Food

Cantonese粤菜

The most exported and the most misunderstood, because what travelled was the cheap end. At home this is a cuisine obsessed with freshness and restraint: the highest compliment is that a dish tastes of what it is, which is why so much of it is steamed, and why the fish is chosen alive. It is also the origin of dim sum and of 早茶, morning tea — a two- or three-hour institution where families take a table around nine, order in waves from trolleys or a ticked card, and stay. Cantonese roast meats are a separate art again: the crackling on a good char siu or roast goose is engineering.