Szechuan Cuisine_Chili Pepper

Szechuan Chili Pepper

The Location of Sichuan Province

After I introduced various cuisines in SF, I think you must have a overview about the food districts in SF. Now, I would like to introduce one typical Chinese cuisine, Szechuan food, or Sichuan food, which comes from Sichuan province, the southwestern of China. Although the official Chinese Pinyin now is Sichuan, cuisine is still often spelled Szechuan in north America. Szechuan cooking has bold flavors, pungency and spiciness.

Chili Pepper

When we talk about Szechuan spicy food, one of the most important ingredients is chili peppers. In fact, there are many kinds of chili peppers all over the China. Sichuan pepper is the most famous with unique flavour. Even for Chinese, if they want to cook real Szchuan food, they would like to buy the chili pepper that grows up in Sichuan province, not other locations in China. For me, every time I travel to there, I would like to buy a big box of Sichuan chili pepper at farmers market, not supermarkets, because most Chinese people consider the chilly paper that sell by a farmer is much better than sell by a supermarket.

Chili Pepper Oil

People in Sichuan use chili pepper in anything and everything that they cook. They put chili pepper into hot pot, noodle, so on. They also like make chili pepper oil, which is popular in Sichuan province. 

Why do they like chili pepper so much? Because Sichuan province is the mountainous region, where

are cold and moist. Chili pepper can make people warm and good for body, especially for people who are rheumatic patients. In addition, chili pepper contains much vitaminC, which are good for health, especial for skin. Chinese also reasoned that many beautiful girls in Sichuan province are caused by the chili pepper. When people describe the personality of girls in Sichuan, they would like say, "hot, like Sichuan chili pepper".

Air Dry Chili Pepper

In addition, the chili pepper has special meaning for Chinese culture. It is considered a symbol of good luck or booming. Red color also is Chinese color. So, many farmers like to air dry the rest of the chili peppers and hang out the house. It's a lucky symbol that there would be a happy year.

Anyway, I will introduce some amazing Szechuan restaurants in SF in coming blog.

A Bite of Life in SF:Szechuan Cuisine_Chili Pepper by Farrah is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.