Pickling (腌制 yānzhì) is fundamental to Chinese cuisine. Famous pickled foods include 腌菜 (pickled vegetables), 腌肉 (cured meat), 咸鸭蛋 (salted duck eggs), and 泡菜 (pickled cabbage). Every region has its own pickling traditions.
usage
腌 covers salting, brining, and marinating. For wet marinating (like a sauce marinade), 腌 and 泡 (pào, to soak) both work. 腌制 is the more formal compound form.
Left-side meat radical — the side form of 肉, visually identical to 月 (moon) but historically a slab of striated flesh. Carries the meaning: 腌 is what you do to meat and fish (and pickled vegetables) to preserve them. Same family: 肉 meat, 肝 liver, 肠 intestine, 肚 belly.
Right side 奄 supplies the sound — yǎn → yān with tone shift. The 'cover, envelop' meaning of 奄 also resonates faintly with pickling: salt blankets the flesh until it cures. Same phonetic appears in 淹 to flood, 庵 hermitage, 掩 to cover up.
