PARIS, March 7 While taste may be the No. 1 priority among diners in the Western world, flavour is secondary to a bigger concern among consumers in China: health.
And its perhaps the biggest overarching trend that the country will bring to the culinary world in the years to come, predicts Edouard Cointreau, president of the Paris Cookbook Fair.
Despite the ubiquity of Chinese restaurants and takeout around the world, Cointreau says that there still exists a major divide between East and West.
For instance, what the Western world may know as Chinese food could be construed as bastardised fast-food fare that bears little resemblance to authentic Chinese cuisine.
Westerners were also getting an incomplete picture of Chinese cuisine, Cointreau added. Europeans, for instance, may be familiar with Cantonese and Szechuan foods, but there are six other major regional cuisines that are little known outside the country: Anhui, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang cuisines.
But regardless of the regional differences, one of the biggest umbrella trends emerging out of this economic powerhouse was the focus on healthy, functional foods, Cointreau said.
In the West, the No. 1 priority is that food tastes good, he said in a phone interview with Relaxnews on the eve of the fair. In China, theyre not worried about taste, but about how good the food is for you. Taste comes in second or third. This is what the country will bring to t! he rest of the world.
Like traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese food therapy centres on a belief system that categorises foods as either hot or cold: foods with either a heat-inducing quality or chilling effect on the body. The key to good health is to maintain balance.
Have a cold? That means avoiding cold foods such as lemon, melon or cucumber. Have a hot disease such as eczema or a skin rash? Avoid hot foods such as garlic, onions and chocolate.
At the Paris Cookbook Fair, the Chinese contingent of chefs, writers, publishers and food media will take up a major portion of the trade floor, boasting the second-largest presence after France.
Thats because China was becoming a powerful force in the international arena of food publishing, be it soaring demand for home cookery books from the burgeoning middle class or from the armies of professional chefs across the country eager to master foods and techniques foreign to the Chinese culinary heritage like baking and pastries, Cointreau said.
Other emerging culinary and gastronomic interests within the country include books on wine, cooking techniques like grilling, and cuisines exotic to their own, like French.
The Paris Cookbook Fair opens in Paris today to March 11, and will be represented by 162 countries from around the world. Relaxnews
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