93 replies to this topic

[anzu]

... No morning in Suzhou would be complete without the long queues outside our local dumpling and baozi purveyors...

How does it come about that these are known as (o-)manju in Japan, given the obvious word resemblance for shumai, gyouza (?) & others ?

(o-)manju comes from the Chinese word mantou. （饅頭）
In China, the meaning changed at some point so that mantou now means only unfilled steamed buns.

Baozi （包子）(bao means "to fill") now refer to the filled buns.

It's actually quite an interesting issue, as there are lots of related words on other languages which would seem to indicate when the food and/or the word was borrowed from China. Manti In Turkish and Mandu in Korean, for example, but words using bao or pao in Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand.

[sherrid]

In Australia, we eat similar to USA or UK for breakfast - however, we have this wonderful salty yeast extract spread that is very common to have on buttered toast. It's very salty, so it's usually spread thinly.

[Jenni]

^^^
Cue violent fights over marmite versus vegemite....


*ahem*go marmite!*ahem*

[annachan]

When I die and go to heaven, as I surely will, there will be dim sum carts wheeling up to my bed every morning.

Be careful what you wish for. I stayed with friends for a while in Hong Kong who ate dim sum for breakfast every day, and though it was great for the first few days, it actually got to be a bit too much (something I had never imagined possible with dim sum up until that moment). I started longing for something plainer, like a nice bowl of rice porridge...

Dim sum everyday for breakfast? That's way too much. I have a feeling it's because you're a visitor and your host just wanted to spoil you. My family owned a few dim sum places when we're kids in Hong Kong. Even we didn't have dim sum for breakfast everyday....just every Sunday.

As a kid, I remember we actually had bread quite a lot for breakfast. Toast or some sort of filled buns (i.e. hot dog buns) or sandwich (egg was a popular filling). It was convenient as we rush off to school, along with a box of Vitasoy.

When we go back to Hong Kong now, we actually have the time to enjoy breakfast. I'm partial to congee and macaroni in soup. Fried dough, rice roll and soy sauce fried noodles are great as well. Pineapple bun with butter and various toasts are also popular items, though I like them more for snacks.