Over 100 priceless Chinese culinary artifacts will be on display Saturday until May 26 at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

The items, including tableware, cooking utensils, drinking sets, scrolls and brick engravings dating from the Neolithic period (8000-2000 BC) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), are on loan from the National Museum of China.

"Fine Dining -- An Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Culinary Ware" traces the changes the Chinese food culture has undergone over the centuries.

Speaking at a ceremony for Saturday's opening of the exhibition, Hong Kong Deputy Director (Culture) of Leisure and Cultural Services, Choi Suk-kuen, said that Chinese food culture was characterized by the great variety of cooking methods and diversified cuisine across regions.

"Food becomes so much more appetizing if complemented by appropriate culinary ware," Choi said.

Chinese food culture can be traced back to the late-middle Paleolithic period, which was about 600,000 to 10,000 years ago. Initially, the Chinese were hunters and gatherers and they had virtually no cooking skills. But they gradually abandoned the habit of eating raw flesh as they mastered the use of fire and cooking with water.

The Chinese had individual servings and sat on the ground for meals during the Neolithic period, which was about 10,000 to 4,000 years ago. The period also saw the birth of agriculture and animal husbandry, and subsequently the development of pottery with the increasing need for containers of various kinds.

The exhibition, with a wealth of treasures on display, reflects the richness and diversity of Chinese food culture and will enhance visitors' understanding of ancient Chinese cookware.

Highlights include a pottery cauldron and stove made in the Neolithic period, one of the earliest; complete cooking sets ever uncovered; preserved dumplings and snacks -- the earliest of their kind -- excavated from a Tang-Dynasty (AD 618-907) tomb in Xinjiang; a boat-shaped model of a pottery stove, which is believed to have been used for funerary purposes during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) and a number of other pieces of cultural relics.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2004)