Sichuan is, in the hearts of Chinese people, a land synonymous with “endless delicacies.” You can find Sichuan restaurants in virtually every city in China. When traveling and unable to adjust to local cuisines, most people will instinctively seek out a Sichuan restaurant. And among Chinese dishes that have gained global fame, classics like Mapo Tofu, Kung Pao Chicken, and Yu Xiang Pork all originate from Sichuan.
The secret behind this widespread appeal lies in Sichuan cuisine’s incredibly rich and universally appealing seasoning techniques – this is its greatest strength. Traditionally, Sichuan cuisine recognizes twenty-four distinct flavors. There’s a saying among the people: “A hundred dishes, a hundred flavors.” You can taste the “fish fragrance” in Yu Xiang flavor, even though there’s no actual fish; you can savor the sweet and sour taste of lychee in lychee flavor without a single lychee present. A skilled Sichuan chef can craft thousands of taste combinations by artfully balancing sour, sweet, spicy, salty, and umami elements. Just as salt is the base of all seasoning, in Sichuan cuisine, fermented foods are equally foundational.
(The famous Kung Pao Chicken and Yu Xiang Pork, credit: Xiaohongshu)
Though the use of fermented foods in East Asian culinary traditions is well known – think soy sauce, Korean doenjang and kimchi, Japanese miso, Thai fish sauce – nowhere else matches Sichuan in using fermentation to build such complex, layered flavor profiles. In my humble opinion, it’s exactly this dynamic and richly nuanced taste that defies simple categorization, making it hard for Chinese cuisine to be represented by a single “base flavor,” unlike those in some other East Asian countries.
Pickled chili, doubanjiang (fermented broad bean paste), soy sauce, and vinegar are the backbone of Sichuan’s flavor arsenal. These ingredients are key to creating the distinctive Xian (Chinese equivalent of Umami) of Sichuan food. A doubanjiang that’s fermented for under a year may contain about 5 to 6 amino acids, while one aged over 4 years can contain more than 26. Despite China’s vast and varied geography, only Sichuan can produce the best-tasting pickled chilies and doubanjiang. To cook an authentic Yu Xiang dish, you need high-quality fermented chili. As for doubanjiang, its representative flavor – what locals call “家常味” (home-style taste) – illustrates its significance: the essential, everyday flavor of home cooking. Dishes made with it are bright red and glossy, savory with a gentle heat, and leave a lingering aroma reminiscent of aged baijiu.
(Left: Pickled chili and ginger, credit: Wenwen Wu; Right: Doubanjiang fermented for different length of time, credit: Nimrod)
Fermentation is a gift born of the interaction between people and their land. As the birthplace and premier production region of Chinese liquor baijiu, Sichuan has always enjoyed ideal conditions for brewing. Its basin geography – with high edges and a low center – forms a natural “fermentation chamber.” The humid climate fosters the growth of beneficial microorganisms like lactic acid bacteria. Across Sichuan, soy sauce, vinegar, and doubanjiang are still made using traditional “sun by day, dew by night” fermentation methods. Every part of the process – from ingredients to tools – is locally sourced and handmade. In each earthenware jar, sunlight dries soybeans, wheat bran, and fava beans, while the nightly dew replenishes moisture and activates microbial transformation. This cycle continues, day after day, under careful human supervision. “Deliciousness” here stems from the deep experience of local artisans who follow nature’s rhythms, sensitive to seasonal and climatic shifts, often able to judge fermentation quality purely by feel and intuition.
More than one 嬢嬢 (auntie) in Sichuan has told me that fermentation is not some high-barrier technique. Every household has its own pickle jar. Especially in southern Sichuan, people not only make fermented seasonings like pickled ginger, chili, and cowpea, but also quick-fermented “shower pickles” – so named because they only take a day to be ready, as quick and refreshing as a shower.
I often see all sorts of vegetables drying in ordinary city streets, on planters in green spaces, by windows in residential communities – radishes, er cai (relative to brussels sprout), chong cai, and many more I can’t even name. By evening, people bring them indoors to start preparing all kinds of fermented dishes that pair perfectly with rice.
(Left: Fermenting is a house-hold skill in Sichuan, credit: 500px China; Right: Drying vegetables are the normal in Sichuan streets)
When you start to view Sichuan’s people and landscape through the lens of fermentation, you’ll realize that the diversity, naturalness, and vibrancy of fermentation reflects life on this land. From cities to villages, even something as simple as pickled mustard greens (suan cai) varies in ingredients and use between southern, northern, and eastern Sichuan. A jar of pickles’ “mother brine” (akin to sourdough starter) contains a rich microbial culture passed down through generations – some families inherit it from their grandmothers, or even further back. These fermentation cultures mean that every family’s table carries its own unique flavor, making Sichuan cuisine truly “a hundred families, a hundred tastes.” Together, they form the “hometown taste” etched into the hearts of all who were born in Sichuan – a flavor that, even far from home, brings a sense of self and belonging.
What touches me most about fermentation is that the pursuit of excellence lies in deepening your understanding of climate, food, land, and the richer “language” of nature. You will find your own answer, but it will not be the only one. There is no fixed standard for “good” – just like life itself, and just like the Sichuan spirit that has left such a lasting impression on me.
Join us in our fermentation experience in Sichuan, explore flavors of more than a hundred types and find your own standard for a good life.
