The Cooking of Yunnan and Guizhou

Yunnan and Guizhou lie on the south-western plateau of China, a country of mountains, deep river gorges and high basins, where Yunnan runs down to the borders with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam and Guizhou sits between Sichuan, Hunan and Guangxi. The name Yunnan is usually rendered 'south of the clouds', and Georgia Freedman takes it for the title of her book on the province's cooking. Both provinces are home to a large number of minority peoples, among them the Yi, Bai, Dai, Naxi, Hani, Miao and Dong, and their food, rather than any single court or capital tradition, gives the region its character.

The cooking of Yunnan is best understood first through its land. Within one province there are tropical lowlands in the south, temperate lake basins around Kunming and Dali, and cold highlands toward Tibet, and the markets reflect this range, with wild mushrooms, fresh herbs, flowers, river fish, pork, cured hams and a wide variety of beans and vegetables all sold side by side. Freedman writes of a cooking that depends on freshness and on the particular produce of each valley, and she gives wild mushrooms in the rainy season a central place in the Yunnan year. The food of the minority peoples gives Yunnan much of its distinction. The Dai of the south, related in language and culture to peoples across the border, favour sour and herb-sharp dishes, with lemongrass, mint, coriander and chilli, and they cook with bamboo and banana leaf. The Bai of the Dali region make pressed and fresh cheeses, an uncommon thing in Chinese cooking. The Naxi of Lijiang and the Yi of the mountains each have their own breads, cured meats and ways of seasoning, so that the region cannot be reduced to one style. Certain preparations are widely known across the province. Crossing-the-bridge noodles, guoqiao mixian, are served as a bowl of hot broth under a layer of fat that keeps it hot, to which raw ingredients and rice noodles are added at the table so that they cook in the broth. Xuanwei ham is a cured pork of the north-east of the province, set among its other cured and fermented foods. Fresh and dried flowers, mushrooms and herbs are used with a confidence that is distinctive in China, and the cooking tends to rely less on heavy oil and strong sauces than that of neighbouring Sichuan. Guizhou, to the east, has less agricultural land and has long been among the less prosperous provinces, and its cooking is correspondingly one of preservation and sharp seasoning. Sourness is the defining flavour, produced by fermenting vegetables and, among the Miao and Dong, in a sour soup built on fermented tomatoes or rice water, often served with fish. Chilli is used heavily and is often fermented as well, and the pairing of sour and hot is the signature of the province. Glutinous rice, cured meats and fermented bean preparations complete a table that is robust in flavour and rooted in the household.

The Yunnan table is organised around freshness: a meal may include a stir-fry of wild mushrooms, a dish of herbs and flowers, a bowl of rice noodles in broth, and a plate of cured ham sliced thin, eaten with rice. Flavours are generally lighter and more herbal than in the neighbouring provinces, with sour and fresh chilli notes in the south and smoky, cured tastes in the highlands. In Guizhou the meal turns on the sour soup and the fermented chilli, which give a strong, bright and hot character, and rice, often glutinous, is the plain foundation against which these flavours are set.