The wisdom of the ancients, the origin of mantou

Mantou is now a staple food for many Chinese people, especially northern families who love to eat noodles. Mantou is produced frequently. The method of making mantou is simple and convenient. First, the flour is mixed with water, and then after fermentation, it is kneaded into a dough, and then put into a steamer to cook. The fragrant mantou is ready to be out of the pot.

, mantou

Legend has it that during the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu, encountered rushing rivers while suppressing the rebellion of the Southern Yan and Di, in order to pass the river smoothly, Zhuge Liang led the people to worship the river god. In ancient sacrifices to the river god, it was common to sacrifice a living person. In order to avoid sacrificing innocent people, Zhuge Liang ordered people to knead dough into the shape of a human head, and fill it with beef and lamb to replace the human head sacrifice. This is the origin of mantou.

Therefore, ancient people's mantou had meat filling. So why do modern people's mantou no longer have meat filling? This is also about the Song Dynasty.

Mantou's change, is about the foodie boom of the Song Dynasty

As the Song Dynasty is a period of unprecedented economic prosperity in ancient China, when people's material life developed rapidly, especially in the food area, it was like a hundred flowers blooming, and many delicacies that modern people admired were born in the Song Dynasty or occurred in the Song Dynasty.

Now, when you mention traditional Chinese food, most of it is related to the Song Dynasty. They either originated in the Song Dynasty or underwent two major changes in the Song Dynasty. Mantou is one of them.

Before the mantou had meat fillings, mainly beef and lamb, but this single flavor could not satisfy the pursuit of the people of the Song Dynasty. Therefore, in the Song Dynasty, there appeared new types of fillings such as fresh filling mantou, variegated color flower mantou, bamboo meat mantou, pork mantou, crab yellow mantou, stuffed mantou and sugar meat mantou (from 'Dream Liang Lu' by Wu Zimu).

As the types of fillings became more diverse, the names of the foods also became more varied. This is similar to how merchants today often come up with new names to attract customers. In 'Qingyi Tu' describing life in the Northern Song Dynasty, there were mentions of 'Green Lotus Baozi' sold at the Zhangshoumen Gate of Bianjing.

From the name 'Green Lotus Baozi' , it is likely that it is filled with a cooling lotus leaf. During this period, the fillings of mantou were mainly meat, while the fillings of baozi were mainly vegetarian. There was no strict distinction between the two, and they were occasionally used together or mixed together. However, it can be said for sure that in the Northern Song Dynasty, people called mantou with fillings.

How did the meat filling disappear? The sad story behind it

After the Jingkang Incident (1126-1127), the Southern Song Dynasty lost a large amount of land in the north, especially pastures, and coupled with years of war, trade between the Southern Song Dynasty and nomadic tribes in the north also became infrequent. This led to a sharp reduction in the supply of beef and mutton, which were the main meats at the time. Lamb was the second after beef and then pork.

In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, the number of domestic pigs was still small, and it was not possible to increase the yield to replace mutton. So the whole country was short of meat, and even restaurants didn't have much meat to make fillings. Mantou, as one of the main foods of the people, could not be done without filling, so the shopkeepers had to reduce the amount of filling, and even stopped filling it.

During this period, Song people who fled to the south after the Jingkang Incident still missed the happy life in the Northern Song Dynasty. The 'Dream Liang Lu' and 'Qingyi Tu' written during this period are examples of this. Writers expressed their longing for the prosperous city life of the past through writing, and ordinary people expressed their nostalgia for the fallen dynasty and their deceased relatives during the Jingkang Incident through the lack of filling mantou.

Although there was no filling, there was a lot of sorrow and mixed feelings

At the same time, vegetarian baozi began to be popular. With the decline of meat-filled mantou, the latter became known as baozi, and the former was called mantou. This process was gradual and repeated. For example, some people in the south still call meat-filled mantou mantou, which can also be found as one of the reasons for the loss of the mantou filling.

After the Mongols established the Yuan Dynasty, they did not fully accept Chinese culture, and they still retained many nomadic ethnic customs and lifestyles, including their dietary culture. Therefore, the rulers and nobles of the Yuan Dynasty often mixed up mantou and baozi, and it was difficult to distinguish which had fillings and what kind of fillings they had.

So, to facilitate things, people may have called the meat-free mantou mantou, and the meat-filled ones baozi. This hypothesis can also explain why some people in the south today still call meat-filled mantou mantou.

Without any filling, the people of the Southern Song Dynasty in the late years, Guangdong and Fujian regions were the last places where Song Dynasty survivors gathered. After the collapse of the Song Dynasty, these descendants continued to inherit some customs and cultures.

Reference materials:

Dream Liang Lu (Song) by Wu Zimu

Qingyi Tu (Song) by Tao Yu