With a history of around three thousand years, from ancient Chun Qiu, Qin and Han Dynasties to present day, Szechuan cuisine has evolved into a comprehensive and distinctive style. It is known to have 38 different cooking styles and 26 kinds of flavors. There are around ten thousand types of dishes and snacks, approximately two thousands of which are commonly seen in restaurants and everyday cooki
ng nowadays. Each dish requires a combination of color, aroma, arrangement, quality, nutrition, and fine china. With the philosophy that for every dish there ought to be a unique style, for a hundred dishes, there ought to be a hundred flavors, Szechuan cuisine has earned its reputation which can be summarized in a Chinese proverb: “if you are looking for wonderful food, you will find it in China; if you are looking for brilliant flavors, you will find it in Szechuan.”
“Ma” (the numbness you feel on your tongue) and “La” (the taste of spicy) are the two main characteristics of Szechuan cuisine, and these two features apply to roughly one fifth of the overall dishes. The remaining eighty percent non-spicy dishes have all kinds of different flavors, such as the fish-liked flavor, seven-flavor combined, sweet and sour flavor, ginger flavor, fresh and salty flavor, oyster sauce flavor, mustard flavor and more!
