Cantonese cuisine
Cantonese (Yue) cuisine originates from Guangdong Province in southern China, or more precisely, the area around Canton (Guangzhou). Of the various regional styles of Chinese cuisine, Cantonese is the best-known outside China. A "Chinese restaurant" in a Western country will usually serve mostly Cantonese food, or an adaptation thereof. The prominence of Cantonese cuisine outside China is likely due to the disproportionate early emigration from this region, as well as the relative accessibility of some Cantonese dishes to foreign palates. Cantonese dishes rarely use "hot" spices like chilli, unlike, for instance, Szechuan cuisine. Also within China itself, restaurants serving Cantonese cuisine can found in many other regions.
Cantonese cuisine has widely been regarded as the pinnacle of Chinese regional fare, because of the immensity and diversity of the ingredients used. This is because Guangzhou (Canton), a long established trading port in Southern China, has been exposed to more imported food products and ingredients than any other area in China. For example, shell fish and prawns are rarely served in Northern Chinese cuisine because, before the advent of refrigeration, these ingredients were simply not feasibly available. Sometimes, Chiuchow cuisine and Hakka cuisine are also grouped with in the Cantonese cuisine because of the geography. However, most Cantonese would argue that that is inaccurate because the flavour palette and emphasis are quite different.
There is a Cantonese saying: "Any animal whose back faces the sun can be eaten" , and in Northern Chinese areas such as Beijing, it is said "The Cantonese will eat anything that swims, except the submarine. Everything that flies, except the aeroplane, and everything that has legs, except the table,"; British royal Prince Philip said much the same thing upon visiting China in 1983. Cantonese cuisine includes almost all edible food in addition to the staples of pork, beef and chicken — snakes, snails, insects, worms, chicken feet, duck tongues, and entrails. One subject of controversy amongst some Westerners is the raising of dogs and cats as food in some places in China; however, dog is not a common restaurant food, and is illegal in Hong Kong (and may soon be in Taiwan). Eating dogs was a survival tactic in times of famine, and is frowned upon by many Chinese today.
Despite the countless Cantonese cooking methods, steaming, stir frying and deep frying are the most popular cooking methods in restaurants due to the short cooking time, and philosophy of bringing out the flavor of the freshest.
参考资料:http://www.answers.com/topic/cantonese-cuisine