MUZIChinese Matrix
At a dusk street stall, scallion flatbreads brown on a griddle, fried cakes sizzle in a pan and steamers puff white steam, while a vendor ladles glutinous rice balls into a bowl and children wait holding bowls.
Pastries, sweets and candied fruit, street snacks, rice snacks, morning-tea dim sum, congee and thick soups: mostly small portions eaten between meals or with tea, and an important part of everyday eating in every region, made mainly from local rice, wheat and other grains, with shapes and flavors that vary from place to place.
PastriesCakes and pastries of every kind, baked, steamed or fried.
Candies and Preserved FruitCandies, and preserved fruit steeped in sugar or honey.
Street SnacksSnacks sold in portions on streets and at markets.
Rice SnacksCakes and snacks made from rice and rice flour.
Dim SumThe small dishes served with tea in a tea house.
Congee and Thick SoupsCongee boiled from rice, and thick soups.Pastries and snacks are the foods outside the main meal: small in portion, carefully made, and often to be had on the street, in a teahouse or at home. This class covers pastries; candies and preserved fruit; street snacks; rice snacks; morning-tea dim sum; and congee and thick soups. Local pastries and snacks are mostly made from local rice, wheat and other grains, and their shape and flavour differ from place to place. The same food can be a staple, a pastry and a snack at once, depending on how it is eaten: a staple in a main meal, dim sum in a teahouse, a snack at a street stall.
Their history can be found in records of the markets. The Sanbuzu chapter of the Yantie lun says cooked foods were laid out everywhere in the markets, showing that ready-made food was sold in Han markets. The Tang list of dishes for Wei Juyuan's shaowei feast, preserved in Tao Gu's Qingyi lu of the Northern Song, names many cakes and pastries. Night-market snacks flourished in Northern Song Bianjing, and the Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital lists many of those sold at the Zhou Bridge night market and elsewhere.
Pastries and snacks are classed by form and occasion, not by raw material: pastries are shaped by baking, steaming or frying, candies and preserved fruit by sugar-preserving, street snacks by being made and sold on the spot, rice snacks by having rice as the main material, morning-tea dim sum by its tie to tea, and congee and thick soups by their liquid. A food that fits several is placed under each of them and not recorded twice.
Today pastries and snacks are still found everywhere on streets, in teahouses and at home, and differences in ingredients and method have made many local flavours. The types of noodles, buns, dumplings and flatbreads are classed elsewhere; this class deals with types, and particular pastries, snacks and long-established houses are recorded separately as entries.
Pastries & Snacks is the class for small-portion foods in the chapter on the Cuisine. It covers pastries, candies and preserved fruit, street snacks, rice snacks, morning-tea dim sum, and congee and thick soups, mostly small portions eaten between meals or with tea, and an important part of everyday eating in every region. Local pastries and snacks are mostly made from local rice, wheat and other grains, and their shape and flavour differ from place to place. The types of noodles, buns, dumplings and flatbreads are classed elsewhere.
Pastries & Snacks records classes of small-portion foods, not a single pastry.
The Sanbuzu chapter of the Yantie lun says cooked foods were laid out everywhere in the markets, showing that ready-made food was sold in Han markets. What it speaks of is cooked food, not yet pastries as such, but it shows that buying ready-made food in the market was an ordinary thing.
Around 709 Wei Juyuan's shaowei feast list, preserved in Tao Gu's Qingyi lu of the Northern Song, names many cakes, so Tang banquet menus already listed a good number of pastries.
Night-market snacks flourished in Northern Song Bianjing: the Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital lists many of those sold at the Zhou Bridge night market and elsewhere, and records that the pancake shops of the city were split into oil-pancake and sesame-pancake shops, showing that the street at night was a place to eat snacks and that making and selling pancakes had become a regular trade.
Guangzhou's two-li houses appeared in the Xianfeng and Tongzhi reigns of the Qing as the forerunners of the morning-tea houses and were named for a tea charge of only two li; the habit of one pot of tea with two pieces dates from the late Qing, so that pastries and tea came to be joined.
Afterwards each region's pastries and snacks developed their own ingredients and methods and became part of daily eating.
At a night market a small stall sold only one thing. Someone asked the owner: why not sell a few more?
The owner said: the people who come to me come for this one mouthful.
The man stood at the stall a while and watched a child take a small portion and eat it with great care, then lick the bottom of the bowl before being led away. He thought: so small a portion, and yet people walk here for it. The owner added another ladle and handed it to the next person, saying: when you make a thing often you make it well, and you stop thinking about the rest.
The stall next door sold something else, and its owner also made only that one thing. The two stalls stood three paces apart, each with its own customers, neither taking the other's. When the market closed late at night the two owners glanced at each other and each gave a nod.
Later the stall owner grew old and handed the stall to his son. The son asked: shall we add something new? He thought and said: first make this one better than I did, and then we will speak of the rest.
Once someone from the next street asked the owner whether selling the same thing every day did not bore him. He said: the people who come are different every day, and each time is the first time for the one who eats, so how could I tire of it.
Snacks are small in portion yet are remembered for being single-minded. This class groups such small foods by type so that people can find them and see how the small foods of different places differ without having to travel everywhere to learn what types there are. (This is an illustrative story, not a historical account.)
