When we think of fried rice, we think of the white rice with the green peas and orange carrot bits, mingling with the yellow pieces of scramble egg and pink pieces of fried pork… steaming happily all in one dish after having been stir-fried in a big wok. This, perhaps, is the standard image of a plate of Yangchow fried rice, a staple food of many a Chinese restaurant in the US and other Western countries. Depending on where in the world you are, the flavors in this plate of Yangchow fried rice will vary… and this is where it gets more interesting than whether or not your order of fried rice has shrimp in it or not.
Fried rice originated as a dish over a thousand years ago in southern China, sometime around the Sui Dynasty. From there on, fried rice quickly spread throughout the regions, eventually making its way all the way into and past northern China, where the diet predominantly revolves around main courses comprising of noodles, and to the far western reaches of China such as Xinjiang, where rice is not widely grown… And so fried rice gained a life of its own, each region developing their own brand of fried rice. The very nature of fried rice made it perfect for doing so in that rice is the most obtainable food in almost every area of China, and the ingredients in a tasty dish of fried rice were variable accordingly to what the local landscape could provide.
There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of different kinds of fried rice in China today. Each kind of fried rice reflects the background from which it comes, for, after its migration from the original home of Yangchow, it has changed itself to fit the needs of the people populating its new home. What a dish of fried rice contains is a very accurate portrayal of where it hails from both geographically and culturally.
There is Xinjiang fried rice, where it contains scrambled eggs and beef (never pork, because Xinjiang peoples are mostly Muslim) but no vegetables (because the high plains of Xinjiang are less suited to agriculture)… Egg fried rice, which is more popular and widespread in Northern China – historically the lesser region when compared with the fertile South – the cheapest fried rice (and often the cheapest meal) one can get at almost any given restaurant… Yangchow fried rice in its many manifestations (quite often, they change so much in accordance with local tastes that they develop to become a whole new type of fried rice): in Hong Kong and much of the South (renowned in for the good supply of seafood), there is a variety of Yangchow fried rice with an emphasis on the shrimp in it, in Yangchow and other areas of southern China, an emphasis on the abundance of vegetables in the fried rice (the South of China grows vegetables very well) to the point that oftentimes, well-made southern Chinese style fried rice contains more vegetables than rice itself… and finally, the varieties of fried rice prevalent in America, such as fried brown rice (I’ve never even seen brown rice served in restaurants in China before, much less friend brown rice) and fried rice as a side dish or fried rice that replaces normal white rice in a meal… Regardless of its appearance and taste, fried rice has become a national cuisine in itself: not only is there a single well known brand – Yangchow – that is widespread around the entire world, there are also many many different versions of fried rice from every corner of China (and Asia, even) that represent not only its Yangchow ancestor, but more the area they hail from and the culture of the people that they nourish.
The history of fried rice is the history of its change and versatility, from the rich and gluttonous versions, full of seafood and vegetables, served in hotels and high-class restaurants to the rice-heavy meager egg fried rices loved by the lower-class workers in big cities… fried rice has always been available to everyone everywhere because of its adaptability in incorporating different things. But yet, largely, fried rice has not changed at all. A thousand years ago, it was rice fried with what vegetables and meat were available, and now, it is still fried with whatever is available for eating to the many peoples of China.
SOURCES:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%82%92%E9%A3%AF
http://www.sdslpx.com.cn/tspf/4.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/food/2006-04/30/content_4493335.htm
and my own head and imagination
NOTES:
Yangchow fried rice is actually not all that steeped in history, many sources pin its origins at a date of no more than 150 years ago.
My connections of different kinds of fried rice and their locales/cultures is mostly based on my own observations; such connections seem to have rarely been studied, or published online, at any rate.
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