Research - History of chinese cuisine

The History of Chinese cuisine is, in China, traced back to the Peking Man and his use of fire, and the invention of "cuisine" some 400,000 years ago. Some other accounts of the history of Chinese cuisine takes the beginning back to the Chinese stone age, where the cultivation of rice and the production of noodles, both typical representative of Chinese cuisine as we know it today, are known from archeological findings.
Over the centuries, as new food sources and techniques were invented, the Chinese cuisine as we know it gradually evolved, with the use of chopsticks as eating utensils, another of the hallmarks of Chinese cuisine, goes back at least to the Zhou Dynasty..................

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_cuisine