Jiangxi cuisine

Jiangxi cuisine (Chinese: 赣菜 or 江西菜 ) is derived from the native cooking styles of the Jiangxi province of southern China. Like the cuisines of neighboring provinces, Jiangxi cuisine favors overtly spicy flavors; in many region of the province, chili peppers are directly used as vegetable instead of as a flavoring, as in most other Chinese regional cuisines.

Another characteristic of Jiangxi cuisine is that there are rarely any cold dishes or anything served raw in contrast to other Chinese cuisines.

The reason why there is rarely any cold or raw dishes in Jiangxi cuisine is due to another characteristic of the cuisine: it is the number one Chinese cuisine that utilizes the tea oil as its primary cooking oil. However, if the raw tea oil is consumed uncooked, it would cause severe stomach problems for most people. As a result, any dish that uses the oil is cooked, as in other part of China where tea oil is used as primary cooking oil. However, Jiangxi cuisine is unique in that the other one seventh of total Chinese populations in other parts of China uses tea oil in the main cooking oil, but it is supplimented by variety of cooking oil of other type, and in fact, tea oil is not a majority despite being number one. In Jiangxi, on the other hand, the tea oil is used almost exclusively as the only cooking oil of Jiangxi cuisine, and the only other cooking oil used is the oil from rapeseed, but it only consisted a minor portion.

Due to its geography, fish banquet is also one of the characteristics of Jiangxi cuisine. In contrast to the Heilongjiang cuisine which is famed for anadromous fish banquets, Jiangxi cuisine is famed for freshwater fish banquets.

The last characteristic of Jiangxi cuisine is its heavy emphasis on the utilization of "douchi" (fermented black beans) and tofu, in comparison to other Chinese cuisines. Fried tofu is a must for everyone during the celebration of Chinese New Year.