The French baguette needs no introduction. Not only has it an important place in French daily life, it is also omnipresent in any piece of pop culture related to France. I’d heard about it a long time ago before I actually travelled in France. My auntie, a Shanghainese lady who gives an importance to good table manners, likes to enjoy it while strolling in Parisian streets when she visits me from China. Two friends of mine started an expat life in Asia. They told me the baguette was what they missed the most. Each time when they return to Paris, having a baguette is their ritual right after landing home. I also love it. It is something that can make my day when I bite into a freshly baked one, with its irresistible smell, crispy crust yet soft and warm interior.
Photo by Philippe Ramakers on Pixabay
On the contrary, mantou has nearly zero reputation outside China. Even me, raised in a Chinese region where we usually have rice as a staple food, I was not very fond of it. Looking back, I realise I never really understood this humble treasure.
First of all, what is it? You may know Chinese bun or bao. A bun is actually a mantou with fillings. Mantou is made of wheat flour, water and yeast; the baguette has just a little extra salt. The dough of mantou rises from gas bubbles created by yeast fermentation, and it is exactly the same principle discovered by the Egyptians five millennia ago and which is also employed for making baguette. Mantou is also a common staple food in Northern China where wheat is cultivated instead of rice in the South. So mantou is just a steamed version of bread that the northern Chinese people have at breakfast, as a side dish to mop up the sauce from their plate, or all day long as a snack. Yes, as a snack, those French who have a piece of chocolate or babybel (one of kids’ favourite cheese) inside a baguette as their “goûter'' of 4 pm during their childhood know what I’m talking about.
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Despite its history of two thousand years or so, Mantou does not enjoy the same reputation as its cousins such as buns or rou jia mo. Buns are carried by the southern Chinese diaspora into the restaurants of America or Europe. Rou jia mo, a Shaanxi (a northern province) style hamburger made of flat mantou and full-flavoured meat, has made a breakthrough in the western gastronomic landscape in recent years. You may say that’s probably because mantou has no fillings, which makes it plain to taste. I would have agreed if I had not tasted a good mantou, which, like a baguette, can be devoured by itself.
Bun/bao served with sauce and pickles.
Photo by Jonathan Valencia on Pixabay
Rou jia mo, an ultimate streetfood, is catching on.
Photo by takedahrs on Pixabay
I can still remember that day how my understanding of mantou changed when I had an authentic Shandong style made from sourdough. In this agriculturally rich province, mantou is not only THE staple food but also often used as a present for key family events.
My tasting experience was unforgettable. First was the wheat smell, irresistible like a still warm baguette; then when I split it into two with hands came these french brioche-like layers, in a more dense fashion but not heavy; the soft yet structured inside was pulled into strips; finally, its little chewy texture sent some sweetness to the palate.
I was amazed that it feels like my first bite into a good baguette. And this was just flour, water and sourdough, after all. If flour of good quality and sourdough give any mantou a naturally nice taste, those infinite layers are unique in a Shandong style mantou. Layers in pastries are often obtained by fat, such as butter and lard. In Shandong, mantou masters use dry flour in dough to create layers - which is a technically and physically demanding work called 呛面 (qiang mian). From that day on, I understand why mantou is a food which creates a homesick feeling for people from Shandong.
Shandong qiang mian mantou, also called mille-feuille mantou
Photo by 畫未 on zhihu
Unfortunately, authentic Shandong style mantou is hard to find outside the province, maybe because it requires a great deal of cooking skill. In contrast, Shandong mantou lovers aren’t scarce in the rest of the country. Once I saw a Shandong mantou store in Beijing with a long queue in front of it and people bought it by the dozen.
Like traditional baguette, mantou, especially the Shandong style, is also full of craftsmanship and cultural heritage. Can we imagine a competition one day for the best mantou in China just as every year in France a best baguette is elected?
For your dinner conversation
Here’s an etymological explanation of bun/bao and mantou if sometimes you find it confusing.
The character 包 (bao in mandarin pronunciation) means wrapping. The dough that wraps (sweet or salted) fillings is therefore called bun or bao - the two usual phonetic transcriptions of the Chinese word. Mantou is the one with no fillings.
Nevertheless, the culinary taxonomy was not always clear-cut. Mantou is commonly attributed to Zhuge Liang (181-234), with fillings at the time. During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), an era of cultural flourish hence culinary invention, bao appeared (the famous xiaolong bao was first seen in historical records in Kaifeng in Henan province). The Song was also a period marked with political instability and wars. Fillings were withdrawn during difficult times, mantou was made with no fillings. According to the literature of the Song, both mantou and bao were used in an interchangeable way.
Later in the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912), the line became more distinctly drawn even though there remained some regional differences. In Northern China, bao had fillings as opposed to mantou. However in Southern China, mantou was still used to name both. Today, while the Northern China terminology predominates, some still use mantou to name steamed dough with fillings in the Southern.
In Japan, when buddhist connections brought mantou from China around the 13th and 14th centuries, mantou was still used to cover both types - with and without fillings. The Chinese word, then transcripted as manju in Japanese, is therefore the name of a traditional sweet treat with azuki bean paste (red bean) inside. A similar food is still largely consumed in China, though called “dou sha bao”.
And to add some salt to it
We all know how the French adore rules (or rather, how they don’t take it as seriously as their German or Swiss neighbours). But when it comes to food and the preservation of cultural heritage, rules are rules and they are very serious.
Particularly, in regards to baguette, rules are sacred. First, they self-regulate (there is no official rules) by dictating the measures of baguette with a diameter of 6-7 cm and a length of 55-65 cm. A baguette of French tradition (baguette tradition) has been even protected by a government decree since 1993. Under scrupulously followed rules (being baked on the premises where it’s sold, never being frozen, containing only flour, water, yeast and salt…), “the baguette is the envy of the world”, says the President Macron. Now on the list of UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, the baguette is THE quintessential symbol of France.
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