Hong Kong Cuisine and Its Background
What is your favourite dish when you and your family go yum cha? Or when you are visiting local hawkers in the streets? Matter of fact, there are numerous delicious dishes in Hong Kong.
History
Popular Hong Kong cuisine is mainly made up of Cantonese and Western-influenced dishes.
Hong Kong is a coastal region, so sailors often needed something that sustained them during long voyages. Hence, early sailors would hang dry fish to solve the problem of not having a refrigerator, which then turned into salted fish - a traditional dish in Hong Kong.
When Hong Kong was a British colonial outpost in 1841, many Western merchants and Chinese emigrants from nearby Canton flocked to Hong Kong to conduct business. As the colony developed, the demand for meals to entertain businessmen increased. Therefore, Chinese restaurants were founded in the late 19th century and early 20th century. After the victory of Chinese Communists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, there was a wave of refugees into Hong Kong. Some non-Cantonese speaking refugees of China introduced Shanghai cuisine to Hong Kong. Moreover, restaurants started to include more Western cuisine because of an increasing interest in Western fare by the Chinese in Hong Kong.
Cantonese cuisine
Cantonese ethnicity makes up 94% of Hong Kong’s resident population, thus Cantonese food is naturally served at home and in restaurants. Many early Cantonese restaurants were originally Hong Kong branches of the famed Guangzhou-based restaurants. One well-known dish in Cantonese cuisine is dim sum, in which waiters carry steamer baskets or small plates of food in a cart and walk around for customers to choose from. “Yum cha” is a term that means “drinking tea”, but is now used to represent eating dim sum. Popular dim sum dishes include cha siu bao (叉燒包), siu mai (燒賣), har gow (蝦餃), steamed meatball, lo mai gai (糯米雞) etc.
Hong Kong-style Western Cuisine
Dishes in this category are derived from Western culture and localised with Chinese tastes. This is done by containing Chinese influences, such as steak marinated in soy sauce. More examples include French toast (sai do si 西多士), macaroni in broth with fried egg and sausage and baked pork chop rice. These dishes are usually served in cha chaan teng (茶餐廳).
Hawkers
These are streetside food stalls operated by hawkers. They were first popular in the 1970s and 1980s, but hawker's licenses are now more restricted by the government due to health regulations. Examples of foods commonly sold by hawkers include fishballs, put chai ko (砵仔糕) and egg waffles.
Beverages
Hong Kong-style drinks are usually served in cha chaan teng. Soy milk, lemon tea and Hong Kong-style milk tea are common drinks. Some beverages such as bubble tea originated in Taiwan but have been brought to Hong Kong and integrated into Hong Kong's beverage culture.
Sources:
Writer: Jessica Leung
Editor: Tisya Gupta
Artist: Joyce Liang
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