The official website of UNESCO announced a new batch of 49 cities that had joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network on Monday afternoon, and Huai'an was successfully selected as the "City of Gastronomy".
Previously, there were only 36 cities that won the title of "City of Gastronomy" and four of them from China, which were Chengdu, Shunde, Macau, and Yangzhou. This time, Huai'an has also become one of the world's top gastronomy cities.
To promote the inheritance and innovation of the cuisine industry, Huai’an has founded the largest cuisine museum--China Huaiyang Cuisine Culture Museum, and established the Huaiyang Cuisine Cultural Industry Working Committee and the Huaiyang Cuisine Group.
There are more than 1,300 kinds of classic Huaiyang cuisine, and the cooking techniques of 298 dishes have been selected as the provincial intangible heritage, occupying the largest number in the country.
Over 100 thousand middle and senior leveled chefs have been trained in about ten colleges. Up to now, Huai’an has cultivated 120 national “cooking masters”, established more than 30 cooking master studios and intangible cultural heritage food studios.
Huai'an is located on the geographical dividing line of northern China and southern China, with four rivers passing through and five lakes inlaid. The water area occupies a quarter of the city that makes Huai’an known as "the city floating on the water." The special ecological environment promotes the growing of high-quality and rich ingredients such as lobsters, hairy crabs, gorgon, and cattail.
