Canton Cuisine
Canton has long been a trading port and many imported foods and ingredients are used in Cantonese cuisine. Besides pork, beef, and chicken, Cantonese cuisine incorporates almost all edible meats, including organ meats, chicken feet, duck tongue, snakes, and snails. However, lamb and goat is rarely eaten, unlike in cuisines of Northern or Western China. Many cooking methods are used, steaming and stir-frying being the most favored due to their convenience and rapidity. Other techniques include shallow frying, double boiling, braising, and deep frying .
For many traditional Cantonese cooks, the flavors of a finished dish should be well balanced, and never greasy. Also, spices should be used in modest amounts to avoid overwhelming the flavors of the primary ingredients, and these primary ingredients in turn should be at the peak of their freshness and quality. There is no widespread use of fresh herbs in Cantonese cooking and most other regional Chinese cuisines, contrasting with the liberal usage seen in European and other Asian cuisines such as Thai or Vietnamese .
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