The primary purpose of condiments and spices in Chinese cookery is to accentuate, rather than to conceal the natural flavours of the food.
Chinese chefs use relatively few condiments and spices (opposite are some of the most popular) but they vary their combinations to achieve almost endless taste transformations that delight their countrymen and arouse mingled sensations of pleasure and bewilderment in foreigners.
The bewilderment arises out of one basic difference between Chinese and Western cooking.
The Chinese as a rule do not cook each item separately as Westerners do, for example in a fish, potato and spinach meal.
In­stead, the Chinese cook the fish with other ingredients such as bamboo shoots, dried mushrooms and finely chopped smoked ham.
This technique promotes an exchange of flavours, each ingredient acquiring flavours from the rest and at the same time acting as a seasoning agent.
Among the best known of Chinese seasonings is soya sauce, mentioned in several Confucian classics as early as the fifth century b.
c.
Soya beans are also used to make other condiments, such as bean paste for preserving and flavouring meat, and hoisinor vegetable, sauce, a sweet-and-spicy table dip for seafood and poultry.
Beans are the basis of other seasonings such as the Cantonese speciality, fermented black beans, used to give zest to meat and fish dishes.
And there is the Chinese children's delight, sweet and velvety red-bean paste, used as filling for moon cakes, buns and many sweets.
Another Cantonese speciality, oyster sauce, used as both a dip and a cooking condiment, intensifies the flavour of meat and seafood without imposing a taste of its own.
Among the spices are star anise, five-spice powder and Szechwan pep­per.
Star anise, with its distinctive liquorice flavour, is used mostly with meat, poultry, game and fish braised in soya sauce.
Five-spice powder, a finely ground mixture of anise seed, Szechwan pepper, fennel, cloves and cinnamon, is used in red-cooked and roasted meat and poultry; Szechwan pepper gives its pungent flavour to many dishes from that province.
Dried foods, which must be soaked before they are used in cooking, often serve as both ingredient and condiment.
Fried mushrooms, treasured for their bouquet, rank high on the list of dual-purpose ingredients but vary in quality and flavour.
The best mushrooms come from South China, picked in the winter and dried by sun and air.
A relative of the mushroom is the cloud ear-a dried black fungus- which looks like bits of charred leather but is quite delicious, especially when cooked with dried tiger lily buds, also called "golden needles".
Cloud ears and tiger lily buds are highly nutritious and inexpensive.
Often used in sweets are such dried seeds and fruits as black and white sesame seeds; dried red dates; lotus seeds; walnuts; longans, or dragon's eyes; and orange peel.
Along with these dried plants, other dried products are used as condiments and ingredients.
The long list includes dried shrimps, baby fish, squid, scallops and ducks' gizzards.