Jiangsu cuisine

Jiangsu cuisine, also known as Su cuisine, is one of the Eight Culinary Traditions of Chinese cuisine. It comes from the cooking styles of Jiangsu Province. The food in Jiangsu cuisine is usually soft but not mushy, and it is cooked at just the right temperature. Because Jiangsu is near the sea, fish is a common ingredient in many dishes.

The cooks in Jiangsu also choose their ingredients based on the seasons and pay attention to the colors and shapes of the food. They often use soup to bring out the best flavors in their meals. Since the city of Shanghai used to be part of Jiangsu, Shanghai cuisine shares many similarities with Jiangsu cuisine and is sometimes considered a part of it.

Regional variations

Jiangsu cuisine, also called Su cuisine, has several styles. One of the most famous is Huaiyang cuisine, which is seen as one of the four most important styles in Chinese cooking, along with Cantonese cuisine, Shandong cuisine, and Sichuan cuisine.

Other styles include:

• Nanjing style: Dishes focus on even taste and colorful ingredients, often using river fish, shrimp, and duck.
• Suzhou style: This style chooses ingredients carefully and tends to have a stronger, slightly sweeter taste.
• Wuxi style: Because of its location near Lake Tai, Wuxi uses many freshwater foods, like white bait, white fish, and white shrimp.
• Nantong style: Dishes here highlight fresh flavors, especially seafood, thanks to the area’s location near the local Hao River, the Yangtze River, and the Yellow Sea.

Wuxi-style cuisine

In Wuxi, dishes often include sugar and soy sauce, creating a sweet, caramelized flavor called hongshao (red braised). This style also has sweeter versions of dishes from nearby areas.

Notable Wuxi dishes include: