China is a vast country with diverse climate, customs, products, and habits. People in different regions display great variety in their diets. People in coastal areas eat more aquatic products and seafood, whereas those in central and northwest China eat more domestic animals and poultry. Food varies from north to south, and typical local dishes may even astonish strangers, such as snake, pangolin, and white rat. Tastes also differ regionally because of the climate difference.

One popular summary of Chinese food is "sweet in the south, salty in the north, sour in the west, and spicy in the east." People in different regions have created their own cuisine to suit their taste, and many chefs and cooks specialize in making these local delicacies.sprouts and bean curd.

There is still no agreement on how many principal cuisines there are in China, but nine major cuisines have influenced Chinese cookery. They are the Beijing, shandong, Huaiyang, Jiangsu-Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan, Hubei, and Hunan cuisine.

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