leon 's food culture

The culture and the food
comparing with Chinese eating culture,American food culture are kind of raw. People usually have raw vegetable and some fast food instead of delicate cooked foods. But as a Chinese student, I should say one cannot gain
the pleasure from food by this way. Chinese cook have a lot of things to learn，the appearance of dishes,the smell of the food, even some of the color need to be matched. Comparing with Chinese ,a nation with thousands of years food culture, American food culture are kind of boring. Also Chinese people believe that food can cure disease and make injured people restore faster. So many Chinese cuisine contains multiple kind of herbs like Huangqi and Dangshen. Because some of the herbs taste strange, it is even harder for cooks to product a table of delicious foods.
 In fact i found that the food people prefer is mostly depends on the region they live in. Mexican people usually prefer spicy foods like tacos or something but Japanese people choose to eat rather light diet though. One of my American friend tells me he hates salads and broccoli, but he still take them as "medicine " instead of food. He also points out that raw vegetables contains more nutritional than cooked one. He suggested me to eat like American for one day, and i did tried, for 2 meals , and i gives up. Because i can not stand the feeling of the uncooked vegetables like onions and letters mixed with tomato and strange tasted sauce. Over fried pork and chicken makes people over weight. But since many American family did not have enough time to cook a delicate breakfast or even dinner, it seems good for them to have a simple meal like this. Chinese families was different, wife or mom usually get up early to make a table of cuisines for her husband and child. Because she knows they may have no launch or dinner, so breakfast are also diverse and delicious. After a great breakfast, with happiness and wormed hart , people get to work and study in hurry, hopefully they will get a nice day with this great begging.
 Thanks to the long history of china and the huge territory domain. Chinese dishes are diverse, 12 styles of dishes with huge different in taste but all of them are delicious. Traditional Chinese palace chef can handle thousands dishes and cook them with other chef in one night , for the state banquet. It contains almost every meat and vegetables you have been seen and most of them you may never heard of , because they are using rare materials like tiger bone and cobra eggs. Some of these foods are now forbidden because the animal or the plant are now been protected by the nation. But still there are some of those dishes which contains regular materials are now still in the menu of most Chinese restaurant, and that is what history brings us. Because of the huge territory domain , China contains multiple kind of areas , desert , plain, seashore, mountain. Those place developed there own way of cooking and unique food resource. But these foods are hard to reach; some of them are only can be make in certain season and certain place. Chef also is a major problem. Some of the old chef in rural area can not find the people to study his skills , and than this kind of dish will disappear. As i know , in my home town ,some of glutton are willing to wait for 1 or 2 year to just get a bite of a certain kind of bamboo shoot. To my surprise, that kind of bamboo shoot not only bitter but also strange. Why they are purchasing this for a high price? They told me that they already tried almost every bamboo shoots they can reach without this one, they are going to try all of them.
 Chinese food are also shows in festivals, every tradition festivals are related to a big meal.i was curious about this. From elders in my hometown, i learned that in old days, people are poor and lack of food. They always feeding some stocks like chickens and pigs. Every festival they will have a meal different with regular days, with some meat and special foods. As for those “banquet” among the villages and families to celebrate festivals will give people hope for the next days until next festival. People who work as chef or good at cooking will be the chef of the banquet . those who are strong or work as butcher will kill those live stocks. Woman and kids are working as an assistant of cook. Everyone got there own positions. And the meal will be huge and full of happiness and laughter. People forget to worry their life so that they can have fun on this meal. Everyone will get satisfy in both their body and their mind. After this meal , people will keep gonging and fighting for their home until next festival.
 As for festival, i can not forget to mention those special festival foods. Chinese people created foods for every tradition festival. And there are usually story behind these foods. Such as moon cake, nowadays people use it to blessing each other, but from the origin story, moon cake is a man using to memory his wife who went to moon as a god. Also a famous Chinese rice dumplings, this is a food used to be toughen into the river. Because there was a good officer named “Qu Yuan” kills him self in a river because of a fatuous and self-indulgent ruler. People want his body to be protect from those fish, they use plant leaves to wrap rice and though into river to feed those fish. They think if fish are satisfied by this food ,they would not eat the Qu Yuan`s body.
 For me , i think it is interesting to find out the food around nations and compare those back ground . Or ,may be i am just want to eat great cuisines around the world , who knows.