The Harmony of the Five Flavors of eating
10 min readFrom a scientific perspective, the main purpose of eating is to fuel and strengthen the body.
However, the Chinese people show that eating can have a more artistic side. They place great emphasis on the beautiful colors, smells, tastes and shapes of food. They also emphasize the importance of having fine eating utensils and an elegant eating environment.
This is a photograph of the ancient salt wells and salt fields beside the Lancang River in Yanjing Village, Markam County, Tibet. This is an important place for common salt production as it lies along the Ancient Tea Route. Local Naxi people still use the primitive evaporation method to produce salt.
A worker examining aging mature vinegar.
The “harmony of the five flavors”is an approach to cooking that has been advocated in China since ancient times. The five flavors are sourness, sweetness, bitterness, spiciness and saltiness.
To balance these flavors and to obtain a more interesting eating experience, the Chinese have developed a wide range of flavorings(with as many as 500 tastes) that they use when cooking.
Saltiness is the first of the five flavors because it is the purest and most important. Salt enhances many other tastes when it is used as a seasoning. Without salt, many dishes taste bland, but to preserve one’s health, one should not eat too much salt.
The sour flavor is an indispensable part of many Chinese foods, especially in the north of the country where vinegar is often used in cooking. Because the water in this area is hard and very alkaline, the vinegar makes food easier to digest. It also helps to enhance its flavor. Sourness can also eliminate fishy odors and grease. Sour dishes are often provided at banquets to balance the taste of salty main dishes. There are also many kinds of sourness. The sourness of plums, of fruits and of vinegar are all different. The sour tastes of vinegar seasonings vary depending on the raw materials and production methods used to make them. People in the north of China prefer the taste of mature vinegar produced in Shanxi, while people in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai area prefer rice vinegar produced in Zhenjiang. Shanxi is a place where many families know how to produce vinegar using cereals and fruits. Vinegar is very popular in this region and most meals in Shanxi are served withthe seasoning. Interestingly, there are a number of Chinese expressions that use the word vinegar to describe the emotion of jealousy.”Drinking vinegar”and “vinegar jar”are folk expressions that are used in both the south and the north of China to describe jealous people. As envy is a sour emotion and vinegar has a sour taste, the reason why these expressions are used is not hard to understand.
Spiciness is the most pungent and complex of the five flavors. Sometimes the terms”piquancy”and”spiciness”are used interchangeably, but they are actually quite different: spiciness describes a strong taste, while piquancy describes both a taste and a smell. Piquancy is mainly obtained from ginger, while spiciness usually refers to the taste of pepper and black pepper. Because the pepper is a species that was introduced to China, spiciness was not recognized as a separate flavor by the early Chinese, but was thought of as a type of piquancy. Ginger is a very versatile flavor thatcan eliminate odors. It is used in many Chinese fish and meat dishes as it makes these foods taste especially delicious. Pepper is used in Chinese cooking to create a multidimensional and fragrant taste that is not excessively intense or dry but which exhibits delicious saltiness and freshness.
Piquant and spicy flavorings such as garlic, scallion and ginger do not just add taste, they also have a sterilizing effect and are therefore used as common seasonings for cold dishes.
Bitter seasonings are seldom used alone in cooking, but they are indispensable. Slightly bitter seasonings such as dried tangerine peel, cloves and almonds are often added to stewed or boiled meat to eliminate fishy odors and to enhance taste. According to the theories of traditional Chinese medicine, bitterness can strengthen the stomach and promote salivation. Some unique Sichuan dishes are particularly bitter and these are sought out by those people who love this flavor.
Sweetness has a mitigating effect on the other basic flavors. If a dish is too salty, sour, spicy or bitter, this can be redressed using a sweet substance such as sugar. The addition of sugar can make a dish taste fresher and look better, however it is important not to add too much sugar so that a dish is not too sweet. There are many sweet flavorings, however, in culinary circles, the sweetness of cane sugar is usually regarded as the purest. Spare-ribs are boiled in soup with a little salt, their odors are eliminated and their fresh flavors are released. Fresh soup can be drunk directly. It can also be used to cook foods that have little or no flavor such as shark’s fins, sea cucumbers, edible bird’s nests, bean curd and gluten. Cooking such ingredients in this way makes them taste fresh and delicious.
A farmer drying peppers in Qishan County, Shaanxi. Dried tangerine peel comes from mature tangerines of the rue family and their cultivated varieties. It is an important traditional Chinese medicinal material and flavoring. This is a picture of sweet oranges of the citrus genus of the rue family.
Monosodium glutamate is an artificial flavoring that is also used to bring out the fresh taste of food.
However, since it is artificially synthesized, it is not comparable with naturally mixed fresh soup.
Many good cooks therefore refuse to use it in their kitchens.
Chinese cooks have developed a wide range of techniques to ensure that the various flavors of their dishes are well blended. This job is made easier as they have a wide range of raw materials available that they can use as flavorings. Alongside the main seasonings, such as salt, vinegar, sugar.
Indigenous sugar production along Fermented soy beans being dried in a fermented soy bean and dried fruit the Jinsha River in Qiaojia, Yunnan. processing facility in Huangyao Ancient Town, Hezhou City, Guangxi.
Sweet canes are being used as the raw material.
And fresh soup, they also use flavorings such as paste, soy sauce, wine, pickles, fermented soy beans, fermented bean curd and strong-smelling preserved bean curd. All of these are used when Chinese people cook their favorite delicacies.
Paste made by fermenting beans was a foodstuff that was highly regarded in ancient China.
It was thought of as a high-class food and was offered to distinguished guests when they came to a feast. Specific types of paste were served before specific meals and experienced diners would know what delicacies they would be eating by the type of paste they were offered. Later, bean paste developed into an important flavoring, and this led to the development of flavorings such as soy sauce, bean sauce and fermented soy beans. Bean flavorings are typical of Chinese cookery. They occupy an important place in Chinese culinary history and have had a significant impact on the culinary culture of the rest of the world.
The use of wine as a flavoring is also a major Chinese culinary invention. Wine can be used to enhance the flavor of a meal and to impart a delicious, fresh fragrance. It can also help to eliminate the fishy and foul odor of fish and meat. For example, if some cooking wine is added when a dish is being stir-fried, the dish’s full flavor is released by the hot vapors of the wine. This makes the resulting dish tender and delicious.
The Chinese like a number of strong-smelling foods, especially strong-smelling bean curd.
This smells more potent than even the most pungent of Western cheeses. Chinese strong-smelling bean curd leaves a unique fragrant taste in the mouth, although the bean curd produced in southern China has a different taste to that produced in the north. Strong-smelling bean curd from the north is usually used as a flavoring, while strong-smelling bean curd from the south is eaten as a dish inits own right. The ingredients used to prepare this dish are carefully selected. Beijing’s Wang Zhihe strong-smelling bean curd is typical of the bean curd produced in the north. It is grey in color and is made in small cubes. Hunan’s Huogongdian strong-smelling bean curd is made in larger cubes and Bloody duck with strong-smeling bean curd:a snack in the Taipei Shilin Night Market.
Is the most famous type of bean curd in China.
After it is fried it becomes hard on the outsideand soft inside. It is eaten with seasonings such as pepper.
Chinese cooking can be thought of as a type of art in which the cook uses flavors like a painter uses paints. Chinese cooks blend the five flavors so that they enhance and complement each other and so that they leave a delicious lasting aftertaste. Skilled cooks can change theflavors of their cooking to reflect the seasons and to meet the taste preferences and health requirements of the people who will eat their food.
The use of salt shows how a Chinese cook balances the use of flavors over the course of a meal.A normal amount of salt is added to the first dish served, less salt is added to the next dish and no salt is usually added to the soup, which is served last.
The raw ingredients and preparation techniques used in most of China’s different cuisines are basically the same. The main difference between them lies in the flavorings that are used. Flavoring methods are therefore very meticulous and cooks take great care to use the right amount of flavorings and to add them in the right order and at the right stage of the cooking process(before cooking, during Various seasonings for sale in a vegetable marketin Jilin. cooking and afer cooking).
Flavoring is a key part of Chinese cooking because, in the final analysis, people like a certain dish because they like that dish’s flavor.
In China, as elsewhere, different people prefer different tastes. Some like the clean flavors of chicken and duck steamed in clear soup or stewed without seasoning, while some like the compound flavors of “strange-taste chicken”and “strange-taste duck”, some like dishes with strong flavors, while some prefer bland ones.
More and more modern Chinese people, especially those who live in cities, like bland tastes, and the Guangdong cuisine, which emphasizes fresh, original flavors is therefore becoming more popular. Guangdong dishes do not usually feature thick vinegar or thick soy sauce and only use a little oil, salt and sugar. The changing tastes of modern city dwellers has a lot to do with changing living standards. In the past, when food was in short supply and preservation methods were limited, people had to rely on various flavorings to mask the fact that the things they ate were often not very fresh. This meant that they were used to the tastes of “thick soup, saltiness and sufficient oil”.
Today, fresh tasting food is more plentiful and so people’s tastes have changed.
People’s taste preferences are shaped by many things, including the places they grew up and their family traditions. Chinese people also have a tradition of adding flavorings according to the seasons. For example, in the spring, when food is most likely to be contaminated by bacteria, vinegar and garlic are often added to cold dishes. In the summer, when people are dehydrated, alkaline and slightly bitter flavorings, such as mustard, are used. In the autumn, pungent flavorings such as pepper are enjoyed. While, in the winter, spicy high-calorie fatty foods are consumed by people to keep themselves warm.
The concept of the harmony of the five flavors is not only related to the taste of food, it is also related to the role that food can play in promoting health. According to the theories of traditional Chinese medicine the different flavors have different health giving properties. Piquancy can disperse stasis and moisten dryness. It can also help to cure colds, cold pain in bones and muscles and kidney dryness. Sweetness can provide invigoration and relief and can also improve moods.
In addition, sweet foods such as red dates can also provide important nutrients for physically weak patients. Sourness can act as an astringent on the intestines to help arrest diarrhea. It can also promote salivation and quench the thirst. Folk recipes that use the medicinal properties of sourness include vinegar fumigation for the prevention of colds and eggs boiled in vinegar for the treatment of coughing. These have been proved to be quite effective by modern medicine. Bitterness can clear away heat, improve eyesight and remove toxic substances.
To sum up, the so-called”harmony of the five flavors”has the following three implications: first, each dish in a meal should have its own unique flavor, and attention should be paid to match the tastes of the various dishes in a meal so that they coordinate and balance. Second, the smell ofseasonings should be neither too strong nor too bland, and they should be used to provide as wide a diversity of tastes as possible. Third, while eating, one should not eat too much food of a particular The concept of”harmoniousness”is at the heart of Chinese philosophical and aesthetic thought. It encompasses many ideas such as “harmony,””peace,””neutralization”and “mixture.”
“Harmoniousness”is also the highest goal of the Chinese culinary arts. Cooks pursue this goal as they work to perfect the harmony of the five flavors. This pursuit of harmoniousness in the kitchen and at the dining table reflects the importance the Chinese place on appropriateness, balance, harmony, nature and comprehension.
