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The drinking of tea became popular in southern China as tea comes from the leaf buds of Camelia sinensis, native to southwestern China.
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Wine (Persian jujubes, and grape wine; rice wine) was widely use in cooking as the 13th century Venetian traveler Marco Polo bring exotic foreign foods in China.
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More meat is used in cooking such as as chicken, shellfish, fallow deer, hares, partridge, pheasant, francolin, quail, fox, badger, clam and crab .The land is fertiler and easy for farmers to grow fruits and vegetables.
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Fruits,especially golden oranges were popular
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Potatoes , maize, and peanuts were introduced because the harvest of rice failed and lower class people started to eat cheaper grain like potatoes.
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Rice is counted amongst the five grains with sesamum, legumes, wheat, panicled millet, and glutinous millet.
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Common foodstuff (southern) : barley, garlic, salt, , chestnuts, walnuts,yams, taro,pork, chicken, lamb, Sichuan pepper, cardamom, and ginger, as well as oysters with wine, red crabs, shrimp, and pufferfish.
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Methods of food preservation (digging deep ditches and trenches, brining, and salting their foods.)
The emperor had large ice pits located in the parks in and around Chang'an for preserving food, while the wealthy and elite had their own smaller ice pits.Each year the emperor had laborers carve 1000 blocks of ice from frozen creeks in mountain valleys, each block with the dimension of 0.91 m (3 ft) by 0.91 m by 1.06 m (3½ ft).There were many frozen delicacies enjoyed during the summer. -
Use of seasonings (pepper, ginger, pimento,soya sauce, oil, salt, and vinegar)
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Sichuan cooking is popular (pimento pepper, coastal foods of shrimp and saltwater fish)
