Chinese Yang Chow Cooking

The cooks of Yang Chow specialized in a wide range of cooking from long slow-cooking casseroles to light, airy, swiftly prepared snacks.

The Yangtze river bisects China, running from west to east. At its easternmost end, where it empties its great self into the magical-sounding China Sea, stand the luminous city of Shanghai. Claimed to be the most cosmopolitan of the great centers of cooking, it has its roots in the classic cooking of the school of Yang Chow.

Yang Chow was formerly a salt-rich mining city full of wealthy merchants and together the two cities stood at the easternmost end of the Yangtze. Yang Chow had all the advantages of wealth, of access to the sea and its produce, and to the fruits of the fertile valley of the river. The cooks of Yang Chow specialized in a wide range of cooking from long slow-cooking casseroles to light, airy, swiftly prepared snacks.

Access to the salt-trading post of Ningpo, also close by, which specialized in lightly spiced an steamed foods, and the availability of fresh seafood's, greatly added to its own repertoire.

They too, turned into a great art, sun-drying, salting, smoking and ruing, and specialized in spicing and preserving seafood's such as squid ad prawns.

They were among the first to combine both the fresh and the dried variety of the same dish---an idea now copied by much of the rest of South East Asia.

Two dishes from Yang Chow have been adopted by all the schools of cooking are now regarded as national dishes: Chow Mien and Chow Fun. IN short they originate Fried Noodles and Fried Rice, and the all-important technique of 'Chow' cooking.

Chow cooking; that is low-oil, quick stir-frying came originally from Yang Chow. (Ironically, however, it was Canton which went on to exploit it best.) But in time Shanghai's grew and surpassed and eclipsed Yang Chow in power fame and sophistication;

So much so that, apart fro a few who know how much Chinese cooking owes to the school of Yang Chow, it has faded from memory, and is today regarded as only a minor school, with Canton and Shanghai receiving the credit for many Yang Chow masterpieces.