u/Agn823

When most Americans think “Chinese food,” they’re probably thinking about Cantonese food and don’t even know it. The glossy roast duck hanging in a Chinatown window. The bamboo steamers arriving at your dim sum table in a fragrant cloud. The silky wonton soup that somehow tastes more complex than anything it has any right to be. All Cantonese.

It's hardly surprising that Cantonese Cooking was the first Chinese regional cuisine to take hold in the United States. After all, the original Chinese immigrants were mainly Cantonese coming to work on the railroads in the 1800s.

Authentic Cantonese cuisine is known for its emphasis on fresh ingredients, delicate flavors, and traditional cooking techniques. Rooted in the rich cultural heritage of China’s Guangdong province, this cuisine has gained global recognition for its unique approach to food. Unlike other Chinese cuisines, Cantonese dishes often highlight the natural taste of ingredients rather than masking them with heavy spices. The importance of using high-quality, fresh ingredients is paramount, and cooking methods like steaming and stir-frying preserve their natural flavors.

Here are a few links to help get you started:

Cantonese Cuisine - Omnivore's Cookbook 

15 Popular Cantonese Style Recipes

Cantonese Recipes - Made with Lau

Feel free to include any family recipes in the comments!

We've done beans before, this week it's about one magical bean - the coffee bean (although it's actually technically a fruit). Some of us can't deal with mornings without coffee (about a billion cups of coffee are consumed daily), but this week we'll be putting it in our food instead.

A few ideas for this week:

• Coffee-rubbed steak
• Mole with coffee and chocolate
• Espresso-braised short ribs
• Coffee barbecue sauce
• Coffee-cured salmon
• Coffee-spiced roasted vegetables
• Desserts such as coffee ice cream, or opera cake
• Tiramisu (get your bingo square in)
• Espresso martinis, coffee negronis, or coffee-infused cocktails
• A fancy coffee drink (if you're really lazy)
• Or Coffee cake, because it has coffee in the name so it counts

And some coffee fun facts:

Discovered by Goats: According to legend, coffee was discovered in 9th-century Ethiopia by a goat herder named Kaldi. He noticed that after eating berries from a certain tree, his goats became so energetic they appeared to be "dancing"

Historical Bans: In the 16th and 17th centuries, coffee was temporarily banned in multiple places—including Mecca, Constantinople, and Sweden—often because governments feared it stimulated radical, rebellious thinking

Coffee is a Fruit: The "beans" we roast and grind aren't actually beans; they are the seeds of bright red or yellow berries, often called coffee cherries.

Light Roast Has More Caffeine: Many people assume a dark, bold roast packs the biggest punch, but light roasts actually contain more caffeine by volume. The longer a bean is roasted, the more caffeine and moisture are burned off.

Second Most Traded Commodity: Next to crude oil, coffee is the most valuable and heavily traded commodity in the world.

The First Webcam: The world's first webcam was invented at Cambridge University in 1991. It wasn't for security, but to monitor the breakroom coffee pot so scientists wouldn't waste a trip if it was empty.