The Original Place of Beijing's Traditional Food

Okay...Continue my third blog, the original place of most traditional food in Beijing---Hu Tong!

Here is a picture of Hu Tong:



Hu tong are a type of narrow streets or alleys, commonly associated with northern Chinese cities, most prominently the capital city of China, Beijing.

In Beijing, Hu Tong are formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. Many neighborhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another.



Nowadays, a large number of Beijing Hu Tongs were demolished to make way for new roads and buildings. Therefore, many Hu Tongs have been designated as protected. In history, Hu Tongs were first established in the Yuan dynasty (1206~1341) and then expanded in the Ming (1368~1628) and Qing(1644~1908) dynasties.



Hu Tongs represets an important cultural element of Beijing. Furthermore, it reflects the culture of Beijinger, or people who living and grow up in Beijing. The Hu Tongs are the core of Old Beijing,  Thanks for six dynasties and Beijing's long history, we can visit these magnificent cultural places.

As I mentioned in the first blog, the traditional food of Beijing came from many places, it combines cultures from different regions. In the past, some Hu Tong was the main road of entering the royal building, or Forbidden City.





More interesting facts:

Beijing has was divided by many gates, such as Xizhimen(West Gate), Dongzhimen(East Gate), Chaoyangmen, Xuanwumen, Tiananmen etc. These gates were created for defending from enemies in the past time  (Some of the gates can not be translated because its so awkward)




Each Hu tongs has a name, some were created by the views nearby, some were created by the business of location.

Here are some Hu Tong I chose:

The Hu Tongs near the City Gates: Inner Xizhimen Hu Tong, Outer Dongzhimen Hu Tong.



Named by markets and business, such as Yangshi Hu Tong, which is literally means sheep market. Or Yizi Hu Tong, Yizi is a local term for soap.


Named by temples, such as Guanyinsi Hu Tong, Guanyinsi is the Kuan-yin Temple in English.



Named by local feathres, such as Liushu Hu Tong. Liushu means willow, or you can call it willow trees Well Hu Tong.



Some were named by famous people, because they are or were living in this Hu Tong.
Such as Qibaishi Hu Tong. Qibaishi, a famous artist in China.













Most of Hu Tongs are straight, but some of the Hu Tong was named by its turns. Such as Jiudaowan Hu Tong, which turns nine times inside the Hu Tong. In Chinese, 九道弯 literally means Nine turns.



In the next blog, I will introduce the next genre of the traditional food in Beijing, the sticky food.
















AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HUNGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Work Cited:
Picture of Beijing Hu Tong and The artist Qibaishi

The introduction of Beijing Hu Tong

The traditional food in Beijing --- Steam and Cook

As I said on the last blog, there are several kinds of traditional food in Beijing. Today I'm going to talk about The Steam and Cook genre of the traditional food in Beijing.


Based on my opinion, I think the symbol of the steam and cook food of traditional food in Beijing is Dumplings or 饺子 in Chinese.

















As you can see, there are variety types of dumplings. And as I said on the previous blog, each traditional food has their different stories and meaning behind it. For Dumplings, it was looks like Chinese money in the past. It represent if you eat a lot at the last day of the previous year and eat at the first day of this year, then you will get more money.

This is the picture of Chinese currency in the past.

Pretty shiny huh?



Making dumpling was not easy for the first time people, here is a video of how to make dumplings (English version) click here.


Beside of the dumplings, there are more steam and cook food for traditional food in Beijing. There are:

This is called Royal Wotou (Steamed Corn Bun)

Le Cha (noodles)

Flower Cake (The most beautiful hand craft cake I had ever seen in China)

Basically, the steam and cook food mostly were made by wheat flour, but most of them are made by hand.

In the next blog, I will introduce the Hu Tong, which is a old street most locate in Beijing. It is the original place of Old Beijing, it is still exist nowadays, because it is a symbol of both Old Beijing Culture and the tradition food of Beijing.

See you next time!!!
😋



Work Cited:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BklMAHxFaow

Traditional Food in Beijing

Traditional food of Beijing has a variety of kinds, it is a symbol of Beijing. It combines many culture from different minorities, such as Han, Hui, Mongolia etc. There are about 300 different kinds of traditional food in Beijing. 

The traditional food in Beijing had a special way of spread process. Some of them were made by people, some of them were selected by the emperor as the palace food, which is only serve for the emperor. Finally, it disseminated back to the people again, and spread all over the China.

Beijing has more than 3,000 years history, it is the center of politic, economic and culture. Marco Polo praise that Beijing is the most flourishing city in 13th century. Beijing is one of the six old city of China, especially after the formation of Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasty, people from all minority came here, and they also brought their food which can represent their own culture. 

Here is a video of the traditional food of Beijing. 

The traditional food of Beijing is the result of each specific history. Each of its tastes, style, or even the way of eating, all combined the inside meaning and the appreciation of beauty of people who live in Beijing. It is not only the most important part of Beijing's culture, but it is also an absolutely necessary part of the living behavior of people in traditional Beijing.

There are 5 kinds of the traditional food in Beijing, stewing, branded, fired and roast, sticky, liquid type and food with meat. (My stomach keep complaining when I'm writing this blog....)

The traditional food of Beijing with its cheap value and suited with both refined and popular as its main features. It became the bridge between people's feeling.

These are famous traditional food in Beijing that I like:

豌豆黄  wandouhuang(Steamed Pea Flour Cake)

驴打滚儿 lvdaguner(Glutinous Rice Rolls Stuffed with Red Bean Paste) 

  

焦圈 jiaoquan(Fried Ring)

豆汁儿 douzhier(Sour Soybean milk)

炸酱面(Noodles with Fried Bean and Meat Sauce)

糖火烧(Sweetened Baked Wheaten Cake)

Definitions from various on-line dictionaries.

Work Cited

Video from

Beijing Street Food - Chinese Traditional Crepe 北京煎饼 Jian Bing

Articles from

 The introduction of history for the traditional food in Beijing

 The original of the traditional food in Beijing