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Afghan-style mantu (Image credit: Wikipedia)
One of our family’s favorite dishes is mantu. Mantu are steamed dumplings filled with minced lamb meat and served with a spicy lentil sauce and yoghurt. Mantu not only make a delicious meal but also offer a fun family activity. To prepare the thin dough sheets, the mince filling, and the lentil sauce, to stuff, fold, and steam the dumplings, and to get the whole assemblage together requires all hands on deck: it is a family affair that easily takes up a few hours.
Because mantu are time-consuming to prepare, it’s not a regular food in our house but we like it well enough that we cook it as a treat for special occasions a few times a year – we’ve recently had it to celebrate a birthday, a graduation, and an anniversary. This suggests that mantu play a pretty important role in our family culture.
Despite this importance, I had never tasted mantu or even heard of them until I was well into my thirties. In other words, mantu are not an ancient family tradition for us but a relatively recent addition to our culture.
Encountering mantu in Sydney
I first encountered mantu on the menu of an Afghan restaurant in Sydney – the excellent Khaybar in Auburn that always deserves a shout-out. Afghan restaurants are today an inextricable part of Sydney’s highly diverse food scene. Indeed, its multicultural cuisine is always a bragging point in Sydney destination marketing. As as a tourist article gushes: “From Hungarian to Taiwanese, Ethiopian to Chilean, Sydney’s multicultural food scene is as diverse as it is delicious.”
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Turkish-style mantu (Image credit: Wikipedia)
Most often diversity is indexed through reference to a specific place overseas – the cuisine of a nation or city. For instance, on the Macquarie University Wallumattagal campus alone, our food options include outlets that self-identify as offering Istanbul, Korean, Lanzhou, Malaysian, Mexican, and Việtnamese foods; and there is even the option to have food that is “a French love affair with Vietnamese flavors.”
These restaurant self-descriptions point to the fact that we conceive diverse cuisine as additive: many different national cuisines exist side by side.
Outside marketing discourses, however, cuisines are rarely kept neatly separate, as my family’s adoption of mantu demonstrates.
Who owns mantu?
As I first encountered mantu in an Afghan restaurant, I believed them to be an Afghan dish. When I said so during a party conversation, I was strongly corrected by a man who claimed that mantu are a Turkish dish (and should be called “manti”).
A subsequent internet search informed me that manti (Манты) are a Russian dish.
And when I turned to discuss the matter with my students, I was told that mantu (馒头) was a Chinese dish. Not only that but I was also kindly advised that I was using the term wrong: mantu were steamed buns. The dish I was describing was supposed to be called “baozi” (包子).
Chinese mantu (Image credit: Wikipedia)
It seems that several groups lay claim to the dish; and can, in fact, not even agree what the dish that goes under this name is. Do some of them have to be wrong or can they all be right?
Food chains
Food has been a key site for language and culture contact since time immemorial. The earliest trade probably was in food stuffs. Barter economies center on food. Some of the most universal words are food terms, as I previously discussed with reference to “chocolate.”
Beyond basic necessity, food has also travelled as a marker of identity, out of curiosity, and as a luxury good. The consumption of exotic foods has long served as a marker of distinction for the rich and powerful. In his study of foodscapes in the 19th century Indian Ocean world, Hoogervorst (2018), for instance, introduces us to an Acehnese sultan with a penchant for Persian sweets and to Mughal court culture, where professional cooks with expertise in West, Central, and South Asian cooking were considered indispensable to the display of courtly sophistication.
In short, food travels readily across languages and cultures. In the process, both the dishes and their terms undergo modification.
Mantu probably originated in China, where the term initially may have been the general word for filled and unfilled buns and dumplings. Its meaning contracted over time although in some Chinese dialects it may apparently still refer to a filled dumpling.
The Mongols picked up the dish and word from the Chinese, liked it, and took it with them to spread it across central Asia all the way to eastern Europe. Along the way, the precise details of the recipe have passed through the hands of countless cooks and so changed countless times.
The way we make and like mantu in my family is one such variety. To think of the language and culture chains and webs through which mantu arrived with us is both exhilarating and humbling: via an Afghan restaurant in Sydney our food connects us all the way back to the Mongol invasions and ancient China.
Do you have a favorite food with an interesting story of linguistic and cultural connections across time and space?
Reference
Hoogervorst, T. (2018). Sailors, Tailors, Cooks, and Crooks: On Loanwords and Neglected Lives in Indian Ocean Ports. Itinerario, 42(3), 516-548.
Related content
Piller, Ingrid. (2021). Thinking language with chocolate. Language on the Move. https://www.languageonthemove.com/thinking-language-with-chocolate/
Wilczek-Watson, Marta. (2019). Eating, othering and bonding. Language on the Move. https://www.languageonthemove.com/eating-othering-and-bonding/
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Dr. Piller, reading about mantu instantly transported me to Bangladesh, my home. While our foods might differ, the emotions tied to them are strikingly similar. Your mantu story reminds me of our ‘pithas’, simple rice cakes made during special times with family. Just as you have moments with mantu, we cherish our times with pithas. It fascinates me how dishes like mantu travel and change. I’ve begun to wonder about the untold stories behind many of our beloved meals. To me, eating is much more than just food on a plate; it’s a window into different cultures and histories. Isn’t it heartwarming how a single dish can weave so many tales from across the world? Your piece has given me a deeper appreciation for the connections we all share, celebrated through our meals.
Thanks, Ashiqur, for your reflections! And words are little windows into the lives of others …
This article was an interesting read. It made me think about all the food that I have been enjoying so far without really knowing the history behind it. One of the desserts that I love to eat in my home country, Bangladesh is “Halua”. Halua can be made of lentils, semolina, grated carrots or even peanuts. My favourite kind is carrot halwa. The carrots are roasted in butter and then cooked with water, sugar and milk. Spices such as cardamoms, cinnamon are added to it to enhance the flavour. It is mostly served during religious celebrations and other special events. The origin of Halwa is from the Middle East. It is considered the oldest dessert in the Turkish cuisine. In the middle eastern countries, it is termed as “Halawa” or “Halva”. The Iranian Halva often includes rosewater along with the other ingredients. Halawa has travelled to the Indian subcontinent via Persia. In India and Pakistan, it is known as “Halwa”. This dessert is also considered a great delicacy in Balkan and European countries. The Halvas found there are often made with seeds. Thus, many versions of Halwa can be found today. Halua’s cultural and linguistic interconnection calls attention to its demand and flexibility by the various societies all around us. Adjustments has been made as per our taste to create several distinct mouthwatering recipes as it has travelled across the globe.
Thanks, Dory! In the Middle East, halwa is also served at funerals – to balance the bitterness of death or strengthen the bereaved. Do you have that custom in Bangladesh, too?
This post is quite interesting, I am from Korea and we call dumplings ‘man-du’ but they are mostly dumplings that resemble the ‘gyoza dumplings’ from Japan. I believe that food is one of the most fundamental concepts when human migration or exchange between cultures happens. The ‘mandu’ dumplings may have their origins in China more than 4,000 years ago but the concept as well as the taste and outer appearance may be similar due to the two countries being so close together and with frequent trade. There are many methods of preparing a dumpling and ways to cook them as well, across different regions and provinces, I can’t even imagine how many dumplings there would be in total. When it comes to Korean cuisine, there is a lot of influence from China and Japan due to the countries being so close together. There is even a type of Chinese food that does not exist in China, similar to Panda Express in The United States.
Thank you for this wonderful post!
This article reminds me of a Bangladeshi traditional dessert called “shemai”. Shemai is a very simple dessert in the form of Vermicelli.
Vermicelli is similar to spaghetti but usually, it looks thinner than spaghetti. So shemai is made of roasted vermicelli noodles, milk, sugar, nuts, ghee, and cardamon depend on the region. In Bangladesh, it is a very popular dessert during Muslim’s big festivals like EID. Even in most of the house’s Eid will now be complete without it to start their day. Though it is popular in Eid but it also consumed by whole year. I always thought shemai only consumed by Bangladeshi people. Later I came to know that its also popular in Bangladesh’s neighbor country India. In India, they called it “Seviyan kheer”. Though the making process are same but the name is different. There is another name of shemai is ‘’paysasam” which I heard a lot as a popular dessert of Tamil a state of India. But before I didn’t know that it’s exactly like our traditional dessert shemai. Recently I came to know about this from my friend, and I was surprised by knowing that.
It is also popular in Pakistan, Afghanistan and some parts of Asia. In Afghanistan it’s called “sheer kurma”. So see I simple desert like vermicelli pudding made linguistic and cultural connections from distance places.
Thanks, Mamduha! Sounds so yummy and great to learn a bit more about the occasions when a particular food is eaten. Have you seen Arslan’s comment below about this dessert in Pakistan?
I have almost the same experience when I came to know the origin of a local sweet dish in Pakistan called “Sewiya”. In Pakistan, we love sharing this yummy sweet dish, especially during religious occasions. It feels super local to us because I never questioned that whether it is some foreign import. After reading this article, I got curious about its origins. To my surprise, it is a bit of a mystery because it is called “sewiya” in Pakistan and a similar-sounding ‘sever’ in India. But there are other versions of this dish exist with slight recipe tweaks. Like in Italian, they call it “vermicelli”. Moreover, food historians say this “seviyan” dish might have roots in the Arab world. They think Arab traders brought it to the Delhi court, just like how they might have introduced Italian pasta. So, it is like a culinary journey with twists and turns.
This dish closely resembles the historic journey of mantu.
Thanks, Arslan, for bringing up another yummy sweet! There’s an interesting article here about it, which traces the name back to the Sanskrit word for “noodle”: https://www.dawn.com/news/1195079
Thank you so much Professor for leaving the link of this article. It will be helpful to understand and relate with this dish.
This article reminds me of a Filipino dish called “adobo”.
Growing up in a Chinese household in the Philippines, I always thought that it was a form of Chinese food. However, during a history class in high school, my teacher talked about the influence of Spanish colonialization into Filipino culture and he mentioned how Filipinos were introduced to new ingredients and cooking methods by Spanish invaders. Linguistically, the word “adobo” was derived from the Spanish term “adobar” which means “to marinate or season”. Since then, Filipinos adapted it and adobo has changed over time. Various regions in the Philippines developed their own distinctive versions. Each region uses local ingredients and flavors to adorn their adobo recipe.
I realize that my family has in fact joined this sort of “cultural adobo revolution” by re-inventing the dish with Chinese elements such as adding star anise and boiled eggs into the mix, whereas the most common traditional Filipino adobo is actually more of a simple dish of pork or chicken that’s been marinated in soy sauce. This reflects how food actually showcased history and diversity in my experience: from the linguistic origin of Spanish, to Filipino recipes, and (in my household,) Chinese integration.
Thanks for the interesting story! It motivated me to look up adobo and I discovered that only the name is Spanish but the dish itself is indigenous to the Philippines. The phenomenon has been called “lexical imperialism” (see https://pepper.ph/blog/adobo-history)
One of my favourite foods is Japanese food, Sushi (寿司). When I was younger, I didn’t like it due to the specific taste of vinegar and fishy taste. However, during my internship in Fukuoka Japan I was able to experience the authentic taste of Sushi in Japanese Sushi restaurant. Even in Australia, a great many Japanese Sushi chef established their own Japanese authentic Sushi restaurant and attract people coming, picking it up and tasting it. As like we know, Sushi is one of the well-known Japanese food. You can assume that based on their name as well. The word ‘Sushi’ comes from the Japanese term ‘Su’ which means vinegar and ‘Shi’ which means rice. However, interestingly, the origin of Sushi is reported not from Japan but Southeast Asia. The sushi that ancient people enjoyed was quite different from modernised one. The ancient people used ferment fish with rice for perservation and it passed to Japanese people around 1300 years ago through China and Korea. At the end of eighteenth century, Japanese people began to form the current Sushi we enjoyed and then it spreaded to all province of Japan and all grassroots in Japan. In short, the history of modernised Sushi is just around 200 years despite its own history started at the ancient era.
Regarding its linguistic features, Kanji characters of Sushi is ‘寿司’ though. It doesn’t indicate vinegar and rice even though its pronunciation refers to them. The character ‘寿(ju)’ means ‘longevity’ and the character ‘司’ means ‘expert’. It is weird that it used in different kanji from its meaning even if Japanese language system already has kanji characters which indicate ‘酢(Sui: Acidic)’ and ‘飯(Han: Rice). The reason why it is different is that its characters were given to a word after it was formed. For the first time Japanese people have Sushi as food, they didn’t have alphabet to indicate it at that time. However, in this point where Japanese people put the characters which means ‘longevity and ‘expert’, I can see that they wish their longevity by eating healthy food, Sushi.
Thanks so much for this informative account! How interesting about the different spellings!
This article reminded me of one of my favorite foods from my home country Poland, pierogi. Pierogi are also known as varenyky or vareniki in Ukraine and Russia or as filled dumplings in most English speaking countries. The origins of this dish are really unknown but it is suggested they could have originated from Asia, with some sources connecting them to the mantou mentioned in this article. Others suggest they were introduced by Saint Hyacinth of Poland (our inofficial patron of pierogi) who brought it from the Far East.
There are many fillings that are commonly used for this dish, some of the more popular ones being mashed potatoes, quark, cabbage and mushrooms, sauerkraut or meat. I most enjoy the classic pierogi with cabbage and mushrooms. Dessert versions with sweetened quark or fresh fruit are extremely tasty as well. I love the ones with blueberries or plum.
Althrough I rarely make pierogi myself as it is a rather time consuming process, it will always be a dish close to my heart that reminds me of my childhood.
OMG, there is a patron saint for pierogi?! Can you tell us more about St Hyacinth?
I have to admit that I had not known about it before today either, haha. The legend says that he came into contact with pierogi in Kyiv and became so fascinated with their flavor that he brought them to Poland.
That’s my kind of saint 😉
A traditional family Christmas dish made with my grandmother was baccala. Baccala means dried, salted cod in Italian. We hand rolled and hand cut pasta, making fettucine like noodles. I’ve fond memories of family fun and flour everywhere. The sauce simmered for days and grandma continually tasted it and adjusted the seasoning. It was a delicious savoury and sweet tomato sauce with walnuts, raisons and spices including nutmeg and cinnamon. I have never tasted anything like it. In my family, like in many cultures, love and food are closely connected.
Traditionally, baccala was at Christmas in Italy for the Feast of Seven Fishes. Historically, salted, dried cod was traded during medieval times by Vikings brought from the Atlantic seas where it was abundant. It was a main protein source, air dried in harsh, salty winds. It became a valued trade item in the Mediterranean and around the world. It’s now a scarce, valued, comfort food.
In Portuguese it’s bacalhau, bacalao in Spanish, morue salee in French, bakaliaros in Greek, haberdine in middle English and Newfoundland, klippfisch in German, Klipfisk in Danish and Swedish, lutefisk in Norwegian, salterfiskur in Icelandic, makayabu in Central & East Africa and saltfish in the Caribbean.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/italian-english/baccala
https://www.delallo.com/blog/baccala-recipes/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_and_salted_cod
Thank you, Alvida, for reminding us of the time and effort it takes to bring food on the table. We easily forget the long actual material food chains. Respect and admiration to everyone involved in the process of bringing food on our table!
In Vietnam, one of my family favorite dishes is called “Hoành Thánh”. We usually eat this on rainy days or at the weekend. Sometimes, my mother and I make it at home.
This dish actually belongs to Chinese cuisine. A numerous Chinese migrated to Southern Vietnam from the beginning of 20th century and soon their cuisine had been introduced widely. Travelling to Ho Chi Minh city, especially in district 5, 6, 8, 10 and district 11, people can easily find any food stall or restaurant that serves “Hoành Thánh” as these districts are well-known for the high number of Chinese-Vietnamese population. “Hoành Thánh” is a translated word in Southern Vietnamese for “wonton” (traditional Chinese: 餛飩; simplified Chinese: 馄饨; pinyin: húntun). In the North of Vietnam, people call it “Vằn Thắn”. “Wonton” is a type of Chinese dumpling that goes with soup and sometimes, it also goes with egg noodles and “char siu” (“Char siu” is Cantonese–style of barbecued pork). Another version of “wonton” is fried “wonton” which is sold in school canteens or food stalls.
I think I will try this dish when I come to visit the China Town in Haymarket next month.
Sounds so yummy!
In our interconnected world, the sharing of food, ingredients, cooking methods, and even dish names has become more prevalent, resulting in fascinating linguistic connections. In my opinion, I refer to this phenomenon as the variety of language translations and interpretations. Even though we respect the culture and cuisine, when it comes to products that we introduce to global friends, we cannot just describe the whole ingredients within a dish. And in order to make the dish more famous, we translate names of food dished into a version that we think is acceptable and able to pronounce for international friends to order it and remember it. Like the example of “wonton” I had mentioned. As if Vietnamese people do not adapt the translated version of “wonton” into their menu, it is hard to pronounce and order a dish that they do not own the origin. So, “hoanh thanh” or “wonton” could be considered as additional labels for “import products” besides the Chinese characters on packaging. I found this based on my experience in shopping in Vietnam and here, in Australia. For import products, it is required to have additional labels on products so customers can understand what the product contains. For instance, Australia imports Vietnamese vegan spring rolls and other types of non-vegan spring rolls, without the labels in English, it is difficult for non-Vietnamese speakers to buy this famous dish from Vietnam or end up buying the one they could not assume. I believe the resulting in linguistic connections will beautify the languages we are having in this world while still able to connect globally.
Good observation, Iris! If you can’t read the label on a food items, it’s just scary and best to stay away …
One of my favorite dishes and I used to have it daily for breakfast is bread. Vietnamese bread is usually shaped 10-20cm long and is made of flour as the main ingredient. Buyers can choose the type of topping according to their preferences
I thought only Vietnam had this type of bread until I talked to a French tourist who came to Vietnam to travel. He said bread is also called “baguette” and comes from France. In addition, the smaller one is called “flûte” and the thinner one is called “ficelle”. After trying to find out, I know that he is right. French bread is said to have originated from Viennese bread (Austria) in the mid-19th century and only appeared in Vietnam around 1958. However, after being introduced to Vietnam instead of just eating with butter and jam, the Vietnamese baguette is mixed with many other toppings such as pâté, meat, cotton scrub, pickles, and herbs… and sold first at a mobile trolley.
In 1970, thanks to the introduction of a closed oven in Japan, Vietnamese bread was made crispy, hollow, and more spongy – a characteristic feature of this type of bread. After that, the Vietnamese introduced banh mi to Americans, then spread to other countries such as England, France, Germany, and Australia. Vietnamese bread was then praised by chef Anthony Bourdain in 2009. On this famous momentum, two years later, the Oxford Dictionary recognized “banh mi” as an independent dish, affirming that it is a dish from Vietnam. Now for me, the term “bread” is very broad and I would love to use “baguette” for French bread, and “banh mi” for Vietnamese one.
Hi Melissa, have you tried banh mi on campus? At Taste Baguette, the language and culture contact has come full circle and the shop advertises itself as “A French love affair with Vietnamese flavours”
Hi Ingrid, I have tried banh mi there and it’s quite good. But actually, I like banh mi in Canley Vale more because they have “nem chua” topping. It’s so yummy ^^
Handi’s Pulao is a beloved dish from Bangladesh, particularly popular in Kolkata’s inner regions. Its name, “Handi,” stems from the clay pot used for cooking. In ancient times, food was often prepared and served in such pots, giving rise to this delicacy.
This delightful mix of flavors combines beef, rice, spices, local ghee (clarified butter), and other ingredients. Each region, like Rangpur, Bogra, Kushtia, and Sylhet, adds its unique twist to the recipe, creating diverse variations. The dish’s intriguing story lies in its connection to the Arabic language and culture, which dates back to ancient trade routes in the Bengal region. Arabic was used among merchants, influencing both culinary traditions and commerce language.
Handi’s Pulao continues to be cherished for its rich cultural heritage and historical trade interactions. Savoring a plate of this aromatic pulao evokes the mingling of linguistic and cultural ties from distant lands, preserved in the delicious symphony of flavors.
Thanks, Abdulla! It’s fascinating how signature dishes like handi pulao are special in each place for insiders and all the same for outsiders …
After reading the article,
I immediately thought of the cuisine of Vietnam as I’m Vietnamese. We are widely known for a crazy-population for noodles since they play a crucial part in our daily meals. Our most famous kind of noodles is probably Phở – a beef noodle soup. In English we have only a word “noodle” to generally describe “noodle”. However, my country surprisingly has a variety names of types of “noodle” such as Bún Bò, Bánh Canh, Hủ Tiếu, Mì Quảng and so on.
Noodles were first imported into Vietnam during the East Han Dynasty of China. Our ancestors borrowed the technique for making noodles and made them in a plenty of delectable ways. Hence, our noodles come in a difference of shapes, sizes, colors, textures, ingredients, geographic originality and the way it is served which contribute to its diversity.
Have you ever tried any Vietnamese noodles except Phở? If not, I highly recommend Bún Bò Huế, another type of beef noodle soup called “Hue beef noodle soup,” and it is named after Hue City, which served as Vietnam’s imperial capital for a long time. With “Bun Bo Hue,” the noodle is thicker, larger, and more slippery, and the broth is hotter. Whenever I eat Bún Bò Huế, it comes better with a small bowl of sauce to dip all the meat in. The sauce includes chili sauce, minced fried chili, fish sauce and a slide of lemon with the ratio 1:1:2:1 respectively (it’s my own recipe but you can give it a try).
Thanks for the sauce recipe! I’ll give it a try for sure. As I learned from Chloe’s post below, Bun Bo Hue is known as “spicy pho” in Australia – which adds a whole other layer of complexity – or should I say simplification? – to language and culture connections through food …
When exploring Vietnamese culinary culture, one might immediately think of the well-known dish, Pho, which has garnered worldwide acclaim. However, I would like to shift our focus to another fascinating aspect of Vietnamese street food that is intertwined with Vietnamese superstitions.
Balut – fertilized egg duck , also known as “hot vit lon” in Vietnam, is believed to have the power to turn around misfortune. The word “lon” in Vietnamese translates to “to reverse,” giving rise to the superstition that consuming balut can reverse bad luck. Additionally, it is customary to crush the eggshells after eating balut, sealing off any lingering negative energy and safeguarding the eater.
The tradition of eating balut has historical origins in China, where it was initially practiced to prolong the shelf life of eggs before refrigerators were invented. This delicacy was known as “maodan,” which translates to “feathered” or “hairy egg” due to the visible feathers when cooked. During the sixteenth century, Chinese traders introduced the tradition of making incubated eggs to the Philippines, giving birth to the Filipino term “balut,” meaning “wrapped” or “covered while in Cambodia, it is renowned as “phog tea khon.” The key distinction between these duck egg products lies in the duration of the incubation process.
“Hot vit lon” (Balut)’s consumption holds deep historical and cultural significance across various Asian countries, where it continues to be cherished as a delicacy and an integral part of local traditions and beliefs. Its unique blend of taste and cultural importance makes balut a fascinating street food enjoyed and celebrated by many.
Alejandria, M.C.P., De Vergara, T.I.M. & Colmenar, K.P.M. The authentic balut: history, culture, and economy of a Philippine food icon. J. Ethn. Food 6, 16 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-019-0020-8
What a fascinating tradition! Thank you for sharing!
What a wonderful article about the food chain connected to linguistic and cultural diversities!
As a Mongolian, I am impressed to hear that our ancestors were an inseparable part of this huge chain.
Mongolian traditional dishes are always related to meat and different kinds of buuz, or dumplings (бууз). These buuz generally have the same ingredients, but the making process is different. My favorite one is bansh (Банш) which is a smaller version of a dumpling. However, in our country, bansh is served with hot milk tea. It gives the dumplings more flavor and a juicier texture. Our elders always recommend this cuisine during the cold and harsh winter. In other words, this dish strengthens our immune system and cures some kinds of illnesses, such as colds, fatigue, and constipation. Moreover, there are also different variations of dumpling in my community. It is Zalkhuu Buuz, which means lazy dumpling. My mother used to explain to me that if you feel lazy and want to eat dumplings, you should eat lazy dumplings. Although it has the same recipe, it is making progress is alternative. This kind of cuisine is way bigger than the regular ones. Interestingly, Russia, Poland, and some Eastern European countries have the same name for dumplings: lazy dumpling.
Lastly, the more I know about cultural similarity between the nations, the more I realize how excited and thrilled I am to learn about language and cultural connection.
Thank you, Sonya! I’d never heard about lazy dumplings before but how perfect to have a special dish for when you are feeling lazy 🙂
Thank you for sharing an interesting story about mantu and its actually very amazing to observe that how languages and cultures are tangled along history and affect each other constantly! My favourite food is “Biriyani” which is basically a flavourful rice dish that typically consists of fragrant, long-grain Basmati rice cooked with aromatic spices, tender meat (such as chicken, mutton, or beef).The term “Biriyani” itself has its roots in the Persian word “birian,” which means “fried before cooking” or “roasted.” Over time, the dish evolved and adapted to local tastes and ingredients, incorporating various regional influences.Bengali Biriyani is known for its subtle flavours and the use of aromatic spices like saffron and kewra water, which give it a different taste and aroma. It is traditionally prepared in a “dum ” style, where the meat and rice are cooked together in a sealed pot over a slow fire, allowing the flavours to blend perfectly.The dish’s popularity has transcended borders and reached other parts of the world. As a result, variations of Biriyani can be found in places like the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and many others, reflecting the cultural connections of the Bangladeshi and South Asian communities across time and space.The popularity of Biriyani showcases how fast the culinary traditions can travel across regions , making it a delightful and unifying dish cherished by people from diverse backgrounds.
Thanks, Nurunnhar, for these beautiful reflections on the globalization of biryani!
It is a great pleasure to read your post and comments by people all over the worlds.
The way food can be associated with a particular place reminds me of a short “ca dao” (folk poem) in my Vietnamese culture:
“Anh đi anh nhớ quê nhà
Nhớ canh rau muống nhớ cà dầm tương
Nhớ ai dãi nắng dầm sương
Nhớ ai tát nước bên đường hôm mai”
This means when a person are far from his/her village, city or country, the memories of the dear place can be enormously brought back by even seemingly unremarkable dishes (boiled morning glory and fermented eggplants). Interestingly, the imagine of food precedes the one of beloved people in my forefathers’ order of recollection and nostalgia.
I was born and bred in a place where family members never use the word “love”. In other words, “I love you, mom” and “I miss you, dad” can never be directly heard in my tiny village. Food is their love language. When we love someone, we cook great dishes for them. And if there are scrumptious food, we will never eat it all. We will wait until we can share it with our darlings.
This is beautiful, Thi Thuy! Thanks for sharing! In German – where expressions of love have also only become common fairly recently – we have a saying “Love goes through the stomach” 🙂
My very favorite food is a small Chinese snack, BiLuo. It has been widely spread since the Tang Dynasty. However, it was actually introduced to China from the West, which translates to the Persian word “pilaw”, a small, thin-crusted snack with a filling and a translucent skin that allows you to see the color of the ingredients inside. It has a skin similar to that of a spring roll, and is covered with cherry pulp and jam, then fried in a pan. BiLuo is actually a dessert, but just like the northern part of China loves sweet sticky rice dumplings, while the southern part of China loves savory sticky rice dumplings with meat filling. With the development of time, nowadays, BiLuo not only has cherry filling, but also appears in the flavor of crabmeat, meat floss and so on.
Thanks, Yulan! That sounds really interesting, but I can’t quite imagine what it looks like. Do you have a link? Or a recommendation for a place where it is sold in Sydney?
Very interesting to observe how languages and cultures are tangled along history and affect each other on a constant basis! How every culture gets to add/omit its own understanding of the meaning and words amazes me. This made me think of saffron which is known to have originated in my country, Iran. We call it “Zaferan” now which shows how it has changed over time traveling over countries. As I remember from my search on this, Saffron has been cultivated and used by nations bridging all continents, cultures, and civilizations. However, it was originally called زَرپَران (zarparān) in person which literally means “golden leaves”. Our neighbour Arabic countries used it as زَعْفَرَان (za’farān). If you wonder how that Z changed to S in the English form, you must know the word “saffron” immediately stems from the Latin word safranum via the 12th-century Old French term safran.
Thanks, Arghavan! In German, there is a poem that helps memorize the basic ingredients of cake, and the last line of the poem goes “saffron makes the cake yellow.” As a child that was a huge mystery for me because I’d never seen any saffron and imagined that “yellow making” to happen in all kinds of wild ways 😉 … now, I’m a big fan of sholezard and the way it makes rice pudding yellow 🙂
This story is absolutely fascinating! I’m hooked on it. I would like to present one of my all-time favorite dishes, cơm tấm, also known as “Vietnamese broken rice”. Its name reflects the culinary heritage of Vietnam, with “cơm” meaning “cooked rice” and “tấm” referring to a broken rice grain.
Cơm tấm was first developed as a cheap dish for the working class using broken rice that had been thrown out by colonial masters during the French colonisation. Cơm tấm has evolved into a delectable blend, featuring Vietnamese pickled vegetables, a fish sauce dressing, and a selection of savory dishes such as tender grilled pork, shredded pork skin, and steamed egg meatloaf. Customers are invited to mix and match these delightful flavors based on their personal preferences.
The famous saying “Sai Gon people’s love for Cơm Tấm is akin to Ha Noi people’ fondness for Phở” is frequently used to compare cơm tấm to Sai Gon as a culinary icon in modern times.
Thank you for this interesting story! Food not only connects but also borders identities – I enjoyed learning of the association of pho with Hanoi and cơm tấm with Saigon. Seems pho is much more complex than the simple association with Vietnam that’s prevalent in Australia (see also Chloe’s post about spicy pho below)
One day, my friend in uni asked me about “Spicy Pho”- a well-known Vietnamese noodle soup in Sydney but at that time I had no ideas about it. She told me that it was her go to bowl of comfort though she rarely had spicy food. Out of curiosity, I asked her for a visit to that Vietnamese restaurant. Raising my eyebrows, it was Bun Bo Hue, a signature dish of my homeland in central Vietnam, Hue. Many people think Bun Bo Hue and Pho are the same except the spicier soup of Bun Bo Hue, so they called it Spicy Pho. However, unlike the flat-shape noodles of ubiquitous Pho, Bun Bo Hue uses the thin and round-shape ones. Besides, the “soul” of this soup is sliced beef, crab balls, lemongrass and fermented fish sauce, which are never found in Pho. The top tip for making this outstanding soup is Hue people’s special recipe to make the aroma of lemongrass bolder, which overwhelms the strong smell of fermented fish sauce.
Back to the story when I first tried Bun Bo Hue in Sydney, it was not the smell of lemongrass but fermented fish sauce that directly surprised me. I guess it is influenced by the cooking style of Vietnamese people from the South. They used thicker noodles than the ones I have tried for the best part of 25 years of my life in Hue. However, it was still super yummy.
Although some special things of the original Bun Bo Hue were missing, I am still grateful that a traditional dish of my homeland is valued by other regions in Vietnam and Vietnamese people are still trying to spread our prideworthy cuisines to the world. Food without borders, cheers!
Thanks, Chloe! To food without borders indeed! Before I read your comment I had no idea that “spicy pho” was a different dish. Makes sense, of course, in a context where few people speak Vietnamese (well) …
Hello Ingrid,
I was reading the blog post and it reminded me of a very simple dish which a lot of people around the world have everyday. According to Britannica ( https://www.britannica.com/plant/rice ), roughly one-half of the world population is wholly dependent upon it as a staple food. It is rice, plain and simple and can be eaten with anything. It is the most modifiable dish. Some people, especially children, like to have it without any side dishes. And while some have it with one or more side dishes, others cook it with additional ingredients from the start. It is used to make a variety of food items: biryani, porridge, sushi, fried rice etc.
Since humans have been cultivating rice for a long time and in so many countries, there has been arguments on where it originates from. But the earliest archeological evidence was found in China. Now, many people from various countries including China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Japan, Pakistan, America, Australia have included it in their daily meals.
I was slightly disappointed to see that no one mentioned it, so I did. Hope you will enjoy reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed reading yours.
~NBT.
Thanks, NBT. You are right to acknowledge and celebrate the basics. Life is impossible without the staples.
I wanted to write more honestly, I have some fun memories regarding rice and all but the 200 word limit really limited me to the bare minimum. It’s so difficult!
You are always welcome to share fun memories 🙂
It’s just when we were kids, the rice grain we used was brought from our crop fields in our village hometown. So after bringing them we used to filter them by hand and throw away all black stones. The women in our family used to sit in a half moon or circle and filter the grains using a “kula”. Apologies for not knowing the English word for it. And one my uncles brought smaller ones for me and my cousin. So even we used to do it for fun. As back then we didn’t have YouTube and wireless internet, doing this was our form of entertainment. Ah I forgot to mention that I grew up in a joint/extended family. So all of us stayed in the same building, just on different floors. Me and my cousin also helped in peeling small boiled potatoes. It was during the potato season when new potatoes were brought home from our village. Although as soon as me and my cousin successfully peeled a potato we used to throw it in our mouth before anyone could notice. Thinking back now those were some very good memories. Our childhood was really different from the childhood of the kids nowadays. Ours seems more meaningful and fulfilling to me. Ah, enough going down the memory lane. I hope you can feel some of the warmth I did as a child while reading it.
Thank you, NBT, for sharing your precious childhood memories! I also grew up on a farm and remember the first potatoes from the harvest (which we roasted in a bonfire right on the field 😋
Oh my! That sounds enchanting and very delicious. 😋
Thank you for sharing such a precious memory with us. 💜
The mention of mentu bring me to dumplings. They are very similar, both need to prepare the thin dough sheets, the mince filling, and the sauce (most of the time, we use a mixture of vinegar and sesame oil), to stuff, fold…but I want to introduce another food that is similar to dumplings—Tangyuan(also called sweet dumplings). Actually, in China, people in the north eat dumplings(salty) for the New Year, while people in the south eat tangyuan. I am from South China, so I prefer tangyuan to dumplings.
Tangyuan is made of glutinous rice with various fillings (mostly sweet). It is like mochi in Japan. In my hometown, tangyuan symbolizes family unity, completeness, and happiness, which make us to eat tangyuan in every New Year. I always think my mother when I eat the most traditional tangyuan filled with black sesame.
Thanks, Lily! How sweet that you mention the association of tangyuan with your mother. Food is one of the most powerful reminders of home …
As an American ESL instructor in South Korea, this article’s examination of cuisine, language, and culture was insightful. I like the birthday cake ritual, which is ancient yet still developing.
Ancient cultures invented cake. First cakes were honey-sweetened breads. Ancient Egyptians used crushed grains and honey to make the earliest cakes and decorated them for special occasions. However, many ancient civilizations had their own versions of cakes, including the Hittites, Babylonians, and Hebrews to name a few.
In ancient Greece, their cake tradition spread to Western Europe, where it was modernized with a delicious cake foundation and candles. The phrase is English, although it derives from the old Norse word “Kaka.” Many languages have borrowed it, like Korea, where it’s called 생일 케이크 (saeng-il ke-ik).
Interestingly, birthday cakes vary like mantu. ‘Rice cake’ or ‘tteok’, a traditional birthday cake in South Korea, predates the Western birthday cake. The English loanword “cake” now includes this traditional food, demonstrating language and culture’s plasticity.
Experiencing these cultural shifts firsthand, whether it’s American birthday traditions that Korean culture has fully adapted but often with a Korean twist or flair with rice cakes or singing the “happy birthday song” in Korean and the original English version, offers valuable insight into our shared human experiences, all wrapped up in the simple act of sharing food.
In short, the cake’s journey and birthday celebration underscores the fascinating ways food and culture intertwine, reshaping dishes as they cross geographical and cultural boundaries.
Thanks, Aaron! How fascinating that the birthday cake and tteok tradition were so similar and are now converging. Does it make a statement which type of cake you choose? Like, does tteok signal tradition and cake modernity, or similar? Or is the choice just a matter of taste?
It’s a pleasure to discuss these topics with you! The choice between a traditional tteok cake and a more Western-style birthday cake can indeed signal different things, much like any food choice can be a reflection of personal, cultural, or societal values.
In some instances, choosing tteok might signal a desire to honor Korean tradition and heritage. Tteok has a long history in Korea and is deeply intertwined with various cultural rituals and celebrations, so its inclusion can be seen as a nod towards maintaining these cultural roots.
On the other hand, choosing a Western-style birthday cake could signal openness towards global influences and modernity. As Western-style cakes have become more common in Korea, they can be seen as part of a larger globalizing trend. However, it’s important to remember that these interpretations are not absolute. They can vary greatly depending on individual and social contexts.
In many cases, the choice could be primarily driven by personal taste preferences, dietary restrictions, or even convenience. For instance, Western-style cakes might be more readily available in certain areas, or some people might simply prefer their taste and texture over that of tteok.
In essence, the choice between tteok and a Western-style cake for a birthday celebration is a wonderful example of how food choices can intersect with cultural identity, personal preferences, and social trends.
“Banh u” (pyramid sticky rice cake) is a popular dish on Lunar May 5 (also called Mid-year Festival or Worm-killing Day) as we believe that fermented glutinous rice helps us to kill “insects” inside the body. But upon digging deeper, I learned that this celebration originates in China. In China, the festival is called Duanwu or Dragon Boat Festival, created to commemorate Qu Yuan – a Chinese poet and minister who lived during the Warring States period of ancient China. They also eat “banh u” on this holiday, but in China, they call them “zongzi” (粽子) or simply “zong.”
As it diffused to other regions of Asia over many centuries, “zongzi” became known by various names in different languages and cultures, including “nom chang” in Cambodia, “machang” in the Philippines, “bacang” in Indonesia, … “Zongzi” is often known as “Chinese tamales” in some areas of the United States.
If you look at the outside, these cakes look very similar in design and size, but in reality, the filling inside will be slightly different in each country to suit the taste of each culture.
Thanks, Hao! I’m curious about the “deworming” – does banh u actually have germ-killing properties or is the idea that it is spiritually cleansing?
Hi. First of all Thank You for sharing your food story.
I am from India, basically known for spices. But now I would like to share something about my favorite sweet which is named Jalebi. Jalebi is famous is India, mostly Southern part of India. But its origin is in Iran. Mostly this jalebi is served after food in any kind of occasions like, Marriages, Baptism or any other function. Why is it famous for is because of its shape. It’s a kind of circular shape but the batter is cris-crossed here and there and sometimes it is pretzel shaped based on the places.
The Jalebi is mostly made up of Maida batter and adds food color in it and pour in a different manner to the oil. When it becomes crispy we take it from the oil and put in sugar syrup. So the Jalebi will become juicy inside and crispy outside.
But its amazing to know that the name of this dessert is different in most of the countries . Like Jalebi is called as Mshabek or Zulabiya in Arab Countries. I firstly believe that Jalebi is totally and Indian dish, but later I come to know that it was invented on Iran. My brain took few times to store that truth. Anyways where ever be its origin is! It’s my favorite dessert of all time
Thank You
Thank you, Rocky! Appreciate your mouth-watering mention of jalebi. The Iranian version of the sweet – zoolbia – is one of my favorites, too. In contrast to jalebi it is a not quite so sweet and colorful 😋
My favourite food hummus, plays a crucial role in my diet. Several countries claim it as “their” dish, typically made from chickpeas and Tahini.
With the growing vegan trend in Germany, hummus is seen as a modern and flexible food option. I’m drawn to it due to my interest in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine, influenced by my fascination for these regions.
In English, the word “hummus” is commonly used, while in Hebrew, Turkish or other contexts, it is spelled differently. It can be neutral or masculine. The pronunciation can vary and in some countries like Germany, different versions exist.
The Syrian refugee migration to Germany has further influenced our cuisine, and established the consumption of Hummus even more. The consumption can also be traced back to Mediterranean food’s influence in Germany through the “guest worker” movement.
Hummus can be enjoyed in variations, served with Pita bread, oil, or even pesto. Labhne and Zata’ar are popular accompaniments from different Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries and are also claimed by different cuisines.
Nevertheless, the mode of consumption changed. Germans often eat it with carrots, in Döner, or on black bread as an alternative to butter.
Thank you, Carla, for this detailed account of hummus in Germany and the fusion of cuisines. Reminds me of a food chain in the UAE, which sells “German Döner Kebab” (https://www.germandonerkebab.com) – amazing to see that in some parts of the world “döner” are now coded “German” – or cultural appropriation?
Thanks Dr. Piller for the interesting insights into the German Döner industry! As so many people have varying understandings when it comes to cultural appropriation, it is difficult for me to give an answer to that question. What I can say is that the origin of the Word “Döner” comes from dönmek (“to turn” or “to rotate”) and that the Greek Gyros, which has some similarities, has the same name origin, as γύρος/ gyros means to ‘circle’ or ‘turn’. This example shows that we need to broaden our view when it comes to cultural appropriation, as it is still contested where some word origins acutally come from.
It is interesting to note that cultural entanglements and linked globalization, that we mentioned often, such as language contact situations related to Australia’s colonial history, could be perceived in nuances in each of our class presentations as well.
The link between food, language, and globalization can also be seen in current conflicts, surrounding cultural heritage and “food ownership”, as mentioned in the comment.
The complex nature of different actors surrounding food and language can be also perceived in the currently escalating Palestine-Israel conflict. Most probably will the origin and naming of dishes like hummus be re-examined in the long term, as the conflict might strengthens the will of ownership, inheritance, and linkage to products like hummus by both parties.
The recent boycotts of Israeli food products and brands like McDonald’s, have added a new level in food-related conflicts. As the food chain can be linked to Zionism, callings for support of Arab restaurants increase.
I could have never expected this level of food related conflicts, that not only highlight the influences of culture, food and ownership, but also the rising international influence in conflicts, as Israeli stocks decreased through these international boycotts.
Thanks, Carla! It’s hard to watch the unfolding horror, where the only victor is death …
What a fascinating article! In Mongolia, the one filled with meat is called “Mantuun buuz”, while the steamed bun without meat is named “Mantuu”.
I would like to share one of my traditional cuisines “Buuz” which is bit similar to the food that you wrote about here. The main difference is self-raised flour is used to make the “Mantuu” and plain flour is utilized for “Buuz”. It is steamed dumpling filled with minced lamb or beef which flavoured with some salt, pepper, onions and garlics. Many studies reveals that the “Buuz” is originated from China, as baozi and it transferred to Mongolia over 300 years ago. Nevertheless, the main alternative is that Chinese and Korean dumplings are often filled with lots of vegetables and pork.
We prepare a huge number of dumplings during the most popular traditional festivals such as Tsagaan sar, the Lunar New Year. All the relatives visit the oldest one’s house and do the greeting ceremony to show the respect for the elders. Afterwards, we all eat the “Buuz” with a great variety of vegetable salads as well as traditional milk tea.
Thank you, Undraa, for another fascinating account of the intimate relationship between food and culture!
Your story brings me a nostalgia between linguistic and cultural bonds. Mantu reminds me of ‘sticky rice’ or glutinous rice from my childhood. I was born in a Thai-Laotian family, so sticky rice (“Khao Niow”) is part of our identity and is well-represented the collectivism culture among Laotians and north-eastern Thais. We were mainly farmers, so it helped us to stay full longer than normal rice. Linguistically, sticky rice becomes associated with fullness for us. Moreover, it was easier to carry around and could be kept for days outside the fridge. We always circled around food and started off with savoury and sweet sticky rice accompanied with endless list of shared mains. I recalled dipping it in a soft-boiled egg yolk or ripened mango whenever I needed to rush off to play.
The word glutinous may deceive you as it doesn’t really contain gluten – only starch. It just means that the rice is glue-like. We include sticky rice in every religious offering, ritual, and tradition. It carries the cultural and religious values that connect family and friends together from the past to present with a similar concept of mantu.
That is such a beautiful explanation! Thank you!
Interesting story!! Koreans also enjoy mantu and have a variety of dishes featuring it. I’d like to introduce one of my favorite food, tteokguk. In Korea, family members come together and enjoy tteokguk on New Year’s Day, known as “Seollal”. Tteokguk is a traditional Korean dish that has special significance. It is a soup made with sliced rice cakes, beef broth, and various topping like sliced eggs, kim (dried seaweed), chopped spring onions. One interesting Korean custom related with tteokguk is that when we eat a bowl of tteokguk on Seollal, we gain a year in age. When I was a child, I ate one more bowl of tteokguk to be older than my big sister. Recently, I have discovered that Japan has a similar custom. On New Year’s Day, Japanese have “Ozoni” as their first meal. One of the essential ingredients of ozone is mochi, sticky rice cake with various form such as round cake, a flat, and rectangular piece. Like Koreans, Japanese believe that when they eat mochi in ozoni, they become one year older. It is interesting to see how two different cultures share a similar belief and tradition regarding their New Year’s food.
Thanks, Yeon, for sharing this important cultural aspect of your favorite dish! Food not only nourishes our bodies but our souls, too!
A decade ago, I was selected for an exchange student program to Beijing, China. For 6 months, I learned Chinese, English, and French. During the Mid-Autumn holiday, Chinese Thanksgiving, my Chinese friends, other Korean exchange students and I went on a short trip to the Great Wall. Having been exhausted from 3-hour trekking, above all things, we were starved. At the end of the trekking course, we found a small restaurant. Koreans including me were excited when we saw Zhajiangmian on the menu. Zhajiangmian was served. We looked at each other sharing bewildered looks. For me, a Korean’s palate, it was much saltier and lighter black (not jet-black). Moreover, it seemed less stir-fried. Zhajiangmian is called Jajangmyeon in Korea. It is one of the most popular Korean Chinese dishes. Chinese Zhajiangmian first landed in Incheon, Korea by workers from the Shandong province in China. The very first restaurant where Jajangmyeon was brough out is Gonghwachun. Cooks in Gonghwachun changed the taste of Zhajiangmian to meet Korean people’s taste.
What’s more, Korean people eat Jajangmyeon with Danmuji, pickled radish. This side dish is actually from Japan. It is Takuang, which is named after a monk. He invented this side dish.
What’s interesting is most Korean people don’t know Danmuji is a Japanese food. Dan means ‘sweet’, mu is ‘a radish’ and ji is another name for Kimchi or any kinds of pickled vegetables. It sounds too Korean to be a foreign food I guess 🙂
If you come to Korea, I recommend you try Jajangmyeon. It is usually served with Kimchi. So, that makes you can have the harmonious combination of the tastes of the 3 Northeast Asian countries.
Reference
Antonation, M. (2016, April 12). Chinese, Korean and Japanese versions of one noodle bowl and where to find them. Westword. https://www.westword.com/restaurants/chinese-korean-and-japanese-versions-of-one-noodle-bowl-and-where-to-find-them-7794846
Thanks for the recommendation – Durian also recommended Jjajangmyeon, so will make sure to try it (but not the Chinese version 😉
When I read this article, it reminded me of a meal which is hand-rolled sushi (also called temaki) in Japan. I used to eat this with my family, almost like a party, which was a fun family activity for me. We would prepare vinegared rice, raw fish, vegetables or other fillings and enclose them in seaweed, rolling them by hand into a cone shape. This is a one of my favorite Japanese foods.
Although hand-rolled sushi is slightly different from sushi rolls, I often find sushi roll in many places in Sydney. From my perspective, sushi roll is also one of the dish which has travelled to different countries and been adopted with eating styles that are suitable to each countries. For example, in Korea, they have a dish called gimbup (or kimbup). Although there are other theories, one of the theory said that the origin of this dish was Japan. Furthermore, there is a dish called California roll, which was adopted in Canada and the United States. Both of dishes look like the same as sushi roll in Japan, but the ingredients are completely different and also the name too.
This is very interesting thing to think about that food can create new cultures and words in order to be adopted in different countries.
Thanks, Saya, for mentioning sushi. I first ate sushi when I was in my 30s and it felt very exotic then; since then it has become a mundane, everyday snack …
I would like to introduce Massaman curry, which is one of the most famous foods in Thai. I would never forget the first time I tried it since I came to Australia.
What is interesting to me is not only the amazing taste but also the name of it. According to Wikipedia and many blogs, the word Massaman itself may have been derived from the name Mosalman, which is an obsolete Persian term for ‘Muslim’. It indicates that the dish may have been greatly influenced by Muslim culture. In addition, many scholars argue that this food has originated from Malay and Indian cuisine, and was introduced to Thailand in the 17th century through Persian merchants. Hence, this food has an aromatic blend of international spices with local classic one, which may guide people to be obsessed with. In my opinion, the Massaman curry can be also such ‘French love affair with Vietnamese flavors’, as you mentioned above. It is fascinating that some languages and cultures are constantly changing, and some are preserved simultaneously. This dish can be great evidence emerging the cultural harmony with their own identity.
Thanks, Jaehoon, for introducing this fascinating story – imagine discovering a Thai food of Persian origin in Australia … quite a journey!
Hi JK, thank you for sharing about Massaman Curry. This is a really interesting find because, like you, I first tried Massaman curry after I moved to Sydney. It comes as a surprise to me that the delicious Massaman curry was potentially introduced to Thai cuisine by a Persian envoy through India, Malay, and possibly other countries in the region. It’s truly fascinating how our favourite dishes have transcended boundaries of time, space, and cultures!
Hi. First of all Thank You for sharing your food story.
I am from India, basically known for spices. But now I would like to share something about my favorite sweet which is named Jalebi. Jalebi is famous is India, mostly Southern part of India. But its origin is in Iran. Mostly this jalebi is served after food in any kind of occasions like, Marriages, Baptism or any other function. Why is it famous for is because of its shape. It’s a kind of circular shape but the batter is cris-crossed here and there and sometimes it is pretzel shaped based on the places.
The Jalebi is mostly made up of Maida batter and adds food color in it and pour in a different manner to the oil. When it becomes crispy we take it from the oil and put in sugar syrup. So the Jalebi will become juicy inside and crispy outside.
But its amazing to know that the name of this dessert is different in most of the countries . Like Jalebi is called as Mshabek or Zulabiya in Arab Countries. I firstly believe that Jalebi is totally and Indian dish, but later I come to know that it was invented on Iran. My brain took few times to store that truth. Anyways where ever be its origin is! It’s my favorite dessert of all time
Thank You
Thank you, Rocky! Appreciate your mouth-watering mention of jalebi. The Iranian version of the sweet – zoolbia – is one of my favorites, too. In contrast to jalebi it is a not quite so sweet and colorful 😋
My favorite food which has an interesting story is Curry. Curry is originally Indian food, but it has changed in many countries for many years. There are variety of curry in India, for example Sambal and Resam. They are spicy and soup type curry. In Southeast Asia, coconut milk is added to curry, and it tastes spicy as well. Japanese curry has a bit thicker constancy compared to curry in India and Southeast Asia. Not only the taste but also ingredients are different from each country, and it is connected to culture. Most Indian curry do not contain pork and beef because of religious issue. Instead of them, they use fish, chicken and vegetables. On the other hand, pork curry and beef curry are popular in Japan. That’s because Japanese people have eaten them for a long time and most of them are non-religious.
India was colonized by the UK back in 1980s. Then, Indian culture, curry, spread around the world. Curry has developed for ordinary people to eat easily. Also, people in many different countries generated new curry recipes. Although the taste is different, it is called curry and loved by people in all over the world.
Thanks, China! I love curries, too, and have always been curious about Japanese curry: is it an indigenous Japanese food that’s just called “curry” in English/in the west? Or is it a more recent addition to Japanese cuisine from India?
My favourite food is Jjajangmyeon. This dish is so popular in Korea. I am aware that this dish has originally come from China (zhajinngminn). However, when some of the Chinese moved to Korea they had changed the taste for Korean’s liking. Whenever I go to Korea out of all the other many delicious food, it is something I always look forward to eat. The taste definitely is quite different from the ones they sell here in Sydney. In Korea when people move houses, they eat jjajangmyeon. It became a tradition. When I helped a friend move houses we ate jjajangmyeon for lunch. My friend didn’t know why but it somehow just became a tradition in Korea. I am aware that there is a jjajangmyeon day in Korea. This all started when couples celebrated with their loved ones during Valentine’s Day but the ones who did not have a partner ate jjajangmyeon to comfort(?) themselves. You can see this tradition in the Korean couple match program “I AM SOLO” where when a male or female does not get picked to go on a date, the people who were not chosen will remain eating jjajangmyeon.
Thank you, Durian, for sharing this interesting account of how food is not only food but becomes associated with other meanings such as moving house or being single. I wonder whether the latter practice will ultimately make the food less yummy? Might jjajangmyeon become associated loneliness?
Oh, interesting way of thinking, but I am not too sure but I think the reason giving jjajangmyeon to those lonely people may be because it comforts them by eating something yummy? For example, when a kid cries, adults give them lollies? Or when one’s upset people tend to find ice cream to feel better!
One of my favourite comfort foods is ramen, which I always assumed was from Japan. After doing some research though, I discovered that the history of ramen is much more complex and debated than that. It is agreed upon that ramen’s origins lie in China, but Japan’s contribution to the dish is contested – some sources argue that the dish was a ‘cuisine fusion’, while others believe it to be purely Chinese. Some websites claim the noodle soup started in China, and was brought to Yokohama in Japan with the first immigrants around 400CE. Other sites ignore this history and pinpoint the birth of ramen to the early 1900s, when it rose to popularity in both China and Japan. Interestingly, ramen was known as ‘shina soba’ (‘Chinese noodles’) in Japan until the 1950s, then was replaced by ‘ramen’, which probably comes from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word ‘lamian’ (‘pulled noodles’). Ramen is strongly associated with Japan because it has become a very culturally significant dish – the four main types of ramen broth today were (allegedly) developed in four different regions of Japan, revealing how the dish has been adopted and adapted by Japanese culture.
Thanks, Natalie! Glad you got to do some research but we have to take all these origin stories with a pinch of salt – soup is a feature of most cuisines, after all; one of the most basic ways to cook … and here is a further complication: when I spent time with my teenage daughter in Germany (where Asian food is still relatively rare), she wanted to go eat ramen all the time because it reminded her of Australia (she knew it was a Japanese dish but that was still associated with Australia for her …)
That is very true! I found it interesting that something so simple as soup could be so debated about! I hadn’t considered that food can mean something culturally-significant to people for reasons other than the food’s origin (like your daughter). On reflection though, I think I do understand: whenever my family goes to Germany to see our relatives, we bring home Dr Oetker products in bulk (things like vanilla essence, pudding and rote Grütze) – not because they necessarily taste any different to what you can find in Australia, but because they remind us of our German heritage and make us feel more connected to that part of our culture.
Haha … I can confirm that the German versions of Dr Oetker products really do taste better than the versions they sell abroad 🙃
Hi, Natalie! I’ve only seen and tried the Dr Oetker frozen pizzas – they’re great! I didn’t realise they had other food products too. Interesting 🙂
After reading the post, I just realized that I have never thought about food as a concept of language and culture. For me, I really love “Phở” which is the dish I like having the most and it has a specific history. As I researched, the history of phở begins at the end of the 19th century, at the peak of French colonialism. French demand led to a greater availability of beef in Vietnam. This in turn produced a surplus of beef bones, which were used by Chinese and Vietnamese vendors to deepen and perfect the flavor of the Nam Dinh broth.
Nowadays, many people still convert about the location of Vietnam’s best “ Phở”, I still believe in each region, it has its own flavor suitable to the customer. For me, whenever I have a chance to go to the capital, I always eat lots of Phở because of the delicious taste from many kinds of beef like flank, brisket, tripe.
Thanks for sharing, Helena! What do you think of the pho on campus? 🙂 I like it, but, of course, don’t have much to compare it to …
I haven’t eaten Pho on campus yet. I will try when I have a chance, actually I don’t know where the Vietnamese restaurant in our uni…
There is Roll’d (just downstairs from where our class is); and Taste Baguette is also Vietnamese (or Vietnamese-inspired?)
One of my favourite dishes is a source of debate among Australians and New Zealander’s – the pavlova. In my family, my granny was always responsible for making the pavlova, and, until recently, it hasn’t been made much. However, as some of our French family are visiting, I made one last week to give the French relatives what I consider to be a true Aussie dessert. We have New Zealanders in our family too, and if they heard me calling it an Aussie dessert, they would disagree. The pavolva was named after Anna Pavlova, a famous Russian ballerina. Stories say that she looked so light and beautiful as she danced, that a baker was inspired to create a dessert and name it in her honour. While there is no debate as to the pavlova being named after Anna Pavlova, there is disagreement about where it was created. Whether it was thought up while she was touring Australia or New Zealand, both countries have claimed the pavlova as their own. Either way, I always think of Anna Pavlova and her beautiful dancing whenever I enjoy this sweet dessert. Maybe one day Australians and New Zealanders could learn to share it!
Thanks, Larissa! Great example of intercultural communication through food. My research team and I often get to celebrate achievements with a pavlova because our colleague Dr Loy Lising makes the best pavlova ☺️ … as you can see here: https://twitter.com/lg_on_the_move/status/1668748636287832064?s=46
Great picture! Pavlovas are perfect for celebrations 🙂
Thank you, Larissa! I really enjoyed reading your comment and debate about Pavlova’s origin.
One of my Australian friends made Pavlova for me and It was so delicious. I loved it. But, I reckoned that it is 100% Australian dessert and have never heard of its origin. Now, I will definitely ask the perspectives of one who made it when I have a chance to taste Pavlova next time.
I appreciate your story about the connection between food and society. Let me share some insights about papaya salad, also known as Somtum, which originates from the Isaan region of Thailand, where I was raised. This delicious dish has been greatly influenced by Lao cuisine. It consists of shredded green papaya, lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, and pepper. As time passed, various regions added their own twists to it. Today, Somtum has gained popularity as a street food in Thailand.
The origins of Somtum can be traced back to Lao cuisine, as there are historical connections between the Isaan region and Laos. “Som” means “sour” in both Isaan and Lao languages, referring to the dish’s taste. “Tum” indicates the process of crushing or mixing ingredients during preparation. It is believed that people from Isaan and Laos who live close to each other shared this dish through cultural exchanges and interactions with Thailand.
Thanks, Luna, for this explanation! I’ve had papaya salad in Thai restaurants and thought it was a typical Thai dish … glad to learn of its specific origin and the Laos connection.
What a cool read!
My favourite way the language about food changes is when speakers and cooks mix two things – Chicken Parmigiana or an item like curry pie. Recently while doing work experience at a school, a Japanese exchange student explained to a group of kindergartners that their favourite food is sushi. The children exclaimed at this because many of the young Australians knew what the food was, a situation different to many students even ten years ago. This situation and the article got me thinking about the journey a food like sushi took in a small amount of time in Australia. For example, in small stalls in Sydney, I’ve seen items like Sushirrito (an overstuffed sushi roll that resembles a burrito) or non-traditional ingredients like avocado or fried chicken. In the same way, your article talks about how food has been the bridge between cultures, a multicultural foodie city like Sydney is a great place for fusion dishes like the Sushirrito to come into existence.
Sushirrito?! Wow – never come across it, but what a brilliant example of Australia’s melting pot cuisine. You are so right about witnessing change in real time – how long has it been since sushi rolls have become such a ubiquitous snack in Sydney? Definitely wasn’t like that when I arrived in the late 1990s …
India was ruled by Mughals for a long period of time, that’s why India has several popular dishes which found their way to India through the Mughals who traveled the world and kept bringing in new dishes to the country. Unbelievably, some of the dishes which every Indian would claim to be an Indian dish actually came from other countries especially Persia. Naan is a popular bread in India and its supposed to have come from Persia by Mughals. Gulab jamun is the most popular sweet in India and surprisingly, even this came from Persia where it was known as ‘luqmat al qadi’. But the most debated dish is “biryani”. While a debate rages over whether Biryani, the king of South Asian cuisine, originated in Persia (present-day Iran), history suggests that this mixed rice dish has its origins among the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent — part of the Mughlai cuisine for which India is famous. But, nowadays there are so many types of Biryani all over India, that if you ask for this dish in different cities, you will find that the dish has different names and everyone claims that their Biryani is the best.
Thanks, Tushar, for the mouth-watering example. Mughal cuisine traveled as far as Indonesia, as this 17th-century description of a banquet shows:
The sufra was unfurled and the dishes were brought in, consisting of various types of food; taʿam kabuli, berenji, syarba, ʿarisya, bughra and kasykia; and various [types] of dampuk and kebab, and various types of halwa berginta, halwa kapuri, halwa sabuni
and halwa syakar nabati; and various jugs of crushed syarbat with yazdi rosewater; some syarbat perfumed with eagle-wood and mawardi, and various daksa of paluda drenched with ʿasal masʿudi, and various daksa of beautiful fruits most delicious in flavour.
Quoted from: Hoogervorst, Tom. (2018). Sailors, Tailors, Cooks, and Crooks: On Loanwords and Neglected Lives in Indian Ocean Ports. Itinerario, 42(3), 516-548.
When I go to a foreign country, the first thing I am interested in is the food of that country. I think it’s a cultural difference that even the same food tastes different from country to country. Mandu, curry, ramen, etc. look and taste very different from country to country. For example, kimchi is a very Korean and exotic food, but other Asian countries also release kimchi, which is quite different from Korean food. It’s an exotic and magical experience, and I respect recipes adapted to each individual’s taste.
It is intriguing to hear the story of food travelling across borders and cultures. I have some close friends who serve in some Vietnamese restaurants in different regions of Sydney, and their stories about the restaurants’ regular customers always fill me with great interest. The customers have an ultimate love for Pho (Beef Noodle Soup) – the tasty beef noodle soup that is well-known to be the national dish of Vietnam.
During the search for Phở’s origin, it fascinates me that the dish has a complex history, and more surprisingly the way it is influenced by foreign cuisines. Through thousands of years of Chinese rule and nearly a century colonised by the French, Vietnamese cuisine in general and the dish, in particular, have been profoundly influenced by China and France. Phở is believed to be an adaptation of beef and vegetable stew pot-au-feu, with the word ‘feu’ spelled similarly to “phở”. According to Tu (2021), the dish might originate from Chinese communities who resided in the Northern part of Vietnam and sold 牛肉粉 (beef with noodles). The Chinese character for 粉 (fěn) is pronounced “fuh”, similar to “phở”.
Looking at cooking techniques and its ingredient list, Phở seems to be a wonderful combination of all three countries. The use of rice noodles and spices to create the rich flavour of the broth could be influenced by Chinese people, and the way of braising beef bones for hours is from the French signature beef stew. The Vietnamese from the North make their phở more simple with fewer ingredients added, while people from the South make it more complex with loads of herbs and garnishes.
It is undoubtedly that this dish contributes greatly to building connections between people of all backgrounds and the wonderful country Vietnam.
Reference:
Tu, L (2021, April 23). Pho: The humble soup that caused an outrage. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210421-pho-the-humble-soup-that-caused-an-outrage
Thanks, Quynh! As a student, I also did a lot of waitressing to support myself. You learn so much about people and life.
I had no idea Phở had such a blended backstory with China and France! That’s wild. And here I was, talking about ‘pithas’ from Bangladesh, like I was just dipping my toes in the water!
A simple noodle soup telling centuries-old stories! Dr. Piller’s mantu story kinda hints at the same thing, doesn’t it? Food’s not just about taste – it’s like a time machine on our plates.
I’m wondering now – how many untold stories are we gobbling down without even realizing? Have we ever stopped munching just to ponder about it? Your Phở insights have made me look at my plate a bit differently. It’s like every dish is a mini time machine, zipping through different eras and places!
Reading about “mantu” and the recipe immediately made me think about 만두 (“mandoo”) which is also a traditional and popular dish in Korea. Like the Afghan family making mantu together, Korean families also gather around to prepare the filling, mold the mandoo and eat together afterward steaming it. Of course, mandoo can be fried or made into mandoo soup or noodles 🙂 The family activity behind this dish and the occasion are similar among various culture. I am also reminded of hamburger and its origins, I think there is still a debate going whether it is originated from the Americas, Europe or Asia. As one type of dish travels across time and location, the name, recipe, taste and culture of the food changes but they all share some core characteristics. It is very interesting because this history about food is also reflected by languages.
Vietnamese Pho and its controversial origin
Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) has gained a prestigious recognition all over the world. However, its origin still remains a great argument. Pho is believed to become a popular cuisine in North Vietnam between late 19th century and early 20th century. With the invasion of the French Colonial Empire, some historians assume that Pho was a local variation of “pot – au – feu”, a French beef soup. Meanwhile, some researchers suggest that the word Pho derives from Cantonese’s beef noodle 牛肉粉 /ngau yuk fan/, a common dish made by Cantonese immigrants in Hanoi in the 19th century. Although most of Pho’s ingredients have a relation to Chinese cuisine, beef was not a daily meet in Vietnam until the France colonial possessions over Tokin and Annam, as cows and buffalos were mainly considered as tools for farming. As Pho became widely cooked over several provinces in Vietnam, its variants once again have started controversial discussions on how traditional and meticulously-prepared a regional version is compared to the others. Pho, a dish with mysteries origins and a variant of both Western and Eastern cuisines, has been a symbol of pride and prejudice to Vietnamese people all over the world.
Thanks, Tannie! These discussions about authenticity are so pointless because no dish has ever been invented out of nothing (at least not in historical times) and there are always multiple connections
Thank you for such an exciting experience with mantu. After I read this post, the very first food that I come up with is tofu, which is now globally consumed and loved by lots of people.
I still remember it vividly: I was really surprised to first hear that tofu is not a food that is only used in my country, Korea, but also widely used in many countries including China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. And another thing that surprised me was that the words for tofu in different countries are all similar. For example, we say dubu, the Chinese say doufu, and the Japanese say dohu. So I would like to know in other countries, what they call it 🙂
Might be another universal word, I suspect
Thank you for allowing me to think of food as a concept of language and cultural contact. After I read this article, I thought of Jajangmyeon. Jjajangmyeon is noodle with black bean sauce. It is considered a soul food in Korea and is one of my favorite foods.
Jajangmyeon is so popular in Korea, that there is even a celebration called Black Day, April 14. It is a day when people who cannot find a lover on Valentine’s Day or White Day gather to eat Jajangmyeon.
I searched the database to find more about its linguistic and cultural meanings, and I found an article. According to the article, the origin of jajangmyeon is zhájinngminn in China. Jjajang comes from the Chinese pronunciation of Jak(stir-fry) jang(soy paste) in Chinese, and myeon comes from the pronunciation of noodles in traditional Chinese characters.
Zhájinngminn uses yellow-brown Chinese-style noodle sauce mainly made of soybeans, which is mainly eaten in Shandong, China. In the late 19th century, many Chinese from Shandong moved to Korea. The Jajangmyeon, which was first introduced by overseas Chinese who settled in Korea, was later changed to suit the taste of Koreans.
Reference
Jina Ryu. (2020). A Study on the Social and Cultural Meaning of Jjajangmyeon
Korean Studies. no.6, 105-132
Thank you, Logan, for this interesting story! I remember that in “Kim Joyoung, born 1982”, “black bean sauce woman” is also used as an insult to deprecate a colleague as cheap.
one of my favorite deserts is the French Tart au citron, or the lemon tart, it is a component of backed lemon custard which is composed from eggs, lemon and zest this desert was found first in France and then it was spread across other countries because of its nice and delicious texture and mixture of lemon taste sweet and custard, this delicious desert is very popular in European countries and I was very happy when I found it first time in Sydney as I was really missing the French patisserie when I moved to Australia but after knowing the city and its spots I realised that lemon tart is very popular in Australia too just because of its delicious taste
In China, Ramen was a military emergency ration, and it was introduced to people to supply the shortage of food. Furthermore, Japan suffered from a food crisis after the end of World War II, and wheat flour was imported from the U.S. at that time. For this reason, the Ramen was possible to import from China. Moreover, in the 1960s, the Korean government implemented a policy of forcing multi-grain rice and flour food to solve the rice shortage problem in Korea. And a food company imported the techniques and machines for producing Ramen from Japan to solve the shortage of food.
These are the food crises of those three countries that I referred to.
Thanks for clarifying! I thought ramen must be much older but this is specifically about the dried packs?
Thank you for sharing interesting information. This story reminds one of the famous food in my country “Pad Thai”, which consists of rice noodles with eggs, vegetables, tofu, and a tamarind sauce. Many people may not know that China influenced this menu during World War II. 2 Originally this dish was called “fried noodles” (ก๋วยเตี๋ยวผัด)
The beginning of Pad Thai originated from the Prime Minister at that time wanted to have a national dish, so he campaigned for people to turn to eat noodles to reduce the consumption of rice in the country due to the fact that rice is expensive, and using raw materials sourced locally within the country, Therefore, fried noodles were born. A unique flavor that makes it a mouthful and spread rapidly So, Thai people call it “Pad Thai”.
One thing I recently noticed that Pad Thai in Australia is different from Thailand is the ingredient of meat. Most Thais tend to use shrimp, but here they use a variety of meats such as pork, chicken, shrimp, or squid. It really surprised me when I saw my housemates ordered Pad Thai with Chicken.
Thank you, Phathareeya, for this interesting story of pad thai! I’d always thought it was a leftover dish …
I didn’t quite get the influence of China. Can you tell us more about that?
I could see your perspective of enjoying Asian food and that made me interesting! I think this argue is very similar with the arguing for Spaghetti between Italy and America.
I mean the view of origin is not crucial. Mantu is actually called Mando in South Korea and is one of traditional cusine in South Korea. On New Year’s Day we, Korean share Mando with sliced rice cake in a stew and that stew means that we become 1 year older. Interesting isn’t it? However, other people from different countries just enjoy it not knowing this culture I think. Anyway Mantu is the dish which people have different flavor, and I don’t like Mantu sorry.
Good to know that Koreans get to enjoy mando, too! Too bad you don’t like it 😉
In South Korea, the word “Mantu” is literary “만두; Mando” and it has almost same pronunciation with Mantu except ‘t’ sound. In South Korea Mando is also traditional food and I can’t be sure whether it’s originated from China or Korea. That perspective is very similar with the struggling for Spaghetti between Italy and America I think.
The same thing is Mantu is the food for both in lunar and solar New Year’s Day in both China and Korea. As you’ve mentioned in your column, making Mantu is very handful.
Therefore, nowadays we’re buying Mando with various fillings in the market easily and it almost became instant food. More exotic perspective to me was when I could see
some people from overseas and they enjoy Mando. That was quite interesting to me!
The closer we get to things the easier it is to ignore them, and this article dawned on me. And I happen to have had a very similar experience.
Dumplings are such an interesting food. In China dumplings are a very traditional food and people will eat them on special days. But in Japan and Korea it would be different. Firstly in China dumplings are commonly eaten boiled and are a staple food. But in Japan gyoza are fried and some people will even eat them with rice. Korean dumplings, on the other hand, have a completely different appearance. But the way they are made is almost similar to the ingredients.
Also，I think it is understandable that food with the same name has different tastes depending on the country. Each country has a different culture and likes different tastes. There is nothing wrong with making a food taste the way you like it. I think it is also a cultural exchange that can promote contact between countries. And I think sometimes the same name doesn’t mean it’s the same food. There are some things that can’t be expressed in other languages, so people can only describe it roughly in similar terms. I think that’s the reason why it’s the same name but different foods.
Thank you, Chloe, for this philosophical view! Btw, sometimes, words are similar by pure chance and have no common history at all … for example, the Japanese word for “thank-you” (arigatō; ありがとう) sounds very similar to the Portuguese word for “thank-you” (obrigado) but that similarity doesn’t mean any contact nor connection, even very ancient; it’s pure chance 🙂
Thank you for giving us a fascinating story about food and culture. This story reminds me of “croissant” – one of my favorite pastries for breakfast in the morning. I always bear in my mind that the croissant is the iconic French pastry and it comes from France too. However, it turns out that the origin of the croissant is from Austria, where it was called the Kipferl. What shocking news! (Maybe just to me). Jim Chevallier, an independent scholar and author of the book “August Zang and the French Croissant: How Viennoiserie Came to France” also says that “The croissant began as the Austrian kipferl but became French the moment people began to make it with puffed pastry, which is a French innovation.”
As far as I have researched, there are two different versions of the puff-pastry croissant emerged: one, more expensive and made with pure butter, and another often made with margarine or other cheaper fats, called the croissant ordinaire (ordinary croissant). Some bakers call the latter a croissant nature (plain croissant). You can easily buy croissants in every bakery or even in the supermarket.
There is also one thing that surprise me a lot since I moved to Sydney is that on the menu of the coffee shop, they serve brunch including croissants with salmon and benedict eggs. I have never tried them before as in my hometown – Viet Nam, people do not have the habits to eat pastries with meat and fish. However, when they come together, they are super scrumptious and now become my top choice for eating out.
Thanks, Clara, for sharing this! It’s not only food items that change “in translation” but people do, too, as your new breakfast habits show 🙂
The linguistic history of the word “orange” across languages (and sub-families) is fascinating.
In English, it comes from the Anglo-Norman “orenge” or “pomme d’orenge” (apple of orange). This spelling is the result of a rebracketing or juncture loss of the Old French “une norenge”, whereby the “n” of the Arabic “nāranj” from which it was borrowed transferred to the French feminine article “une”. (Other Romance languages, as in Spanish “naranja”, have retained the “n” on the noun.)
Most Germanic languages, however, took a different approach. Since this fruit was originally endemic to China and was roughly the size of an apple, this sub-family generally took to calling it a “Chinese apple”: for instance, the Dutch “sinaasappel” and the (now-defunct/dialectal) German “Apfelsine”.
Even the aforementioned “pomme d’orenge” of French was itself a calque of the Old Italian “melarancia” (“mela” + “arancia”).
In short, we can see linguistic transfer play out in multiple dimensions for something as innocuous as a new fruit.
Here you can view a map of the word for “orange” across various languages of Europe + MENA: https://i.imgur.com/vLwYIHl.png
Thanks for the fascinating example and the link to the cool map. I’d be curious to see a map for the rest of the world, too, because there is also another story: the contemporary Arabic word for “orange” is “burtuqal” (برتقال) – a derivation of “Portugal” (similar in other Middle Eastern languages) – the Arabs introduced oranges to the Iberian Peninsula and then it must have “returned” in a different form …
Thanks 烏 (からす) !
Your comment inspires me to research on how the “dumpling” evolves in Thailand. I found that 2 most famous Thai cuisines that can be traced back to dumpling are “Kiew” and “Thungthong” (fried golden bags). Kiew or Jiaozi in Chinese is a staple food for Thai people of Chinese descent and now Thai street food. Conversely, Thungthong is an ancient cuisine that serves in the royal court. Nowadays, Thungthong is a festive food to celebrate or bring good luck and later becomes famous among Thais in every social status. The word “Kiew” derived from Jiaozi and Thai people pronounce it with a set of alphabets and vowel sounds of the Thai language. The word “Thungthong” is called by the shape of this reinvented dumpling. The royal kitchen adapted this Chinese cuisine around 1900 AC by using local ingredients and make into a shape of gold coin bag. It was served among royal families and high-ranked officers to bring luck, money and prosperity. These are 2 different reasons of how Thai people give a name to foreign foods and I believe that Thungthong conveys additional value as a festive food that people can easily associate with when they heard its name.
References: Here you can view a world map of the word “Dumplings”:
https://www.tasteatlas.com/dumplings/map
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/kvevwc/world_map_of_dumplings/
Ingrid, I really enjoy reading and commenting on your article. Ocean thanks for sharing it. It does make me think over my plate!
After reading this article, I really think that Hall’s Iceberg Model of Culture should put food as an “anomaly” since it fits in both categories—surface culture and deep culture. As you said, food does not only talk about the identity of a culture but also a proof of cultural exchanges among people from different parts of the world. Needless to say, it is also a window of flora and fauna diversities in a certain geographical area. These features are clearly seen and are hidden in mantu from Afghanistan, manti from Turkey, mahtbi from Russia, or Chinese “mantu” which is actually called “baozi”.
Parting from the confusion of the names borrowed by Turkish, Afghans, and Russian, Indonesian baozi is called bakpao. In Indonesia, bakpao is often sold by cycling-street vendors and is regarded as a snack. It is one of the loanwords in Indonesian that is taken from Hokkien, one of the Taiwanese national languages, and is spoken by most Chinese descendants in Southeast Asia (Oman-Reagan, 2017, p.2). Literally, “bak” means meat, and “pao” means “wrap”. However, especially in Indonesia, bakpao is not only filled with meat, chocolate, coconut jam, rendang (Padang food), green/red beans, abon (crispy shredded meat), and eggs can be found inside. Green bakpao is also common as Indonesians often use pandan leaves for food coloring.
Bakpao, mantu, manti, and mahtbi have been adapted to the local taste and to the local ingredients. It has been part of their (our) everyday gourmet and become part of who we are now.
Agesti, B. & Ekantari, E. (2018) Bakpao Chik Yen Sebagai Makanan Hasil Akulturasi Kebudayaan Tiongkok yang Masuk ke Indonesia. Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University, http://etd.repository.ugm.ac.id
Hall, E. T. (Edward T. (1989). Beyond culture (Anchor Books ed.). New York: Anchor Books.
Oman-Reagan, M. P. (2017). Archipelagic Nationalism and Chinese Food Culture in New Order Indonesia: Making Indonesian Food, Erasing Chinese Food. Memorial University of Newfoundland. http://osf.io
Thank you Ziadah, for this interesting perspective. The travels of filled dumplings around the world are truly amazing – an indicator of the strong influence of Chinese cuisine far and wide.
Can you get Indonesian bakpao in Sydney or is that a food you miss?
I went to some Indonesian restaurants on Sussex street in the city but couldn’t find any 🙁
One of my favorite dishes made by my mother is Mansaf, a traditional Arabian dish made of lamb cooked in a sauce of fermented dried yogurt and served with rice. It’s a popular dish from Bedouin culture of Sham area and Saudi Arabia and considered the national dish in Jordan. It has a distinct salty flavor and served in on a large platter with a layer of flatbread topped with rice and then meat then the creamy sauce is poured on top of the dish. Considered special occasion meal such as weddings and graduations, or to honor a guest.
Mansaf is traditionally eaten collectively from a large platter in the Bedouin and rural style and plays an active role in settling tribal disputes (a truce) or marching on a Ja’ha (peacemaking process). It is to signal the end of a conflict when the heads of conflicting tribes visit each other and the host sacrifices a sheep for a shared Mansaf, taken to be a sign of reconciliation.
My mother has never said sorry in her life, but making Mansaf is her own way to apologize and make amends. How can you stay upset after a huge meal like that 🙂
Thank you, Abed, for this fascinating account of the role a eating together in the life of the community!
Just curious what men do to say sorry? Do they also cook for the family?
I’ve never thought about those questions before, but I still have stories to share.
I’m from the north of China, Jiaozi is one of my favourite foods. it’s everyday food, but we also have it on special days, such as New Year’s Eve, 头伏 (the third ten days of the lunar summer solstice ). This food is a kind of dumpling. Wrap the filling in the pressed dough and then seal the edges. The filling content can be chopped vegetables or meat. Jiaozi can be boiled, steamed, or fried, and is traditionally served with vinegar or chilli oil.
But my favourite is the boiled Jiaozi with rice vinegar.
After I arrived in Sydney and lived for a while, I found a kind of dumpling in the supermarket. It is Japanese gyoza, which is a fried dumpling. After tasting it, I didn’t feel much different from Jiaozi (except that Japanese gyoza is always fried). Probably because the recipe for gyoza
was brought back to Japan from China less than 200 years ago, and the recipe didn’t change too much.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your stories about food and culture.
Thanks, Connie! Jaozi and gyoza sound quite similar, too – another delicious variation of the basic filled dumpling pattern 😋
Interesting to read and hits home, coming from a Turkish background!
The Turkish tradition love making their vine leaves with stuffing. It first originated in the Turkish kitchen during the 14th Century, and then made its way through to other middle Eastern countries during the time.
After marrying into a Lebanese family/tradition, I’ve realised that they make vine leaves differently. For example, the Turkish culture only cook the vine leaves for 2 hours and wrap them as the size of a thumb. While, in the Lebanese tradition, they wrap them incredibly thin and only use the stuffing of meat, and rice, and cook it for 1-2 days. The Turkish culture have a vegetarian option for it which is cooked in olive oil. Turkiye pronounces vine leaves as ‘sarma’, while Lebanese people pronounce it as ‘warak-enab’. Now, in Australia they are just pronounced as ‘vine leaves’.
Living in Australia, I have seen how much vine leaves have modernised to best suit our societies taste. For instance, they are now stored in cans with hardly any herbs or flavours inside of the fillings. The cans give that un-fresh texture and taste. They now sell these at kebab shops which makes it look like an ‘authentic’ dish.
Thanks, Sinem! Dolma are another fascinating story how food travels across languages and cultures; and also how groups start to quarrel over whose tradition is the most authentic. Do you know that Azerbaijan got its dolma registered as national intangible heritage by UNESCO?
Vietnam is known as one of the countries with the most diverse and vibrant in the world. Among many different kinds of food in Vietnam, my favorite one is Bánh Tét. It is a traditional food that is always in family meals in the Southern region of Vietnam in Lunar New Year. The main ingredients are glutinous rice, mung bean paste or soaked mung bean, and pork belly. They are all wrapped together with banana leaves and cooked in a boiling water pot for around eight hours. The process of making Bánh Tét is time-consuming, but it is a great opportunity for Vietnamese people to gather, prepare ingredients, wrap cakes and wait for perfectly cooked Bánh Tét when Lunar New Year comes. According to some research, the origin of Bánh Tét is not from Vietnam, but it came to my home country during the period of cultural exchange between Vietnam and Champa (an ancient nation near the Southern region of Vietnam) about 4,000 years ago. It demonstrates the absorption of religious elements of the Champa culture, including the belief in worshiping the God of rice. In Vietnamese, Lunar New Year means Tết. The original name of Bánh Tét is Bánh Tết (special cake for Tết). However, because of local accents in the Southern region of Vietnam, it is now called Bánh Tét.
Wow – a 4,000 year old tradition! That’s really amazing! Food has always brought people together and some of the oldest literature contains stories of great feasts!
Oh, what a co-incidence, my mom was an exchange student in California too! But yes, it is complicated. It’s just interesting to see importing of tacos as nowadays you can find tex mex products basically from any grocery store anywhere in the world, yet you couldn’t twenty years ago. Also, the overall evolution over time is great, I mean how you can choose your own protein and preferred toppings even in a tex mex -restaurant.
The world has certainly become very small – foodwise and in many other ways – over the past 20 years … in addition to TexMex restaurants, every supermarket now has tacos kits …
Reading this post reminds me of my favorite foods- hot pot. The history of hot pot in China has been recorded for about 2,000 years. In fact, the prototype of hot pot appeared earlier in the Shang Zhou Dynasties (about 1600 BC-256 BC). The emergence of hot pot is now more recognized as the birth period. By the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, dozens of different hot pots had been formed in the country with their own characteristics. The most famous ones are the spicy hot pot in Sichuan and Chongqing, brushed mutton and sheep scorpion in the north, and Chaoshan hot pot in Guangdong. Sichuan-Chongqing hotpot includes Sichuan hotpot, Chongqing hotpot, Yutou hotpot and Chuanchuanxiang hotpot, all of which are famous for their numbness, spicyness, freshness and fragrance. As the mainstream hotpot faction in China, more than 60% of the national hotpot merchants are Sichuan-Chongqing hotpot. The northern hot pot is mainly shabu-shabu, including mutton-shabu-shabu, sheep scorpion, and fat beef. In Guangdong, hot pot is called a side stove. The light taste is a characteristic of Cantonese cuisine. The same is true for hot pot. It pays attention to the freshness of the soup base and ingredients. The main types are seafood hot pot, Chaoshan beef hot pot, porridge hot pot, and Dou Lao hot pot. Among them, Chaoshan hot pot Beef hot pot is the most widely spread, and the emphasis is on the freshness of the beef. Each part has different ways of eating. There are at least 4 to 5 around my house in China, but the taste is not as good as the one I have eaten in Shenzhen. At present, Chinese hot pot has flowed to the world market, and hot pot restaurants can be seen everywhere in Chinatown. Even though I live in Sydney now, I can still have authentic hot pot.
Thank you, Ying, for all the information about hotpot! My favourite hotpot is the one I had in a friend’s house in Wuhan in 2012 😊
This story reminds me of a thought from my childhood. Growing up, having mooncakes every mid-autumn festival, I always thought of them as our country’s specialty. Later, I realised that mooncakes are also available in China, Thailand, Korea, and Japan. In fact, in Vietnam, the cake is called “bánh trung thu,” which can be directly translated as “mid-autumn cake.”
Vietnam has two types of mooncakes, one of which is said to have originated in China, which is “bánh nướng,” which means baked mooncake. The introduction of this type of cake to Vietnam can be attributed to the effect of the Northern Colonial Period of Vietnam, which lasted for over a thousand years. Besides, another type of mooncake that arrived before this baked cake is “bánh dẻo” or sticky rice cake. Traditional Vietnamese food utilised rice-based (rather than wheat) ingredients and was not popular with oven-based dishes, which differ significantly from Chinese cuisine. It can be said that the sticky rice cake represents tradition and is the typical mooncake of Vietnam. Because Vietnam is an agricultural country, this sticky rice cake is meant to wish the farmers’ crops would be bountiful.
Thank you, Kat, for this informative post about mooncake in Vietnam!
Thank you for this outstanding information on this interesting food. This food reminds me of certain food from my country named ‘samosa’. Samosa is a very popular street food throughout the Indian subcontinent. It has several varieties. Most of the time it’s a triangle-shaped deep-fried pastry with a variety of filling.
Samosa has its origin in Central Asia and can be founded in medieval times. Its recipe can be founded on a 10-13th-century Arab cooking book under the name under the names sanbusak, sanbusaq, and sanbusaj, all deriving from the Persian word sanbosag. In Bangladesh, we have two types of Samosas, singara, and regular samosa. Singara is rounder and smaller in size but has more filling than a standard samosa. Singara with liver filing is quite popular in Bangladesh. The standard samosa in Bangladesh is typically filled with onion and minced meat whereas singara is filled with spiced potato.
As people explored various countries food like samosa also become an international snack. Even in Sydney, where I live now, you can find Samosa in leading retail stores.
Thanks, Hasan, for sharing about samosas! Another amazing travelling food. I’ve only ever encountered the potato-stuffed variety. Now I will have to look out for singara, too 😊
That was an interesting story about food and culture. Thank you for sharing it with us. I have never thought of food and culture till I read the blog.
Your story remind me of a popular dish that we make in Lebanon, it’s called Shish Barak. It’s made of dough stuffed with mince meat and diced onion boiled in yoghurt soup. It actually looks like dumplings. I always thought the dish originated from Lebanon but they also make it in Syria and it’s called the same name. Also in Saudi Arabia but it’s called Azan El Chayeb. The dish was invented over 100 years ago and if we go back in history some people say it was a Turkish dish called Elmanti which means closed dough. Where some say it’s originated from the Middle East and it’s called Shish Darak which means the policeman hat because it looks like a hat. Some other story say it’s an Asian dish and the Turks brought it to Anatolia then passed it to the Arabs when they lived in their lands. The dish is also found in Azerbaijan called Dochbara cooked in meat soup and it’s called Shoshvara in Oz Pakistan cooked in pepper soup. So I guess we will never know the true story but what really matter that it’s a very nice dish.
Thanks, Lily! Sounds yummy! The basics are actually very similar to mantu, don’t you think? … btw, it’s quite an old recipe in Arabic and already appeared in a 15th c. cookbook (Kitab al-tibakha, Damascus)
I came across a type of cream that I bought from an Iraqi store a year ago. The Iraqi name is Qeymar and searches online revealed the English name is closest to clotted cream, cream derived from boiling fresh milk. It is served with honey for breakfast but I enjoy it on toast. Subsequent searches online unearthed many other names for this clotted cream but with similar variations including geymar, Kaymak and Kaymagi. Several YouTube channels of Assyrian , Iraqi, and Turkish origins show how to make these clotted creams. According to Wikipedia, this food has Central Asian Turkic origin and variations of the name Qeymar exist in Greek, Mongolian, Romanian and Croatian. I find it interesting that a food of Turkic origin and spreading through to Iraq has found its way to Australia and my agreeable Vietnamese tastebud !!
What a lovely story of language and culture contact through food! Do you mix it with something sweet like honey or marmalade? At any rate, enjoy! The things we do with milk are another testament to the ingenuity of humans.
The story reminds one of my favourite foods “Korean Ramen”, which is an instant noodle soup. Before researching the Ramen, I assumed it was from Japan. However, I realised that the origin of Ramen is China. Ramen was invented to solve the food crisis in China, and it was also imported for the same reason in Japan and South Korea.
The Chinese called Ramen to Lā miàn (拉麵) [la mien], and the Japanese called it Soba, which is made of wheat flour, in the past. Currently, there are a variety of kinds of ramen (ラーメン), such as Udon, or Somen, in Japan. Because the local Chinese introduced Ramen to the Japanese, the ingredients for Ramen are mostly the same, so it was pork or beef bone soup in both countries.
Unlike China and Japan, ramen is an instant food in South Korea. It was also imported to overcome the shortage of food from Japan. Additionally, they spell Ramen the same way as Japanese in English (Ramen), but they pronounce it [ra mein] like in Chinese.
Ramen was invented to overcome the food crisis in these three countries, and it has been changed by the environment and culture of each country.
Thank you, Haein An! Ramen is another global success story. I’m wondering whether you can provide more details about each of the three food crises you are referring to?
Thank you for your interesting and intriguing story; it is a prime example of languages and cultures. After reading your blog, the first food that comes to my mind immediately is a kind of roasted pork called Char siu. This is a well-known dish from Cantonese cuisine, and it is eaten worldwide. People combine it with carbs like rice, noodles or bun.
When I was a child, my mom always bought some Char siu for our family dinner when she did not have time to cook, and I was fascinated by the flavorful taste of it. In my home country – Vietnam, we call this dish “xá xíu”; in China, people call it “chāshāo” (叉燒) and “chāshū” in Japanese, which means that the pronunciation of this kind of meat is similar throughout some countries in the world.
However, when I had a chance to try ramen – a signature dish of Japan, I was surprised that they also use Char siu as a topping for it. Still, with the Japanese adaptation, they season and cook the meat in a different style from the original version. I believe that this can be one of the primary instances for loanwords.
Have you ever tried both of these two versions? What do you think about it?
Thanks, Emma! I’m personally not a huge meat eater and so staying mostly away from BBQs and roasts etc. but grilled meat surely must be a human universal food and, yet, amazingly and infinitely diverse, as your example shows.
The story reminds me of the food Wonton, which is one of my favourite dishes from my home country. Wonton is called differently across China. For example, people call it “Hun Dun” in some northern cities of China like Beijing, while people in Cantonese regions like Hong Kong and Guangdong province call it “Wun Tun”, which sounds close to the former one phonetically as they both share the sound “un”. In some other regions such as Sichuan, Wonton is called “Chao Shou”, which shares no phonetic elements from the above examples. The way of serving wonton also varies from place to place. For example, Cantonese people prefer light and mild taste to food with strong flavours, and thus wonton in Cantonese areas is typically served with light soup and boiled noodles.
There is no definite answer as to when, where and how Wonton originated. Some archaic textual records, like Yan Shi Jia Xun by Yan Zhitui in Southern and Northern Dynasties (420~589) noted that “Wonton nowadays, shaped like the waxing crescent moon, are eaten all over the world”. Some other historical records, like Yan Fan Lu by Cheng Dachang in the Song Dynasty (960~1279), stated that the name of the food was derived from the Chinese surname “Hun” and “Dun”. However, what seems to make sense “linguistically” is the ancient Chinese myth about Wonton. The phrase “Hun Dun”, which was originally characterised as “浑 沌” and denoted as “Chaos” in ancient times, is one of the four great beasts in ancient Chinese mythology. According to Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou, “Hun Dun – Chaos” is a round chaotic beast without any openings like a nose and ears in the body. Therefore, the folks in the past extended the practice of eating Hun Dun to break the chaos and bring luck and stability.
Thanks, Ste! Love the idea of eating together to ward of chaos. That’s surely true for all kinds of food! Sounds like breaking bread in the Christian tradition?
Thank you for sharing this interesting story about mantu and how it has become one of your family favourites. Even if I’m quite a picky eater, I definitely need to add this dish to my ‘try one day’ -list.
Actually, I would love to tell you about my family connection with tacos, and how they become a part of our family dinners. My mother was an exchange student in the United States in the 80’s, where she was staying with a family. They loved making tacos for dinner, and they even had a special machine for frying. After my mother came back to Finland, tacos came a part of our family’s menu, and they still are – only with some added ingredients and changed the name to ‘tortillas’.
I believe that originally tacos come from Mexico, gone to the US with migrants, and somehow ended up to Finland and became a part of our menu way before they started selling a variety of all the tex mex -products in Finnish grocery stores.
I love to eat my tacos (or tortillas) with taco seasoned minced meat, salsa, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cheese, and sour cream mixed with dip powder. What about you?
Thanks, Em! I can so relate to your mum’s experience, as I remember how I, too, first discovered tacos on exchange in California! The US Southwest used to be part of Mexico so the story of language and culture contact it embodies is not only one of migration but a bit more complicated …
Thank you for providing us with an intriguing story behind your favorite dish. The picture of the Afghan-style Mantu reminds me of shrimp dumplings (虾饺: xiajiao) originating from China, not Mantou (馒头) or Baozi (包子) which you mentioned later. These three dishes are my cup of tea. As far as I know, they can be generally called “dumplings” in English. From my research, albeit similarly called in English, these three dishet, have different recipes. The shrimp dumplings (虾饺: xiajiao) or “Har Gow” have translucent and smooth skin filled with shrimp. Mantou and Baozi share some features in common. They all originate from China, incrementally becoming an indispensable part of Chinese cuisine. These two types of dumplings are often steamed buns and have much thicker skin than shrimp dumplings. Prior to the Song Dynasty, the word “mantou” was still referred to as both filled and unfilled buns. Nevertheless, mantou now often indicates unfilled buns, whereas baozi means filled buns. The fillings of baozi can be various, but the main ingredients are eggs and pork. In other words, there are variations of baozi in this day and age, depending on the area where baozi is cooked. Similarly important, mantou or baozi is called differently in different countries. For instance, in Japan, it is call Manju (饅頭); in the Philippines, it is Siopao; in Thailand, it is Salapao;…
In my home country, Vietnam, we often call this dish “bánh bao”. Although originally from China, the recipe of “bánh bao” is varied when it came to Vietnam. Nowadays, there are various types of “bánh bao” such as bánh bao chay, bánh bao xá xíu, bánh bao nhân đậu đỏ, bánh bao khoai môn,… These names are extremely difficult to be translated into English because the word “dumpling” cannot describe the dish.
In Vietnam, “bánh bao” is considered a culinary delight and an ideal breakfast for those in a hurry to work or to school. Now when I am in Australia, I miss the old days in Vietnam when I was in a rush to work, I just grabbed a “bánh bao” and could be stuffed the entire morning..
Thanks, Sengarun! What do you eat for breakfast here in Australia?
How our eating habits change with migration is another fascinating topic.
I believe the term ‘mantu’ is cognate with Vietnamese ‘màn thầu’. While reading through the discussion over the origin of this dumpling, it occurred that I never know where this particular food, also made from dough, came from – the noodles.
Although it is evidenced that noodle was first eaten in China, then found its way through other parts of Asia to reach Europe, particularly Italy with the pasta, it is difficult, and probably unnecessary, to find a concrete answer, since each region or nation already enriched the food with all kinds of ingredients, methods, or toppings.
Few years ago, before “pho” (phở) is officially listed in Cambridge Dictionary, I found the phrase “Vietnamese rice noodle soup” used in English textbooks in Vietnam couldn’t do it justice. There’s more variety of noodles to offer in our cuisine, such as miến (cellophane noodle), bún (rice vermicelli), and mì (yellow wheat or egg noodle), the latter being the most commonly used among Vietnamese to denote any foreign alternatives, including Italian pasta. It’s amazing to see such a universal dish having so many words in each language that carry its own culinary arts.
Also, it tastes good, even just a cup of instant noodles!
Thanks, Justin! Noodles are another global wonder!
Interesting what you say about the English language textbook version – textbook authors are often so purist and afraid of using borrowed terms; instead they make up these silly alternatives that no one uses in real life …
Thanks for your interesting and informative article. After reading, I think about tofu, one of the popular foods in Vietnam – my hometown, which originally came from China over 2000 years ago. Tofu has the similar pronunciation in some languages such as “tahu” in Indonesian, “tauhu” in Malaysian, “đậu phụ” or “tàu hủ” in Vietnamese and 豆腐 (dòufu) in Chinese. I believe that the spread of this food is the evidence for the connection between several countries from both Eastern and Western countries.
I tried many variations of tofu in Vietnam and Australia, every restaurant has their own recipe to cook tofu. I recommend that we should eat tofu in many different countries’ restaurants to experience the culinary differences.
Love your recommendation, Bill! In fact, I live by it 😋
Yesterday, Bogotá celebrated its 484th birthday, a great opportunity to talk about ajiaco: the city’s most representative dish and undoubtedly a product of language and culture contact, present in Colombian, Cuban, Chilean, and Peruvian cuisine.
Etymologically speaking, the word is linked to the Spanish word Ají (Chili pepper) which relates to its spicy taste outside Colombia; however, there is a version of its origin related to the Muisca indigenous chief Aj and his wife Aco. Many Indigenous communities in the Americas, especially Taínos (Cuba) and Muiscas (Colombia) prepared soups made from potatoes, onion, and corn. The Spanish gastronomy enriched it with ingredients such as chicken, meat, and capers.
This dish was usually served during Christmas and Corpus Christi. Now, every day is a good day to try ajiaco, especially during the contest where traditional cooks and renowned chefs compete for the best ajiaco *santafereño.
*From Santa fé de Bogotá (Former name of the Colombian Capital City)
Thank you, Jhonny! I’d say ‘cumpleaños feliz’ if the ‘birthday’ weren’t surrounded by the disaster of the conquista. One of its consequences is the global dissemination of potatoes, and many people today consider potato soup one of their national dishes, even if they know it by a very different name. Certainly a staple in my house 😊
Hi Ingrid! Thank you for sharing your fascinating story about Mantu.
Have you ever heard of or tried “Phở” before? This Vietnamese soup meal includes rice noodles, broth, herbs, and pork (usually beef, sometimes chicken). When mentioning the birthplace of “Phở”, it is indexed through reference to a specific place – Hanoi – the capital city of Vietnam. Its origin, however, was relatively complicated. Pho’s ingredients and its name can be traced back to Chinese and French influences. Both nations above are responsible for the popularization of beef ingredients in the 1800s.
However, when it comes to the pronunciation of “Phở”, a tug of war between French and Chinese attribution erupts. Some theorize that “Phở” descended from the word “Fen” in “Sha He Fen” (沙河粉) – a type of rice noodle invented in Guangdong province. After the Sino-French war, China allowed France to control the north of Vietnam. Some say “Phở” was adapted from a classic French dish Pot au Feu, a beef stew with vegetables, and the word “Phở” comes from the word “Feu”.
The distinctive flavor in “Phở” is the fusion of multiple spices from different cultures such as cardamon (India), star anise (China), and fish sauce (Vietnam).
Loanwords reveal the participants involved in the gastronomic convergence process. Being aware of the origin of dishes’ names permits me to discover the connection between language, culture, and history.
Thanks, Miumiu, for this interesting story of pho. It’s now part of Australian cuisine, too 😋
The competing French and Cantonese etymologies are so interesting – is there also a theory that it might be an indigenous Vietnamese word? I’m sure noodle soup must have been around for a long time …
I believe that every Finn has eaten Karelian pie (in Finnish karjalanpiirakka, Swedish karelsk pirog, Russian karel’skiy pirog), once, and still quite recently, considered to be a part of traditional Finnish cuisine. Karelian pie is usually made with rye flour dough, rolled out to a thin base of the pastry, which is then filled with rice porridge. Once baked the Karelian pie can be enjoyed as it is or with different fillings such as egg butter.
Karelian pies are mostly eaten in Finnish, North-Western Russia, and some parts of the Baltics. As I said before, Karelian pie was (is) considered to be a part of Finnish cuisine, but the origin of the Karelian pie is actually in Karelia. Karelia (located in Eastern Finland and North-West Russia) is a land of Karelian people, an individual nation with its own culture and language but with no state.
What happened with Karelian pie is cultural appropriation during the time of nationalism in Finland. Nationalists were trying to gather evidence to support the cultural independence of the Finnish nation, then ruled by Russia. But as the name of the pie suggests, the origin of the treat is in Karelia, not Finland.
Thanks, Milla! Interesting what you say about cultural appropriation! Food travels so well across linguistic and cultural boundaries, nothing ever belongs solely to one nation …
What an interesting article!
Mantu (pronounced same in Korean) is a special food for me too because it’s my family’s tradition to make it in Chuseok (a mid-autumn harvest festival in Korea).
One of my favorite food is “tonkatsu (돈가스)”, a pork cutlet, which I believed is originally Japanese food and it’s one of the most popular in Korea as well. It’s called “tonkatsu” in Japanese, which is a mixture of “katsuretsu” meaning a cutlet, and “don” meaning pork. In Korea, we pronounce it in a very similar way as in Japan. (It’s probably we borrowed that word from Japan!?)
Since I was young, I always thought it was Japanese food that is well-known in Korea, and we enjoy it a lot. However, when I went to Germany, I got to know food called “schnitzel”. I could never forget the moment I found out about schnitzel because at first, I had a difficult time adapting to German food. It was kind of like a miracle when I found something like my favorite food in a place half away from my home country.
It’s interesting to see almost the same type of food called differently in various languages and cultures!
Hi Ella – great to meet a fellow mantu lover 😊 … and love your story about schnitzel – food is so central to feeling “at home” … despite having lived most my adult life in Australia, I still can’t get over what goes as ‘bread’ here …
Roti is a kind of unleavened flatbread originated in the Indian subcontinent. The major ingredient is stone-ground wheat flour. It has other names such as ‘chapati’, ‘naan’ and ‘ruti’. Apart from Indian languages, it is found that some other South Asian languages also pronounce it as ‘roti’ such as Thai, Malay, Napali and Khmer. Such pronunciation is also shared among the languages of many other Middle-East and European countries like Armenia and Russia.
A world-wide consumption of roti is evident by its variants from South Asia to the Caribbean. It can be served with cooked vegetables, egg or meat with curries. For instance, in Jamaica, “aloo puri” is eaten with curried chicken. Another variant in Cambodia appears in the form of dessert, served with condensed milk and banana slices.
Recently, a music video named Curry and Roti has been performed by a famous multicultural Malaysian singer, Namewee, who embraces different languages, cultures and music. This catchy English song in Bollywood style has around 8 million views on Youtube by August 2022. In the song, the relationship between curry and roti is likened to love connections.
Roti has become a medium to unite different people in the world in different ways.
Thanks, Xavier! Just watched the video at
– it’s hilarious. Thanks for the recommendation! Music – like food – is such an amazing site of language and culture contact. Some interesting code-switching in the lyrics, too, and the multilingual subtitles clearly target a maximum audience 🙂
Code-switching is what I encounter every day at home and my workplace. I have just read an article to find out the reasons of code-switching, that people has an intention to “express solidarity and a shared identity” (Grote & Rocheouste, 2014). In contrast, I don’t do it on purpose like what the Australian indigenous people do but it has become part of our lives in a bilingual city. But we are able to communicate to each other in this way under a shared identity without any special feelings.
I would also like to share a one-minute video just for fun. You can focus on the English vocabulary without caring about another language and see how much you can comprehend from this workplace context.
Grote, Oliver, R., & Rochecouste, J. (2014). Code-Switching and Indigenous Workplace Learning: Cross-Cultural Competence Training or Cultural Assimilation? In Critical Perspectives on Language Education (pp. 101–117). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06185-6_6
The most famous Japanese food is sushi. Now you can find a great number of sushi restaurants wherever you go, but it was in America in the early 20 century that sushi first became popular outside Japan. Back then, Japanese immigrants traveled to the western coast of America, and sushi became gradually popular there. However, some people could not eat raw fish because they were not familiar with it. Such people asked Japanese chefs to cook sushi made of avocado, cucumber, and boiled crab. This ‘unique’ sushi is a California roll. The interesting thing is that Japanese people reimported it and we can eat it in almost all the sushi restaurants in Japan. We call it the same way in Japanese, and I believe this is an example of borrowing from English to Japanese.
There are also some competitions where people from around the world compete with creating unique sushi. Even though some dishes seem quite different from authentic Japanese sushi, it looks like sushi can connect us with foreign people and we can see their cultures through sushi. If we did not recognise all of them as sushi, we would not have had sushi competitions or cultural connections related to sushi.
You are right, sushi seems truly universal today, second only to pizza maybe in global popularity
Has anyone heard or tried Tteokbokki before?
My favourite food is Tteokbokki, which is a Korean bunshik dish (In Korean, bushik means food that is made from flour and/or rice).
The word ‘Tteok’ means rice cake. It has a long cylinder shaped rice cake seasoned with a chilli paste called ‘gochujang’ which is a Korean chilli paste. However not all tteokbokkis are spicy. Today, there are many variations such as, rose tteokbokki, jjajang tteokbokki, curry tteokbokki and the list goes on.
After researching about the history of this popular dish, I was surprised and absurd that this meal was invented from an accident. A mother named Ma Bok Lim went to a Korean-Chinese restaurant which was newly opened at the time and when she received rice cake from the owner (to show thanks for visiting), she accidentally dropped it in her meal- jjajangmyun. Jjajangmyun is a black bean sauce noodle. Loving the taste of the rice cake with jjajang sauce, she came up with an idea of seasoning gochujang with the rice cakes.
I found this quite hilarious and funny as I too sometimes make accidents while cooking but gain confidence when it turns out better than expected!
Sounds yum – I’d never heard of this before. Is it special to Korean cuisine or are there related dishes elsewhere?
Hi Ingrid, thank you for sharing the interesting story about mantu! Being born and raised in the southern part of China, I couldn’t be more familiar with mantou 馒头 and baozi 包子since they are traditional Chinese pastries that my family have for breakfast every day. However, if I had the chance to taste mantu at an Afghan restaurant, I can hardly associate it with Chinese Mantou or baozi since they are remarkably different in looks and flavours. This makes me think that the foreign words we encounter every day and everywhere may actually have a deep linguistic and cultural connection with our own language and background, but we usually take it for granted.
This reminded me of my favourite Vietnamese food bánh mì, a fusion of Vietnamese and French cuisine. The main ingredient baguette was introduced to Vietnam by the French in the mid-19th century. You would probably guess that ‘bánh mì’ was borrowed from French words ‘baguette’ or ‘pain de mie’ (plain bread) since they sound very similar. However, the word bánh or its Nôm form 餅 (rice cake or pastries) was actually borrowed from Chinese back in the 13th century, long before French contact. I am truly fascinated by how much information a word can reveal about historical and cultural connections if we are willing to discover!
Thank you for providing the etymology of ‘banh’! Makes so much more sense than the story of the ship-wrecked Portuguese…
Dumpling is worldwide famous dish originated from China by Zhongjing,a chinese medicine practitioner, has special place in Nepalese society also and we call “MOMO” in our language. In ancient time, Nepalese people used to visit Tibet, China for trade and business and it was believed that dish has brought up to Nepalese community but slowly and gradually they have modified it by serving with sauce and other different pickles. “MOMO is an interesting and simple to cook at home to celebrate special occasions, anniversary, parties and birthdays.
Although dish is same, people have given the name according to their language and modified look and taste as time passed and demand of customers .Even if people name differently the same dish , the essential point is that that particular dish has brought the culture of people together, and became most admired food in Nepal.
Looks exactly like mantu 😊 … is the word derived from mantu, too, or a Nepalese invention? Sounds quite different…
When I was young, bread (“bbang” in Korean) was the mere food you ate only as snacks. It never came across to me that it could substitute a regular meal. My dad had to eat rice and soup even after he finished toast for breakfast. However, as it has become more accessible and diversifying these days, it is rapidly changing modern diets in Korea.
In Daegu, the southern part of Korea, there is a famous bakery named “Pain Pan Pao” . Each word means bread in “pain”(French), “pan”(Spanish), and “pão”(Portuguese). Korean word (“bbang”) also sounds similar to these words.
So I wonder how it came to Korea in the first place. It is believed that several Portuguese landed in Japan by a typhoon in the 16th century. And bread came to Korea through the Japanese. (bread is パン(pan) in Japanese.) How interesting. Food travels and language travel as well.
Interesting- is it the same word as Vietnamese ‘banh’? Could all these words have been borrowed from Portuguese or do they just happen to sound similar to the Romance words?
Very interesting article! This reminds me of Sushi Rolls, which are quite popular here in Sydney but also in Seoul. The rolls here seem to have Japanese style as they contain one or two kinds of ingredients and the rice is sweetened. In contrast, Korean-style roll, which is called Kim-bap(seaweed rice), has more than five kinds of vegetables in it and the rice is rather blend. In the United States, it is more widely known as Californian Roll, which usually includes sushi, fried vegetables and lots of avocado. Although the dried seaweed is very likely from Korea, it is quite interesting to observe how the recipe diversifies depending on each country’s cuisine.
True – sushi in Europe (where it has only become common in the last decade or so) is v different from sushi in Australia …
One of the most recognizable foods of my country is bánh mì. At its core, it is a very simple dish – a loaf of baguette with a light spread of mayonnaise and paté stuffed with various cold cuts, pickled vegetables (usually carrots, cucumbers and red peppers), garnished with green onion and soy sauce. Bánh mì has a very interesting history since it is tied very closely to the French colonization of Vietnam. During the first half of the 20th century, when Vietnam was occupied by the French army, there were shipments from France arriving in larger ports such as Saigon, delivering French delicacies such as baguettes and cold cuts of meat to the soldiers and administrators in the country. However, it was only after the French soldiers stationed in Vietnam had been sent back to Europe to join the ongoing World War 1 that the local population had the chance to try out these French delicacies, as these foodstuffs flooded the markets of larger cities.
The bánh mì we are familiar with was born after the French army had completely pulled back from Vietnam in 1954, as the local people had more freedom to modify the French dishes with local ingredients: vegetables were added, mayonnaise replaced the butter, etc. Bánh mì then became a cheap and filling dish that was very affordable, unlike its predecessor – the French baguettes with cold cuts of meat.
Now, bánh mì is present in many countries and as such, has numerous variations. Even in Vietnam, there are many variations to the original dish, such as bánh mì bì (bánh mì with shredded meat), bánh mì xíu mại (a variation which includes char siu meatballs), etc. However, even with so many varieties, these are stilled called bánh mì, which is poses some interesting linguistics and historical / cultural questions – What makes this dish so recognizable and how does it retain its original name, even with variations seen in countries as far as the other side of globe? It may be that bánh mì is still young as a delicacy, and as such has not undergone a change in its name. But nevertheless it will be interesting to see if bánh mì will change radically in the future, both in form and term.
Thanks, Bob! Bánh mì is a truly amazing example of language and culture contact through food. Did you know that banh mi is one of the (relatively few) Vietnamese words that has made it into the English lexicon and is recorded in the Macquarie and Oxford English dictionaries? One of the two banh mi places on campus has come full circle, though, and calls itself a baguette shop; that’s the one where you can eat “a french love affair with vietnamese flavours” 🙂
Pastel de nata; also known as egg tart; is a dessert that contains a pastry crust filled with egg custard and cinnamon. This particular dessert made its debut in the early 20th century in the Guangdong province of China since the Guangdong province made many trades with the European countries in order to develop its own economy. Pastel de nata was one of the inspirations that was used in Chinese cuisines. In Macao; a Cantonese speaking country that was under the influence of Portugal; a British pharmacist named Andrew Stow opened a bakery and decided to recreate a new version of egg tart via using eggs that were harvested in Macao. Therefore, this new version of egg tart can also be known as “Portuguese tart” in Chinese language.
Thanks, Sharkie! I did have the egg tart in Lord Stowe’s Bakery in Coloane when I visited Macao. Probably a tourist trap but still yum 😉 You can read more about my reflections on the island’s multilingual linguistic landscape here.
Super interesting!
A while ago, I had similar discussions about Buuz (steamed dumplings) with some Uzbek and Nepalese friends. Some even associated it with Italian Ravioli.
Thanks, Gegentuul! The association of mantu with ravioli is actually quite frequent on cooking shows … an Orientalist trope: describing the East through a Western concept (“Afghan ravioli”, “the Paris of the East” etc)