MUZIChinese Matrix
Roasting · FFET10423
Oven cooking is used for both meat and flatbreads; Beijing roast duck has closed-oven and hanging-oven methods.
Cooking food by dry heat over charcoal or a fire, or in an oven.
Kao includes cooking food with hot air in an enclosed space and the hanging-oven method used for Beijing roast duck. Beijing roast duck has closed-oven and hanging-oven methods: the former uses heat stored in the oven walls after the fire is extinguished, while the latter suspends ducks in an oven with a live fruitwood fire. Shaobing and guokui from Jingzhou, Hubei, also have oven-baked forms.
Kao uses a heat source to cook food and brown its surface. Oven cooking can use hot air in an enclosed space or a hanging oven, and the foods cooked include meat and flatbreads.1,2
The marrow-cake method in volume nine of an ancient agricultural text describes cooking cakes in a hu bing oven, but the chapter gives no date for the book, so it cannot establish an earliest year. The passage attests to oven cooking rather than an early use of the word kao; the related early term is zhi.6
Beijing roast duck has closed-oven and hanging-oven methods. Regional shaobing varieties include those of Huangqiao in Jiangsu, Zhoucun in Shandong, and Jinyun in Zhejiang. Jingzhou guokui in Hubei is baked in a cylindrical charcoal oven, while Shaanxi and Sichuan versions include forms cooked in a shallow pan.3,4,5
For Beijing closed-oven duck, sorghum stalks heat the oven before the fire is extinguished; heat retained in the walls cooks the duck without turning. Hanging-oven duck is suspended over a live fruitwood fire and repositioned with a long pole. Shaobing can be baked in a large clay oven with an open top.3,4
Oven cooking browns the surface of food. The two Beijing duck methods have different effects: closed ovens retain moisture for tender meat, while hanging ovens render fat to produce crisp skin.3
Oven cooking is used for Beijing roast duck and regional foods such as shaobing and Jingzhou guokui, taking different forms according to the food and the oven.3,4,5
A tale about shaobing says that Ban Chao brought this baked bread back from the Western Regions during the Eastern Han. It was then called hu bing and was later renamed. This is a tale about the bread and does not establish the origin of oven cooking.
Told in: Retold as a legend about shaobing; no specific place of circulation or independent historical confirmation is given.
