63 Chinese Cuisines: the Complete Guide

People often say that there's eight Chinese cuisines. We counted 63 in the mainland, plus another 7 outside.

We probably undercounted.

This was our best shot.

0:00 - How many cuisines again?
2:00 - Methodology, and Guangdong
10:20 - Guangxi
11:27 - Guizhou
12:34 - An aside on the definition of Chinese
14:19 - Yunnan
16:27 - Tibet
18:03 - Sichuan and Chongqing
19:37 - Hubei
20:21 - Hunan
21:23 - Jiangxi
22:26 - Fujian
23:59 - Zhejiang
25:48 - Shanghai, Tianjin, Harbin, and Hong Kong
27:48 - Jiangsu
29:05 - South Anhui and Lu An
29:42 - An aside on North China methodology
30:50 - Anhui and Jiangsu North
31:06 - Henan and Shandong
32:10 - Shanxi, Hebei, and Beijing
33:04 - Dongbei region
34:31 - Inner Mongolia and the Northwest
37:11 - Hainan
37:52 - What's the point even

FULL, WRITTEN GUIDE

Is over on Substack! With more detail than you ever knew you wanted!

WU ZHENG'S THOUGHTS

His unvarnished thoughts on Northern cuisines can be found here:

______
And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!


Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ

[ChineseCookingDemystified]

So I know it's been a hot second since we've posted. We might've been a bit guilty of feature creep on this one - we wanted to make a nice guide, and it was a little difficult to know where to stop. We went into much, much more detail in the accompanying substack post too:


The video definitely glossed over some things. If you're interested in the topic, I'd definitely recommend checking it out. We tried our best to be comprehensive... but Chinese cuisine is basically infinite in its breadth and depth. It's always equal parts exciting and frustrating to know that you're only ever scratching the surface.

[abydosianchulac]

I'm sorry, weren't you apologizing a few weeks ago for the fact that we'd have to go without recipe videos for a while? And then you drop _this?_ Why the hell would you apologize for content like this? This video was fantastic.

[conho]

"I'm not Hakka, and I'm sure neither are you"
Me, a Hakka: 👁️👄👁️

[alx]

God.... as a chinese myself im really shocked by how well you researched and knew about chinese cuisine, and comparably how ignorant i am myself.... Super meaningful and exciting, Thank you!!!

[Buchinator]

Sir another 40 minute Chinese Cooking Demystified video has hit the algorithm

[jessrow]

What a love letter to Chinese food. I’m blown away. You really should write a book.

[tommyso]

Not even 10 mins to the video, me, as a Chinese, already felt ashamed that I don't even know that much of the cuisine in my own province than a foreigner that is making a video on Youtube. Mad respect to you with the amount of research and preparation.

[williamaitken]

Ok I finished watching this. 3 things that really caught my attention:
1) Incredible amount of effort, research, and attention to detail on y'alls end. This is probably the most accessible English overview of the whole culinary map available.
2) I now appreciate, having watched most of your videos, how many dishes you have shown off from all over the country. It was awesome seeing dishes that I recognized specifically because y'all talked about them before and introduced me.
3) In regards to your ending plea for people to travel to China to eat the food, I would absolutely LOVE a video on that topic. Like, what apps/docs should foreigners set up in advance? How would you go about ordering food in a Chinese restaurant so you don't look like a jerk? Stuff like that. Just an intro video for how to do culinary tourism in China.

[TheSmokey]

I’m Toishanese so I can tell you that it’s like a rural home cooking version of Cantonese cooking. The home cooking has meat stuffed tofu and vegetables like the neighboring provinces but flavoring is very different. In Cantonese restaurants they won’t necessarily serve home cooked items as it’s assumed that these hunmble every day dishes are too cooked common to offer on a restaurant menu but focus on fancier restaurant specialties that people come to restaurants to specifically eat.

[roastyrockets]

You guys are he biggest ambassadors for Chinese cuisine not only to westeners but to other Chinese people alike. Thank you so much for this content

[HaiLe-wirv]

As a Vietnamese, hearing "best or second-best rice noodles in the world, depending on how you rate Vietnam" brought a smile to my face. Would love to try Guangxi noodles one day.

[meowmeow-eniv]

It's honestly incredible how unique, well researched, and genuinely practical your videos are. For an English speaker trying to learn about China's food culture there is legitimately no one better. Getting english-speaking explanations of lesser-focused on regional cuisines like those in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Hubei is really hard, so I especially appreciate a video like this.

[kenice]

I'm from Sanming, Fujian, a small city between mountains. I was very happy to hear about my hometown in a video from a foreigner. In fact very few even Chinese food bloggers can articulate the differences between so many local cuisines. You have done a wonderful job.

[acateatinganegg]

this is one of the absolute most comprehensive Chinese cuisine resources ever put into English. A true magnum opus.

Amazing work! thank you for this!

[plesiothhitbox]

On the subject of Tibetan yak milk tea- it is salty, it is gamey, and it is incredibly warming to the body. I won't say it's especially tasty, but I think I would lunge for a cup on the coldest winter days, because I know it would be exactly what I need to keep me going. It's salt, fat, warmth, and energy. It's a survival drink.

[JK-z]

I'm a Chinese, also a lover for food. But somehow you made me think about my career as a scientific researcher. Great work is driven by real passion, what an inspiration!

[garchomowner]

I'm a 5th generation hakka immigrant, and you just described a lot of my childhood cuisine. Those fluffy rice cupcake are often used in offerings for relatives that's already passed away. We still eat a lot of stuffed tofu with pork too. Of course a lot of family's cuisine has been intermixed, fused, or forgotten but it is interesting you still see the shared DNA within those in mainland china.

[Dragons_Armory]

Hey man, long time fan for half a decade and a Henan native here:
A key aspect of Henan's food that deserve some love is the local's love for nuts- the locals have a lot of love for peanut sauce as well as sesame oil and places them on everything. Honestly the sesame oil quality is world class in itself. One of my reliable favorites- and a noted global brand is Kadoya from japan, happy to say almost all local Henan sesame oils even from local small shops are that quality. So we are really spoiled in that respect.

They also have some good fried savory desserts as well also involving either peanut or sesame, like sesame twists and sesame string bundles. If you are a Westerner reading this a close reference would be those golden fried crispy wonton strips they serve with hot and sour soup (very similar to hot pepper soup from Henan) so imagine those crispy golden strips of goodness but much larger/ alternatively thinner and coiled up.

[Radicalist-Manifesto]

I wish someone did a similar video on Indian food! In the west, Punjabi cuisine (with its chicken butter masalas and naans) is taken to represent all of India, which is more than weird! In effect, by that logic, most of India in India don't eat Indian food.!! If I apply your methodology, these are the ones I can Identify as distinct cuisines of India (and I am more than certain I have missed out on many):
1) North East Tribal (Naga, Mizo, Manipuri, Khasi etc)
2) Assamese
3) Nepali (yes, there are more Nepali in India than in Nepal - so essentially Gorkha, Newari, and Indo-Tibetan)
4) Bengali
5) Bihari/Bhojpuri
6) Awadhi
7) Mughlai
8) Haryanvi
9) Pahadi (Kumaoni and Dogri)
10) Punjabi
11) Kashmiri
12) Rajasthani
13) Guarati
14) Bundelkhandi
15) Marathi
16) Konkani
17) Udupi
18) Mangaloren
19) Malabari
20) Chettinad
21) Andhra
22) Hyderabadi
23) Kalinga/Odia
24) Central Indian Tribal (Bhil, Santhal, Munda)

[dylanglynn]

wow … just a simply great video. im a professor of linguistics and i can promise you - man your method is crazy and creative - but its systematic and replicable and just simply great. as i am sure you aware, this is ultimately a futile exercise because, well at some level granularity, there is always a continuum (gradient as you said) and modern linguistics actually talks about clusters of characteristics rather than discrete categories like dialect and language etc, but what a fun and informative exercise - fun interesting and informative - and one of the best you tube videos i’ve ever seen! keep it up!