Dim sum (traditional Chinese: 點心; simplified Chinese: 点心; pinyin: diǎnxīn; Jyutping: dim2 sam1) is a large range of small Chinese dishes that are traditionally enjoyed in restaurants for brunch. Most modern dim sum dishes are commonly associated with Cantonese cuisine, although dim sum dishes also exist in other Chinese cuisines. In the tenth century, when the city of Canton (Guangzhou) began to experience an increase in commercial travel, many frequented teahouses for small-portion meals with tea called yum cha, or "drink tea" meals. Yum cha includes two related concepts. The first is "jat zung loeng gin" (一盅兩件), which translates literally as "one cup, two pieces". This refers to the custom of serving teahouse customers two pieces of delicately made food items, savory or sweet, to complement their tea. The second is dim sum (點心) and translates literally to "touching heart", the term used to designate the small food items that accompanied the tea drinking.
Teahouse owners gradually added various snacks called "dim sum" to their offerings. The practice of having tea with dim sum eventually evolved into the modern yum cha (brunch). Cantonese dim sum culture developed rapidly during the latter half of the nineteenth century in Guangzhou. Cantonese dim sum was based originally on local foods. As dim sum continued to develop, chefs introduced influences and traditions from other regions of China. Cantonese dim sum has a very broad range of flavors, textures, cooking styles and ingredients, and can be classified into regular items, seasonal offerings, weekly specials, banquet dishes, holiday dishes, house signature dishes, travel-friendly, as well as breakfast or lunch foods and late night snacks.There are over one thousand dim sum dishes originating from Guangdong province alone, a total that no other area in China comes even close to matching. In fact, the cookbooks of most Chinese food cultures tend to lump their own variations on the dim sum theme with other local snacks. But that is not the case with Cantonese dim sum, which has developed into a separate branch of cuisine. Some estimates claim that there are at least two thousand types of dim sum in total across China, though only about forty to fifty types are commonly sold outside of China.Dim sum restaurants typically have a wide variety of dishes, usually totaling several dozen. The tea is very important, just as important as the food. Many Cantonese restaurants serve dim sum as early as five in the morning, while more traditional restaurants typically serve dim sum until mid-afternoon. Dim sum restaurants have a unique serving method where servers offer dishes to customers from steam-heated carts. It is now commonplace for restaurants to serve dim sum at dinner time and sell various dim sum items a la carte for takeout. In addition to traditional dim sum, some chefs also create and prepare new fusion-based dim sum dishes. There are variations designed for visual appeal on social media, such as dumplings and buns made to resemble animals, that also exist.
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