Mantou

Mantou(traditional Chinese:饅頭;simplified Chinese:馒头), often referred to as aChinese steamed bun, is a white and soft type ofsteamed breadorbunpopular in northernChina.Folk etymology connects the namemantouto a tale aboutZhuge Liang.
Mantouare typically eaten as astaple foodin northern parts of China wherewheat, rather thanrice, is grown. They are made with milledwheat flour, water andleavening agents. In size and texture, they range from 4 centimeters (1.6 in), soft and fluffy in the most elegant restaurants, to over 15 centimeters (5.9 in), firm and dense for the working man's lunch. Aswhite flour, being more heavily processed, was once more expensive, whitemantouwere something of a luxury in preindustrial China.
Traditionally,mantou,bing, and wheatnoodleswere the staplecarbohydratesof the northern Chinese diet, analogous to rice, which forms the mainstay of the southern Chinese diet. They are also known in the south but are often served as street food or in restaurants, rather than as a staple or home cooking. Restaurantmantouare often smaller and more delicate and can be further manipulated, for example, bydeep fryingand dipping in sweetenedcondensed milk. Colors or flavors may be added with other ingredients frombrown sugartofood coloringin mantou making. For special occasions,mantouare sometimes kneaded into various shapes inShanxi,Shaanxi, andShandong.
Precooked mantou are commonly sold in the frozen section ofAsian supermarkets, ready for preparation bysteamingor heating in themicrowave oven.
A similar food, but with a savory or sweet filling inside, isbaozi.Mantouis the older word, and in some regions—such as theJiangnan regionof China, and Korea—mantou(or the equivalent local reading of the word) can describe both the filled and unfilled buns. In Japan, the equivalent local reading of the Chinese word (manjū) refers only to filled buns.
Mantou may have originated in theQin Stateof theZhou dynastyduring the reign ofKing Zhaoxiang(307 BCE – 250 BCE).Mantou as well as other wheat derived foodstuffs such as noodles,ShaobingandBaozibecame popular during theHan dynasty(206 BCE – 206 CE) and collectively were known as餅;bǐng; mantou was distinguished as蒸餅;zhēngbǐngor籠餅;lóngbǐng.During theWestern Jin dynasty(265–316 CE),Shu Xi(束皙) wrote about steamed cakes (蒸餅;zhēngbǐng) in his "Ode to boiled cakes" (湯餅賦;tāngbǐngfù), written around 300 CE. He first called themmantou(曼頭;màntóu). In this book, it was advised to eat this in a banquet during the approach of spring.
The Mongols are thought to have taken the filled (baozi) style ofmantouto many countries of Central and East Asia about the beginning of theYuan dynastyin the 13th century. The namemantouis cognate tomantyandmantı; these are filleddumplingsinTurkish,Uzbek,(mantu)cuisines.
A popular Chinese legend relates that the namemantouactually originated from thehomophonousword 蠻頭mántóu, which literally means "barbarian's head".
The legend was set in theThree Kingdoms period(220–280 CE) whenZhuge Liang, thechancellorof the state ofShu Han, led the Shu army ona campaignagainstNanmanforces in the southern lands of Shu, which correspond to roughly present-dayYunnan, China, and northernMyanmar.
After subduing the Nanman kingMeng Huo, Zhuge Liang led the army back to Shu, but met a swift-flowing river which defied all attempts to cross it. A barbarian lord informed him that the river was raging due to the spirits of the enemies(bamboo army) he killed using fire previously and to appease them, in olden days, the barbarians would sacrifice 50 men and throw their heads into the river to appease the river deity and allow them to cross. As Zhuge Liang did not want to cause any more of his men to lose their lives, he ordered his men to slaughter the livestock the army brought along, and fill their meat into buns shaped roughly like human heads (round with a flat base). The buns were then thrown into the river. After a successful crossing, he named the bun "barbarian's head" (mántóu, 蠻頭, which evolved into the modern 饅頭).Another version of the story relates back to Zhuge Liang's southern campaign when he instructed that his soldiers who had fallen sick fromdiarrheaand other illnesses in the swampy region be fed with steamed buns with meat or sweet fillings.
Northern Chinese mantou is denser and more substantial, while Southern Chinese mantou is lighter and fluffier, reflecting regional culinary preferences and local ingredients.
Prior to theSong dynasty(960–1279), the wordmantoumeant both filled and unfilled buns.The termbaoziarose in the Song dynasty to indicate filled buns only.As a result,mantougradually came to indicate only unfilled buns inMandarinand somevarieties of Chinese.
In many areas, however,mantoustill retains its meaning of filled buns. In theJiangnanregion whereWu Chineseis spoken, it usually means both filled and unfilled buns. InShanxi, whereJin Chineseis spoken, unfilled buns are often calledmomo(饃饃), which is simply the character for "steamed bun". The namemomospread toTibetandNepaland usually now refers to filled buns or dumplings.
The namemantouis cognate tomantyandManti; these are filled dumplings inArmenian,Persian,Uzbek,andPakistani(mantu, originated from Turko-Mongol immigrants)cuisines. In Japan,manjū(饅頭) usually indicates filled buns, which traditionally contain bean paste or minced meat-vegetable mixture (nikuman肉まん "meatmanjū").Filledmantouare calledsiyopawinPhilippine,ultimately derived from Chineseshāobāo(燒包). In Thailand they servesalapao(ซาลาเปา), a filledmantou.In Korea,mandu(Korean:만두;Hanja:饅頭)can refer to bothbaozi(飽子) orjiaozi(餃子). InMongolian cuisine, thebuuzandmantyormantuare steamed dumplings,a steamed variation is said to have led to the Koreanmandu.In Singapore and Malaysia,chili crabis commonly served with a fried version ofmantou.InNauruandPapua New Guinea,mantouare known asmãju.