Hong Kong cuisine
Hong Kong homes and kitchens tend to be small due to a high population density, and traditional Chinese cuisine often requires the freshest possible ingredients, so food shopping is undertaken frequently and in smaller quantities than is now usual in the West.
[7] Before 1935 when prostitution was still legal in Hong Kong, female escorts often accompanied diners to restaurant meals, especially those of a business entertainment nature.
For the majority of Chinese who were not part of the merchant class, dining out in restaurants was non-existent and consisted of simple Cantonese country fares.
[8] Cantonese cuisine in Canton reached its peak during the 1920s and was renowned in the care in preparation even for peasant fares such as Char siu or boat congee.
Dasanyuan [zh] was renowned for its braised shark fin dish that charged 60 silver yuan, equivalent to 6 months' wage for a working-class family.
A sizeable number of refugees were from non-Cantonese speaking parts of China, including the Yangtze River Delta, and introduced Shanghai cuisine to Hong Kong.
On the other hand, most renowned chefs of Canton, now known as Guangzhou in pinyin romanisation, settled in Hong Kong to escape from Communist rule in mainland China.
[6] By the 1960s, Hong Kong was past the worst of the economic depression, and there was a long and continuous period of relative calm and openness compared to the Communist rule in Mao Zedong-era China and martial law isolation in Taiwan.
During these years, there was great wealth growth from stock market investments, and one visible manifestation of the resultant nouveau riche mentality in 1970s Hong Kong were sayings such as "mixing shark fin soup with rice" (Chinese: 魚翅撈飯; Cantonese Yale: Yùhchi Lōufaahn).
[citation needed] After Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, the Asian financial crisis and SARS epidemic led to a decade-long depression.
The boom in Hong Kong culinary scene came to a halt and many restaurants were shuttered, including a number of renowned eateries such as Sun Tung Lok.
It is argued that the catch up in prosperity among populations from coastal regions of China, particularly the nouveau riche (derogatory Chinese: daai foon 大款) and corrupted officials (derogatory Chinese: daai ye 大爺), has driven up the demand of many delicacies such as abalone and grouper, and many celebratory dishes have become outrageously expensive that they are beyond the reach of even many upper-middle class Hong Kong families.
[citation needed] Modern Hong Kong's labour market has also disrupted the traditional ways of grooming Chinese chefs, which henceforth been trained in a very long and drawn one-to-one practical apprenticeships.
Very few chefs are willing to sacrifice their time and effort to produce traditional cooking that discourages cutting corners, and emphasises techniques over ingredients' net economic worth.
[citation needed] Most restaurant serving sizes are considerably small by international standards, especially in comparison to most Western nations like the United States and Canada.
[1] Similar to Cantonese cuisine elsewhere, Hong Kong's cooking uses a wide variety of ingredients and the common ones include: These are basically streetside food stalls, operated by usually one or two people pushing a cart.
The carts are usually very mobile, allowing the businesses freedom to sell snacks in whichever area is most populated at a particular point in time.
While they have been popular in the 1970s and 1980s, tight health regulations and other forms of lease versus licensed hawker restrictions have put a burden on this mobile food culture.
Examples include: As the most predominant cultural group in Hong Kong, Cantonese food forms the backbone of home cooking and dine-out scenes.
Cantonese food prices perhaps cover the widest range, from small businesses’ lou mei to the most expensive abalone delicacies.
Examples include: This hot pot cuisine, known as daa bin lou (Chinese: 打邊爐; Jyutping: daa2 bin1 lou4; pinyin: dǎbiānlú) in Cantonese, is unique in the sense that everyone is a chef.
