To understand the art of eating you must know the philosophy of food. food must be fresh, have flavor and possess proper texture. If the food itself is bad, even the greatest chef will not be able to cook a flavor into it. As in other things in life, we must avoid excesses in food. We should not aim at eating too much if we want to eat for good health. We should also be sparing in our tastes and eat only when hungry, and not just eat for the sake of eating. The same applies to drinking. If we eat too much at a time, it hurts our lungs, and if we eat too little we become hungry and that hurts our vital energy. A Chinese cookery book in full of these rules.
Anyone who claims to have written a Chinese cookery book without these rules has not written a cookery book. Also, anyone who aims at extraordinary or peculiar dishes just to astonish himself or his guests may end up with extraordinary diseases. Simple food properly cooked will ensure good eating and good health. Everything in cooking must match and there is an order in eating food of different flavors. Clear mush go with clear, thick with thick and soft with soft. Usually, we should eat food of a salty flavor first and then food of a more negative flavor. Heavy should precede the light and dry precedes gravy. We must have noticed that in a Chinese dinner, soup is never served first as it is in the west. Salty flavor is relieved by bitter or hot tasty food. Too much wine dulls the stomach, which can only be aroused to vigor again by sweet or sour food. Mustard is for a warm day and pepper for a cool day. For a formal dinner, the four heroes of the dining table are the chicken, duck, fish and pig. Without these four a formal dinner loses its elegance and formality.
The absorption of good points from other cultures has enriched a Chinese dinner today. Tenderloin steak, cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes have kept good company in dinners which the Chinese quite unashamedly call Chinese. Sometimes a Chinese dinner is topped off with Sunkist oranges, ice-cream and coffee instead of the traditional Chinese tea
