The Chinese cuisine is considered to be one of the best due to its long tradition, the variety, the inclusion of meats, fish, sea food and vegetables. Chinese gives much prominence to food and its rituals. Chinese food history has connection to the Silk Road migrations. The food style of a culture is certainly determined by the natural resources that are available. It is therefore not surprising that Chinese food consists of plants and animals that grew prosperously in China for a long time . These food stuff are taken as basic ingredients as these are not available everywhere and thus it becomes a local character simply by virtue of the ingredients it uses.

In the Chinese culture, the whole process of food preparation from raw ingredients to mouth watering dishes involves a process when compared to other food traditions. It starts with the division between fan, grains and other starch foods, ts'ai vegetable and meat dishes. A balance meal consists of an appropriate amount of both fan and ts'ai and ingredients and are readied along both tracks. Grains are cooked as flour or as whole, making up the fan half of the meal in various ways. Fan is steamed wheat, millet, or corn flour brea, ping (pancakes), and noodles. Meats and vegetables are cut up and mixed in various ways into separate dishes to constitute the ts'ai half. Though the staple starch portion and the vegetable and meat portion are joined, it retains its own proportion and distinction. Multiple ingredients and mixing of flavors are used for the preparation of Ts'ai. The ingredients are cut up and not done whole, and they are variously combined into separate dishes of differing flavors. For example, pork may be diced, shredded, sliced or ground and when mixed with other meats and with various vegetable ingredients and spice, produces dishes which are utterly diverge, flavors, shapes, colors, tastes and aromas.

The preparation of these dishes are done with specialized utensils such as fan and tsiai utensils, both for cooking and serving. These utensils are not interchangeable. For the preparation of the kind of ts'ai that is described, the chopping knife or cleaver and the chopping anvil are standard equipment found in every Chinese kitchen whether be ancient or modern. Chopsticks have proved to be more convenient than hands or fork and spoon, when sweeping the cooked grains and the cut up morsel of vegetable and meat dishes.

Since Chinese food is made of a mixture of ingredients, its appearance and flavor do not rely on the number of ingredients, nor on any single item. In times of affluence, more expensive items may be added but similarly when you cannot afford they can be omitted without making it too obvious. The Chinese way of cooking would have gone through hard times through their history and it can be said that the Chinese cook the way they do because of their desire and need for adaptability. Therefore they have been able to penetrate into the rest of the world with their delicious cuisine and thus Chinese food has become popular worldwide.