Chinese and French cooking, according to the French and Chinese, are the best and the most famous in the world. Such a statement wouldn’t go down well in Italy and might well affront a whole host of other gastronomically proud nations around the globe. And rightly so, yet even the most stubborn of them would be hard pressed not to admit that in terms of variety Chinese cooking outstrips them all.

Split for convenience into four main styles; Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese and Sichuanese, Chinese food is actually as refracted and localized as the countries thousands of linguistic dialects. For basic reference however the dividing characteristics between them are as follows:

Cantonese food (because of Hong Kong and Canton migration generally taken generically in the west as "Chinese Food") is light and colorful, not particularly hot and almost always stir fried. Dim Sum, a type of small, often sweet, steamed bread, is also big on the menu.

Mandarin food harks from northern China and Beijing, in Hebei province, can perhaps be pinpointed as its home. Predominantly wheat based, including numerous dumplings, steamed buns and varieties of noodles it tends to be heavy, not light on oil and often fried, stewed or braised. Vinegar and garlic are used lavishly yet the food can only really be described as mild in taste.

Sichuan is representative of the whole of South Western China’s culinary preference; hot and spicy.  Food throughout the western regions of China are liberal in their use of garlic, scallions, and chilies. When prepared in a traditional manner, many of the dishes are very hot, although banquet dishes tend to be milder.

Shanghai cuisine is Central-Eastern Chinese food. Because of its proximity to the sea, lakes and inland rivers trhe region excels in the preparation of both fresh and saltwater seafood. The foods here are heavier than their Cantonese counterparts, and are generally lightly spiced and relatively oily with rich and often dslightly sweet sauces. Emphasising its bridge position between the stodgy north and the delicate south Shanghai food is split about fifty-fifty between wheat and rice based dishes.

To give you an idea of China as an international food market we thought we would do a quick comparison with the middle kingdoms main rival for culinary dominance; France.

* In 2002 the Chinese dining out market was worth approximately RMB914.2billion (US$110.4 billion) compared to a market worth US24billion in France. That works out at about US$24 a head per Chinese on restaurants every year as opposed to US$400 a head spent eating out by the French. However when you consider that both cost of living and per capita GDP are much higher in France, whilst only the urban section of the Chinese population really have the opportunity to eat out this gap narrows considerably and points to just how important food culture is to the Chinese.

* As one might expect from these bastions of culinary creativeness both the French and Chinese restaurant markets are both highly fragmented and dominated by individual restaurant owners. In China 4 top chain stores controlled just 1.4% of the market. In France the five top brands take up 8.7 percent of the market.

* Some might suggest that a country in which McDonalds is popular is surely a country which lacks real-food appreciation. If that is the case then China remians ahead of France since in China McDonalds turned over US$15.4 billion, up 3.4% on the year before, whilst France, with a much smaller population and possibly the most anti-American country in Europe, also drummed up $15.4 billion in turnover for Mcdonalds, up 24% on the year before.