{"id":2628,"date":"2011-12-21T10:59:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T15:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=2628"},"modified":"2011-12-21T11:07:50","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T16:07:50","slug":"breakfast-the-chinese-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/breakfast-the-chinese-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Breakfast the Chinese Way (\u4e2d\u5f0f\u65e9\u996d)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When one thinks of Chinese cuisine, one usually imagines a mixture of chopped meats, veggies and starches flash-cooked in oil and served alongside rice or noodles. This is traditional Han Chinese food, served all throughout the day, breakfast, lunch and dinner–reliable as the sunrise. Yet, as a foreigner living in China, what are your non-Han options, outside of the wok? Waking up hungry and finding a plate of rice is wholly unsatisfying. What about Chinese breakfast?<\/p>\n

Over the years and as the pace of Chinese daily lives has quickened to a crescendo amidst modernization, Chinese \u5feb\u9910 (ku\u00e0i<\/a> c\u0101n<\/a>) or fast food has evolved to meet those high-paced demands, most notably in the breakfast sector.In liu of modernization, the Chinese developed a couple of awesome breakfast snacks that are cheap, convenient and delicious.<\/p>\n

Most Chinese breakfast snacks you can get for about 3-8 \u5757 and most are conviently found on the street sides from mobile snack carts. They also decided that chopsticks were incompatible with the “get up and go” breakfast culture of China, and as a result, most breakfast food is eaten by hand (usually out of a plastic bag).<\/p>\n

All you have to do is walk out of your apartment, find a street cart and start waving your money around. Just remember that it’s “first come, first serve”, which doesn’t hold the same meaning in Chinese: it means the first person to muscle their way to the front of the line gets breakfast first.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples of popular Chinese breakfast found on the street:<\/p>\n

Mantou (\u9992\u5934):<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mantou or \u9992\u5934 (m\u00e1n<\/a>\u00a0tou), is the quintessential Chinese breakfast for someone on the go.\u00a0They are typically eaten as a staple in northern parts of China where wheat, rather than rice, is grown. They are made with milled\u00a0wheat\u00a0flour,\u00a0water\u00a0and\u00a0leavening agents. In size and texture, they range from 4\u00a0cm, soft and fluffy in the most elegant\u00a0restaurants, to over 15\u00a0cm. They are firm and very calorically dense, making them the ideal “working man’s\u00a0lunch”. There isn’t really a crust, as the exterior of the \u9992\u5934 is softer than western buns.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, mantou has provided a\u00a0staple of carbohydrates\u00a0for the northern Chinese diet, where rice filled diets aren’t so prevalent. Restaurant\u00a0mantou\u00a0are often smaller and more delicate and can be further manipulated, for example, by\u00a0deep-frying\u00a0and dipping in sweetened\u00a0condensed milk. Some even are split in half, oiled and heavily spiced so they can be served as \u9992\u5934\u4e32\uff01<\/p>\n

Ji\u0101nb\u01d0ng (\u714e\u997c)<\/strong><\/p>\n

My absolute favorite breakfast treat is ji\u0101nb\u01d0ng or \u714e\u997c\uff0cwhich translates literally as “fried biscuit”. A better translation, in my opinion, is “Chinese omelet” or “Chinese crepe”. It’s a simple breakfast meal, but quite filling as it incorporates bread, egg and vegetables. Basically the “crepe” batter is poured on a circular, flat skillet and flipped over. Then egg, meat, vegetables and a dry “biscuit” (it’s actually more like rice cracker) is sandwiched on top, and then the edges of the crepe are folded over and cut in half. The result is a square-like layering of savory, spicy and crunchy. Here’s a video of \u714e\u997c being made by Sasha:<\/p>\n