Cantonese Food: Cantonese Cuisine from the Perspective of a Chinese Food Geek

My wife and I have a special connection to Cantonese cuisine and have been eating it for a long time. Based on our dining experiences, I will introduce Cantonese cuisine, focusing on its three main pillars.

The Three Pillars of Cantonese Cuisine

From my perspective, Cantonese cuisine is built upon three pillars:
・Guangfu (Guangzhou) cuisine from those who speak Yue (Cantonese)
・Hakka cuisine from those who speak Hakka. Also known as Dongjiang cuisine
・Teochew cuisine from those who speak the Minnan-related Teochew dialect. Recently, it is also called Chaoshan cuisine from Chaozhou and Shantou
and is a collection of cuisines from various ethnic groups in Guangdong Province, including:
・Cuisine from those who speak the Minnan-related Leizhou dialect.

There are many dialect islands within each circle in the figure above, but they are omitted here as they would be too detailed. The southeastern part of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which is to the west of Guangdong, is a Yue-speaking region. The coastal areas of Hainan Island, which separated from Guangdong Province in 1988, are mostly Minnan-speaking regions, with some areas being Yue-speaking, while the inland areas are regions for ethnic minorities such as the Li people.

There is also a large amount of emigration from Guangdong Province overseas. In Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, Cantonese-descended Chinese have developed Nanyang cuisine. Additionally, they have formed Chinatowns in Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, where they have further developed their cuisine.

When I was single, I worked in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for five and a half years and went on business trips to Hong Kong quite often. Kuala Lumpur is a city built by Cantonese-descended Chinese; Cantonese is the mainstream language for communication among Chinese people, and Cantonese-style cuisine is prevalent. There are also Teochew and Hakka shops, so I started with Nanyang-style Cantonese cuisine. After graduating from university, my wife worked in Guangzhou for eight years. She has close friends who are Guangzhou locals and still visits Guangzhou often, so I sometimes tag along.

In addition to eating Nanyang Teochew cuisine often in Malaysia, when I was stationed in Xiamen, I would charter a car (before the high-speed railway was built) to go eat Teochew cuisine under the guise of "research."

Based on these dining experiences, I will introduce each cuisine while also touching slightly on the history of the people living in Guangdong Province.

(Below, the ruby text for Chinese names is in Mandarin pronunciation, except for Macau.)

Guangfu Cuisine

The ancestors of the Guangfu (Guangzhou) people who speak Yue, the ancient Yue people, are said to have originated in Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. They spread along the Xi River, a tributary of the Pearl River, and reached the Pearl River Delta basin, centered on Guangzhou, in the east. Since the Qin Dynasty, they have intermingled with Han people who continuously flowed in from the north to form the modern Guangfu people.

Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, Guangzhou has flourished as a trading port. Besides Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhuhai, and Qingyuan are also Yue-speaking regions. Shunde District in Foshan City is known as "Food is in Guangzhou, chefs come from Fengcheng (Fengcheng is another name for Shunde)," and it has produced many famous Guangfu cuisine chefs. Also, after the Reform and Opening-up, the development of Shenzhen, which became a Special Economic Zone, has been remarkable. However, in addition to local Guangfu and Hakka people, people from all over the country, including Chaozhou and Hunan Province, have flowed into Shenzhen, resulting in a high usage rate of Mandarin.

Hong Kong and Macau are also Yue-speaking regions, and Hong Kong cuisine and Macau cuisine can be considered sub-classifications of Guangfu cuisine. Each has a history of developing under the influence of their former suzerain states, the United Kingdom and Portugal, respectively. Because of the image of Hong Kong seafood cuisine, you might have the impression that Cantonese cuisine is seafood cuisine, but the Yue people were originally an inland-based group. Traditional Guangfu cuisine uses many freshwater fish, and also frequently uses poultry such as chicken, duck, and goose, as well as pork. Guangzhou is located about 100 km up the Pearl River, quite far from the coastline, so many dried seafood products are used. There is also an abundance of dim sum and snacks in yum cha restaurants and cha chaan tengs (tea restaurants). Soups containing medicinal ingredients are also essential.

For seasoning, the soup used as a base is emphasized, and ingredients such as green onions, shallots (small red onions), ginger, soy sauce, and oyster sauce are used, resulting in a strong umami flavor. Cantonese cuisine is often said to be light, but I don't think it is that light.

Examples of Guangfu cuisine (a very small selection)

Guangfu cuisine has such a large number of representative dishes that just listing them would be quite extensive. There is plenty of material, so I would like to gradually expand on it.

Hakka Cuisine

When nomadic tribes from the north advanced into the Central Plains from the Jin to the Song dynasties, large numbers of Han people migrated south repeatedly to escape the chaos of war. Those who fled to the region spanning Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces formed the Hakka-speaking group. Recent DNA research suggests a theory that they are indigenous people who became Han-ified. Within Guangdong province, they are distributed along the Dongjiang River, a tributary of the Pearl River, with Meizhou and Huizhou as their central cities. Cuisine belonging to people with a Hakka identity is called Hakka cuisine.

When the Hakka migrated, the open land was already occupied by other ethnic groups, so they lived in mountainous areas that were sparsely populated, and were called 'Hakka' (meaning 'guest families' or 'strangers'). They make extensive use of pickles, smoked foods, and dried foods for food preservation. The seasoning is salty. Cooking methods are mostly simple stews and steamed dishes.

Examples of Hakka cuisine (a very small selection)

Hakka people are distributed not only in Guangdong but also in Fujian, Jiangxi, Sichuan, etc., and each has its own characteristics, so I would like to eventually expand the entries on Hakka cuisine.

Teochew Cuisine

Cuisine of people who speak the Teochew language, a Minnan-dialect group formed by people who migrated from the Minnan region of Fujian or Putian along the coast to Teochew during the Tang and Song dynasties. In recent years, as Shantou has developed, Teochew and Shantou together are also called Chaoshan cuisine.

Teochew is located about 40km up the Han River estuary, slightly inland, and is skilled in handling dried seafood, with many meat dishes as well. Shantou is by the sea and excels in fresh seafood dishes.

Examples of Chaoshan cuisine (a very small selection)

This region also has many representative dishes, and even just listing them would make for a very long list. While it is difficult to travel to Chaozhou and Shantou from Japan, you can now get there by high-speed rail from Guangzhou, so if you have the chance, I highly recommend visiting.

Others

Leizhou Cuisine

People who speak the Leizhou dialect, a Min language, also live on the Leizhou Peninsula in the west of Guangdong Province, and there is a Leizhou cuisine that is similar to Chaozhou cuisine. The central city is |Zhanjiang|.

They excel at seafood dishes. Oysters and abalone are famous. The branded Zhanjiang chicken is also famous.

Hakka Dialect Islands

There are also Hakka dialect islands in places like Maoming in western Guangdong Province.

Others

There are dialect islands of ethnic minorities such as the Zhuang and Yao people.

References/Websites

Ge Jianxiong (ed.) (1997) "History of Chinese Immigration," Fujian People's Publishing House
Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences / Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences / Language Information Sciences Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong (2012) "Language Atlas of China," The Commercial Press

Wikipedia Cantonese Cuisine https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese Cuisine (Accessed December 10, 2025)