These Photos Of Gourmet Chinese Food Are Glamorous

 Dieter Mackenbach, the person behind the Instagram @chinese_plating, never would have guessed that a trip to the local library would send him on a path toward being obsessed with culinary history. Mackenbach is the person behind the Instagram account @chinese_plating, which posts images of 20th-century Chinese food design in archival magazine collections, highlighting their intricate creations. The images are fun to look at — and they offer a new perspective on the cuisine, telling historical stories and showcasing impressive techniques.To get more news about special dishes of china, you can visit shine news official website.

“Everywhere I've lived, I've always made extensive use of the local libraries. I spent a lot of time in the Chinese National Library in Beijing and became really interested in Chinese culinary magazines,” Mackenbach said, specifically citing the ’80s magazines China Culinary and Sichuan Gastronomy. He checked them out from the library and started taking pictures because he was fascinated by the dishes; he then shared them on Instagram. A lot of the food in these magazines is from culinary competitions that were designed to demonstrate a chef’s expertise in knife carving and food presentation. There's also a strong emphasis on poetic composition and whether the dishes make references to historical events or literature.

Christopher Tan, a food journalist turned cookbook author, worked as a reporter for a local fine food and wine magazine in the ’90s. During this time, he watched teams of professional chefs from around the world — Europe and Asia — compete in Singapore and produce complicated work that he said “would fit right in with the @chinese_plating photos — tons of stripes, patterns, three-dimensional work, vegetable and dough carvings, what have you.” He likens the work to the level of craft apparent in some episodes of The Great British Bake Off.

“One thing that stretches through is an awareness of symbolism,” he said, “the use of foods with particular qualities for what they evoke, over and above their sensory attributes.” A step up from traditional home cooking and plating is special festive and heritage cooking, which is done for important occasions such as Lunar New Year, Taoist holy days, or weddings. More time and expense are allotted to making traditional delicacies and dishes for these occasions, and their makers are expected to exercise their craft and skill to the utmost degree. As for @chinese_plating, the account is photographic evidence for how varied Chinese food can be, Mackenbach said. “This is obviously not everyday, common food; most people throughout Chinese history absolutely do not eat such exorbitant dishes,” he added. “It can be quite wasteful, and some of it is not even meant to be eaten — the raw pumpkin carving, for example. It was mostly for show, for business meetings or extravagant occasions.” He claimed that this elaborate plating style stems from a tradition of Chinese cultural elite and literati putting on events and banquets. China as a whole takes their plating seriously. How my mom plates food at home, it's very thought-out and not natural. In culinary school, I was always told to make things look natural. But then you take something like this, and you can't deny it's beautiful,” said Calvin Eng. Eng is a former chef at Win Son, and is in the process of opening up Bonnie's, a Cantonese American restaurant in Brooklyn. He's also a fan of the account. He said that it’s great to see the love and care that people put into these dishes in the past, and he hopes it encourages other people to pursue Chinese food further.

There has been a lot of talk in the last few years about shifting the perceptions of Chinese food in the US, and people want to emphasize the diversity, sophistication, and healthiness of Chinese food. “Many high-end restaurants in China now copy Japanese and Scandinavian minimalist plating, which is not as individual to the country and kind of falls within the general minimalism whitewashing of everything. People send messages to thank me for sharing, claiming that it really gives them a sense of pride in their culture,” Mackenbach said.