Jilin Cuisine

Jilin Cuisine

　　Jilin Cuisine refers to a new premium cuisine developed through innovation, utilizing specialty or locally produced ingredients from Jilin, applying unique Jilin cooking techniques, and building upon China’s renowned culinary traditions while integrating the dietary cultures of Jilin’s ethnic minorities and rural flavors. Jilin Cuisine uses specialty and main produce grown in Jilin’s superior ecological environment, and on the basis of drawing flavors from other cuisines, it innovates with unique cooking methods. Jilin Cuisine emphasizes rich and bold flavors, with a focus on freshness, saltiness, spiciness, and sourness. It uses fresh ingredients, values nourishment, and has formed a scientific dietary concept that is natural, green, nutritious, and healthy, along with a distinctive cuisine with Guandong characteristics.

　　Jilin’s excellent natural ecological environment produces precious edible fungi and wild vegetables such as matsutake mushrooms and hedgehog hydnum, as well as specialty medicinal and culinary ingredients like ginseng, deer antler, frog oil, ganoderma, and immortality grass. In the Changbai Mountain area, known as a “natural pasture,” artificially bred or domesticated game such as sika deer, hazel grouse, pheasants, and forest frogs are raised. The vast fertile Songliao Plain yields a bounty of grains and high-quality fruits and vegetables. The white mushrooms produced in Yehe Town, Lishu County—hometown of Empress Dowager Cixi—are considered rare treasures. The vast grasslands in the west are thriving with livestock, and Yanbian red cattle and grassland yellow cattle are famous both domestically and abroad. The province boasts a wide variety of freshwater fish, particularly the “Three Flowers and One Island” (mandarin fish, blunt-snout bream, Jilin bream, and whitefish) from Songhua Lake, and the salmon from the Tumen River, which are especially renowned. Among the many ingredients commonly used in cooking across the province, over a hundred varieties have been certified as green food by the China Green Food Development Center.

　　Since ancient times, Jilin has been home to the Han, Korean, Mongolian, and Manchu peoples, who have lived and thrived here. The unique ethnic food customs have objectively given rise to the distinctive and diverse food culture of Jilin Cuisine. In the 1930s, Changchun became the ruling center of the puppet state of Manchukuo. The imperial kitchen of Puyi not only employed chefs from the Beijing Qing court but also attracted renowned chefs from Shandong. Shandong cuisine, imperial court cuisine, and Jilin folk cuisine blended together, forming the basic prototype of Jilin Cuisine. Through large-scale excavation, innovation, and promotion in recent years, Jilin Cuisine has gradually revealed its unique characteristics to the world.

　　Jilin Cuisine draws on the essence of Shandong, Sichuan, and Cantonese cuisines, and integrates the traditional techniques of Manchu, Korean, and Mongolian dishes, as well as imperial court dishes, forming a foundational framework centered around famous dishes, dim sum, snacks, and banquets. Its notable features include: an emphasis on using Jilin specialty and green food ingredients, attention to heat control, expertise in wok skills, and proficiency in cooking techniques such as velveting, quick-frying, braising, stewing, roasting, saucing, simmering, and candied frying. The cooking achieves tenderness without rawness, thoroughness without toughness, softness without disintegration, crispness outside and tenderness inside, and crispness outside with tenderness within—the use of heat control has reached a masterful level. The flavors are rich and aromatic, and the dishes are hearty and satisfying. Many renowned Jilin dishes have won gold awards at national cooking competitions. Jilin Cuisine is not only a delight for the people of Jilin but also favored by guests from home and abroad. Today, Jilin Cuisine has spread far and wide, gaining fame across the globe, and with its unique charm and enticing aroma, it blooms brilliantly in the garden of Chinese cuisine.

　　Jilin Cuisine mainly consists of four series: ethnic cuisine, folk cuisine, imperial court cuisine, and mountain delicacy cuisine. It embodies the characteristics of being “natural, green, nutritious, and healthy,” while also carrying festive meanings such as luck, celebration, and prosperity. Since Jilin Governor Hong Hu proposed and named Jilin Cuisine in 1999, it has developed into a recognized cuisine.

　　A number of renowned banquets, dishes, dim sum, snacks, chefs, and restaurants have emerged. Today, Jilin Cuisine has gained fame both at home and abroad. At the 2nd China Food Festival in 2001, Jilin Cuisine was recognized as one of China’s “New Eight Major Cuisines” due to its distinctive characteristics.