Beijing, Shangdong

Severe winters, a short growing season and arid climate of this region helped shape the hearty cuisine. The staples are wheat, millet and soy beans as opposed to rice that characterises the other regions. Northern or Beijing is regarded as having the most fresh, simple ingredients coupled with robust flavour of bean-based sauces. The elegance of Beijing cooking may not be apparent to the uninitiated and it masks a cleverness of technique and understanding of the produce of the region.
More influenced by the vast winterland of Mongolia and beyond rather than the sea on its eastern shores, menus are rich in lamb and duck, which are served roasted, braised and barbecued.
Modern Beijing chefs are proud of their hand-tossed noodles, and you can still see along the streets of Xian and Beijing noodle sellers balancing lumps of dough in their hands, kneading and slicing at rapid speed producing noodles directly into boiling water.

Noodles were invented over 2000 years ago, shortly after the technique of flour milling reached China via India along the new Silk Road (between what is now Afghanistan and Xian). We now know that Marco Polo, enamoured of this strange food, brought it back to the Venetian courts and therefore pasta was born!
Trade along the route brought and enriched the northern provinces with herbs, fruits, vegetables and spices. Coriander, sesame seeds, grapes, walnuts, peas and garlic were imported from the west and became a hallmark of much of northern Chinese cooking.
Another characteristic of Beijing cooking is the frequent and lavish use of soy bean paste, the basis of many other pastes like Hoi Sin and Yellow Bean, and is usually used to thicken sauces or as a marinade or seasoning. Meat was often preserved in this paste.
Beside noodles, the northern Chinese like to serve dishes with Man Dou, a steamed wheat flour bun.
Beijing cuisine is not as extensive as Cantonese but does have a few international ‘stars’, typical of which is Peking Duck. Politically correct or not, no one has suggested that this is now called Beijing Duck!
The most commonly eaten vegetable is Chinese Cabbage or Bok Choy which is now widely available in the west. The universally popular ‘Fu Yung’ is an egg fu yung style of cooking indigenous to Beijing and refers to an egg-white sauce coating vegetables.

During the Manchu Dynasty, some 2000 chefs were employed in the Palace kitchens of the Forbidden City. The kitchens were divided into departments such as Picnic and Travelling Kitchen (Emperors travelled far and wide surveying their Middle Kingdom), Kitchen of Dawn and Dusk Sacrifices (Taoism and ancestor worship ruled Chinese households) and Department for Rice and Noodles, Soups, Pickles etc.
Despite this, Manchurian and court cooking did not really influence the rest of China, giving way to the more expansive Cantonese school. Even the exalted Yellow Emperor himself, on a visit to the south, commanded that southern Chinese dishes be included in his Palace cuisine.