At a Han table, the meal is organized around fàn, the boiled or steamed grain (millet for commoners, rice for the upper ranks), the nourishing foundation of every bite. Around it are arranged the cài: small dishes of vegetables, stewed meat, pickles, and fermented sauces, taken in small amounts with chopsticks. The jiāng (醬, fermented paste) is added as the sovereign condiment, and sometimes the meal ends with a malt sweet or a cup of rice wine. There is no starter or dessert: everything arrives together, and it is the balance between the blandness of the grain and the intensity of the cài that makes a good meal.

The king of condiments in Han cuisine, jiāng is a thick paste obtained by fermenting soybeans (or a soybean-wheat mixture) with salt for weeks. The direct ancestor of miso and soy sauce, it provides the deep umami-fermented flavor that defines all savory dishes of the era. At court, it was considered so essential that Confucius himself said he would not eat a dish if it was not accompanied by its proper jiāng.