Protecting the country's rich food culture should be on the menu, said a senior cuisine expert who also warned that not enough research is done before applying for cultural heritage statuses.

"Cuisine is all about culture and tradition, but this aspect is often overlooked when people try to get a local traditional cuisine recognized as an intangible cultural heritage," said Feng Enyuan, the secretary-general of the China Cuisine Association.

"Previous efforts to list some cuisine items as part of our intangible cultural heritage have failed because of a lack of sufficient research on their cultural significance, such as in folklore, historical evolution and local regional characteristics," he said.