largest city proper by population in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities of the PRC, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010. It is a global city, with influence in commerce, culture, finance, media, fashion, technology, and transport. It is a major financial center and the busiest container port in the world.
Located in the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China, Shanghai sits at the mouth of the Yangtze River in the middle portion of the Chinese coast. The municipality borders Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces to the west, and is bounded to the east by the East China Sea.
Once a fishing and textiles town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to European recognition of its favorable port location and economic potential. The city was one of several opened to foreign trade following the British victory over China in the first opium war and the subsequent 1842 Treaty of Nanking which allowed the establishment of the Shanghai International Settlement. The city then flourished as a center of commerce between east and west, and became the undisputed financial hub of the Asia Pacific in the 1930s. However, with the Communist Party takeover of the mainland in 1949, the city's international influence declined. In the 1990s, the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense re-development of the city, aiding the return of finance and foreign investment to the city.