The Pearl River delta and the South China Sea

The Pearl River is not one stream but a system of three, the West, North and East Rivers, which meet and spread across a low, silted plain before reaching the South China Sea by Guangzhou, Macao and Hong Kong. Guangzhou, known to the West as Canton, stood for centuries at the head of this water as a trading port, and the cooking of Guangdong takes its character from that position: a fertile delta behind it, a warm sea in front of it, and ships arriving from beyond. The Cantonese language and its dish names, char siu and har gow among them, belong to this country.

The delta is a country of water. Its alluvial plain is cut by channels and ponds, and for generations the land has been worked as a mosaic of rice fields, fish ponds, and plantings of vegetables and fruit. Two crops of rice in a year are possible in this climate, and the vegetable gardens give a succession of greens through months when northern kitchens have little fresh. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, writing from a Cantonese background in Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking, places the foundation of the regional table in this abundance: the cook begins with what is freshest and does the least that will bring out its flavour. Freshness is the governing idea, and it explains much of the Cantonese method. Fish are kept alive until the moment of cooking, and the favoured treatments are steaming and quick stir-frying, with ginger, spring onion and a little light soy sauce, so that the flesh is judged on its own sweetness. Freshwater fish from the delta ponds, such as grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idella, sit beside sea fish, prawns, crab and shellfish from the coast, and the market stall with its tanks is as much a part of the kitchen as the stove. Vegetables are treated in the same spirit, blanched or fried briefly in a very hot wok so that they keep their colour and crispness. The sea also gives the dried goods that the Cantonese kitchen prizes. Dried scallops, shrimp, oysters and squid, preserved by sun and salt, add depth to soups, congee and braises, and they travelled well, which suited a port that sent people and food overseas. Sauces such as oyster sauce and fermented preparations of soya beans and shrimp are part of the same coastal economy. Lo describes how these seasonings are used with restraint in the Cantonese kitchen, as accents to the main ingredient and not as a cover for it. The port character of the region shaped it in a second way. Guangzhou received traders and travellers over many centuries, and Cantonese emigrants carried their cooking to Hong Kong, South-East Asia, Australia and the Americas. In much of the world the Chinese restaurant meal was for long a Cantonese meal, and its vocabulary, from dim sum to roast meats, came from the delta. The cooking at home changed in turn, and the Cantonese table has a long habit of absorbing what is new when it suits the palate.

The Cantonese table values clean, natural flavour, in which the sweetness of a fish or the crispness of a vegetable is the point of the dish. Soups are simmered for hours and taken as part of the meal, and the tradition counts certain soups warming or cooling and serves them according to the season. A banquet or a family dinner is built around a steamed fish, a dish of greens, a roast and rice, with tea throughout.