A thousand years ago was the most exciting period of recipes evolution for Chinese food. Most of the Hangzhou cuisine today dates back 1000 years to the Song Dynasty (960-1279).
A thousand years ago, the Jurchen invaders conquered northern China and forced the Song court to withdraw to the temporary capital in Hangzhou. There people could choose from a wide variety of meats and seafood. Therefore, the most innovative Chinese dynasty; South Song created a whole new style of cuisine we today called the Hangzhou cuisine, my hometown cuisine!
The Hangzhou cuisine has two ancient branches: the Lake Cuisine (seafood and vegetables) for the upper classes, and the City Cuisine (animals and fowls) for average citizens. The most distinguished features of Hangzhou cuisines were the sweet and sour taste, the thick soup, and the kung-fu dishes (emphasizes details).
Some of the notable (ancient) Hangzhou dishes were:
The Beggars’ Chicken comes with a story of a beggar in Hangzhou who stole a chicken for his sick buddy. Without any pot and stove to cook the chicken, he wrapped the Chicken with bamboo reel shell and then “earth” and roasted it over the fire. About two hours later, he broke the earth off and found the chicken smelled and tasted very delicious.
Dongpo Pork can be attributed to Su Dongpo, a great litterati in the Song Dynasty who once said that even the most delicious food in the world could not compare with tasty Hangzhou Food.
Orange Crab: You stuff crab meat into a hollowed orange with a little bit of orange juice, put the cap back on, steam it with vinegar water, and eat it with red vinegar.
Soft Heart: Stuffed red dates with glutinous rice balls (Sweet Treats)
After the fall of the Song court, many of the Hangzhou cooks moved westward to Guangzhou and created even better food recipes. This is why we say that the more south you go in China the better the food.