As a Chinese history geek, I took this trip across the length and breadth of the country primarily to satiate my long-held desire to visit sites and view artifacts that I had previously only seen in books, websites, films and TV series. But culture is an important facet of history, and food is an important facet of culture. My journey turned to be as gastronomical as it was historical, as I sampled my way from Beijing in the north to Yangshuo in the south, and from Shanghai in the east to Xiían in the west, eating on the street and in restaurants, trying everything from the ancient and traditional to the modern and cosmopolitan.