Hands pleat dumplings on a floured board beside an open, steaming bamboo steamer of steamed buns, a plate of boiled dumplings and sesame flatbreads.
Wheat Foods
Wheat foods are staples made from wheat flour that are steamed, wrapped or griddled, including steamed buns, dumplings and wontons, and flatbreads. Rotary stone mills appeared by the late Warring States and spread in the Han, moving wheat from whole-grain cooking to milled flour, and in the Western Jin leavened wheat food appears at elite tables. Buns are usually leavened and then steamed, dumplings and wontons wrap a filling in a thin dough skin and are boiled, steamed or pan-fried, and flatbreads are mostly griddled, baked or fried. Noodles are covered under Noodles and pastries under Pastries & Snacks.
Steamed Buns
Dumplings
FlatbreadsSources (3)
Wheat was originally cooked whole. In the Warring States period the rotary stone mill appeared and wheat began to shift from whole-grain cooking to milled flour, and in the Han the mill spread gradually. With flour, wheat could be made into the many staples that are steamed, wrapped or griddled.
Steamed buns are staples of leavened dough, steamed; they include the plain mantou, the filled baozi, and rolled steamed foods such as flower rolls and silver-thread rolls. Plain mantou is the staple of the majority of northerners, and baozi wrap a meat, vegetable or sweet filling in a dough skin. Dumplings and wontons are dough skins wrapped round a filling, as boiled, steamed or pan-fried jiaozi, and as wontons under many local names; the skin of jiaozi is mostly made of medium-gluten wheat flour mixed with cold water, left to rest and then filled, and boiling, steaming and frying all work. Wontons are called yuntun in Guangdong and Hong Kong, chaoshou in Sichuan and Chongqing, bianshi in southern Fujian and Taiwan, and mostly hundun in the north and in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region.
Flatbreads are baked or griddled wheat cakes and filled cakes, such as shaobing, laobing, guokui, nang, spring pancakes and huoshao, and they are an everyday staple. Shaobing are often baked in a large open clay oven. Sweet shortcakes belong under pastries, mooncakes under the festival foods of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the jianbing and roujiamo sold in the street under street snacks.
Wheat Foods is the class for foods made from wheat flour in the chapter on the Cuisine. It gathers the staples that are steamed, wrapped or griddled: steamed buns, dumplings and wontons, and the various flatbreads. The turn of wheat from whole-grain cooking to milled flour is where it begins; noodles are covered under Noodles and pastries under Pastries & Snacks.
The stone mill came first, and leavened foods and the methods for flatbreads followed.
In the Warring States period the rotary stone mill appeared and wheat began to shift from whole-grain cooking to milled flour; in the Han it spread gradually.
In the Western Jin, He Zeng would not eat a steamed cake unless it split in a cross on top, which shows that leavened wheat food had reached elite tables.
The Northern Wei Qimin yaoshu has a chapter on bing that records a leavening starter and recipes for white cakes, baked cakes and marrow cakes. Quoting the earlier Food Canon, the book gives a way to make the starter from sour fermented water and non-glutinous rice porridge, which shows that a starter was already in use to raise dough; the marrow-cake recipe uses an oven for foreign-style cakes. The Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital of the Song also records foreign-style cakes.
Later, steamed buns, dumplings and wontons, and flatbreads each became a class of their own, with names and methods that differ from place to place.
A wheat workshop: a millstone grinds grain into flour, dough is kneaded and pulled into noodles on a board, pots boil the strands, and stacked steamers puff with mantou buns, the art of wheat in full display. Milling infrastructure and yeast biology reshaping regional grain consumption frameworks.
Early in the morning, in the kitchen, a family was making wheat foods. The father pushed the stone mill, grains of wheat fell through the eye of the stone, the millstone turned, and fine white flour ran out from the gap.
The mother mixed part of the flour into dough, covered it with a cloth and set it in a warm place. The child asked: what is it doing? The mother said: it is rising. After a while the dough had swelled, and she shaped it into a round ball and put it in the steamer, and it became a mantou. The rest of the flour she mixed with cold water, rolled into skins, wrapped a filling in them and pinched them into dumplings; one more piece she rolled into a flat cake and griddled in the pan.
The kitchen was full of steam, and the child stood by with eyes on the three foods, not knowing which to eat before the others.
Once the stone mill appeared, wheat shifted from whole-grain cooking to milled flour. By the Western Jin leavened wheat food was already on elite tables, and the Northern Wei Qimin yaoshu records a leavening starter in its chapter on bing. Buns are mostly leavened and then steamed, dumplings and wontons wrap a filling in a dough skin and are boiled, steamed or pan-fried, and flatbreads are mostly griddled, baked or fried. (This is an illustrative story, not a historical account.)