|
Osmanthus Cake
Osmanthus cake (Chinese: 桂花糕;pinyin: guì huā gāo) is a traditional sweet-scented Chinese pastry made with glutinous rice flour, honey sweet-scented osmanthus and rock sugar. It has crystal clear, sweet, and soft waxy characteristics. History Sweet-scented osmanthus cake originated in China during the Ming Dynasty. Though its exact origin is unclear, folk tales have it that the poet Yang Shen dreamed of visiting the moon in order to take the imperial exam. In the dream, he saw a magnificent palace and a huge and sweet-smelling osmanthus plant. He picked it and brought it back with him to earth. Toward the end of the Ming Dynasty, a peddler from Xindu named Liu Jixiang was inspired by this story to collect fresh osmanthus flowers. He extracted their essential oils, strained them over sugar and mixed them with glutinous rice to produce the familiar form of the sweet we know today. It is now a Xindu specialty. See also * List of pastries *Dim sum *Chinese desserts Chin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sweet Tea Olive Cake
Sweetness is a Taste#Basic tastes, basic taste most commonly Perception, perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasure, pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketones, and sugar alcohols. Some are sweet at very low concentrations, allowing their use as non-caloric sugar substitutes. Such Sugar substitute, non-sugar sweeteners include saccharin and aspartame. Other compounds, such as miraculin, may alter perception of sweetness itself. The perceived intensity of sugars and high-potency sweeteners, such as Aspartame and Neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, Neohesperidin Dihydrochalcone, are heritable, with gene effect accounting for approximately 30% of the variation. The chemoreceptor, chemosensory basis for detecting sweetness, which varies between both individuals and species, has only begun to be understood since the late 20th century. One theoretical model of sweet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Cuisine
Chinese cuisine encompasses the numerous cuisines originating from China, as well as overseas cuisines created by the Chinese diaspora. Because of the Chinese diaspora and historical power of the country, Chinese cuisine has influenced many other cuisines in Asia and beyond, with modifications made to cater to local palates. Chinese food staples such as rice, soy sauce, noodles, tea, chili oil, and tofu, and utensils such as chopsticks and the wok, can now be found worldwide. The preferences for seasoning and cooking techniques of Chinese provinces depend on differences in historical background and ethnic groups. Geographic features including mountains, rivers, forests, and deserts also have a strong effect on the local available ingredients, considering that the climate of China varies from tropical in the south to subarctic in the northeast. Imperial royal and noble preference also plays a role in the change of Chinese cuisine. Because of imperial expansion and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osmanthus
''Osmanthus'' ''Sunset Western Garden Book,'' 1995:606–607 is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae. Most of the species are native to eastern Asia ( China, Japan, Korea, Indochina, the Himalayas, etc.),and was originally found in the middle east of the Himalayas, with a few species from the Caucasus, New Caledonia, and Sumatra. Osmanthus has been known in China since ancient times with the earliest writings coming from the Warring States period; the book ''Sea and Mountain. South Mountain'' states: "Zhaoyao Mountain had a lot of Osmanthus". ''Osmanthus'' range in size from shrubs to small trees, tall. The leaves are opposite, evergreen, and simple, with an entire, serrated or coarsely toothed margin. The flowers are produced in spring, summer or autumn, each flower being about 1 cm long, white, with a four-lobed tubular-based corolla ('petals'). The flowers grow in small panicles, and in several species have a strong fragrance. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662. The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. He also took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yang Shen
Yang Shen (; 1488–1559) was a poet in the Chinese Ming dynasty. His courtesy name was Yongxiu (); his art names included Sheng'an (), Bonan Shanren () and Diannan Shushi (). Yang Shen was the son of Yang Tinghe and originally lived in Chengdu, Sichuan province. He there married Huang E, who was known for her own scholarship and became a poet. As a result of the Great Rites Controversy of 1524, he was reduced to the status of commoner and exiled to Yunnan, where he spent over 30 years.Pidhainy, IhorA Ming Dynasty Literatus Goes A’Wandering: Yang Shen and the Art of Pure Travel Writing in 'Roaming atop Diancang Mountain' Ihor Pidhainy. Apr 2006 His wife went to his family's house in Chengdu and took care of financial matters, the household and the raising of Yang family children, and only occasionally had time to visit him. Yang Shen was well received by the Yunnanese literati and produced a substantial amount of writing inspired by the nature and culture of that province. P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xindu
Xindu District () is one of 11 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, Southwest China, covering part of the northern suburbs. Overview The Xindu District borders the prefecture-level city of Deyang to the north. The population of the district is 600,000, residing in an area of , only of which is part of the city's urban area. Xindu District was founded as an administrative district in 2001. It is a historical and cultural region encompassing 13 towns and 255 villages. The Sichuan Conservatory of Music and the associated Chengdu Academy of Fine Arts The Chengdu Academy of Fine Arts ( zh, 成都美术学院) is an art school, based in the Xindu District of Chengdu, Sichuan, China. The academy is associated with the Sichuan Conservatory of Music and has its facilities located at the Xindu Camp ... have a campus here. Nicknames Xindu District is known as the "Tianfu Pearl" () and "Fragrant City" (). Climate References E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Pastries
This is a list of pastries, which are small buns made using a stiff dough enriched with fat. Some dishes, such as pies, are made of a pastry casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savory ingredients. There are five basic types of pastry (a food that combines flour and fat); these are shortcrust pastry, filo pastry, choux pastry, flaky pastry and puff pastry. Two main types of pastry are nonlaminated, when fat is cut or rubbed into the flour, and laminated, when fat is repeatedly folded into the dough using a technique called lamination. An example of a nonlaminated pastry would be a pie or tart crust and brioche. An example of a laminated pastry would be a croissant, danish, or puff pastry. Many pastries are prepared using shortening, a fat food product that is solid at room temperature, the composition of which lends to creating crumbly, shortcrust-style pastries and pastry crusts. Pastries were first created by the ancient Egyptians. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dim Sum
Dim sum () is a large range of small Chinese dishes that are traditionally enjoyed in restaurants for brunch. Most modern dim sum dishes are commonly associated with Cantonese cuisine, although dim sum dishes also exist in other Chinese cuisines. In the tenth century, when the city of Canton (Guangzhou) began to experience an increase in commercial travel, many frequented teahouses for small-portion meals with tea called '' yum cha'', or "drink tea" meals. ''Yum cha'' includes two related concepts. The first is " jat zung loeng gin" (), which translates literally as "one cup, two pieces". This refers to the custom of serving teahouse customers two pieces of delicately made food items, savory or sweet, to complement their tea. The second is ''dim sum'' () and translates literally to "touching heart", the term used to designate the small food items that accompanied the tea drinking. Teahouse owners gradually added various snacks called "dim sum" to their offerings. The practic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Desserts
Chinese desserts () are sweet foods and dishes that are served with tea, along with meals"Chinese Desserts." . Accessed June 2011. |
