{"id":86115,"date":"2021-05-14T09:30:52","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T00:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/?p=86115"},"modified":"2021-05-14T09:09:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-14T00:09:13","slug":"%e3%83%88%e3%83%a0%e3%83%a4%e3%83%a0%e3%82%af%e3%83%b3%e3%82%84%e3%83%91%e3%83%83%e3%82%bf%e3%82%a4%e3%81%a0%e3%81%91%e3%81%98%e3%82%83%e3%81%aa%e3%81%84%e3%80%80%e3%82%bf%e3%82%a4%e6%96%99-11-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/news-en\/2021\/05\/14\/86115\/","title":{"rendered":"Shanxi : Immersed in the world of wheaten food"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wheaten dishes remind me of my hometown but also my mother and those treasured memories<\/h3>\n

Fourth-year student at the School of Political Science and Economics
\nCai Yifan<\/h6>\n

\"\"Speaking of China, it\u2019s natural to think of cities like Beijing, Shanghai, etc. Shanxi Province, my hometown, as a whole is very limitedly known, which I believe is quite a pity since there are a lot of stories to tell and among which I\u2019d like to elaborate about its fantastic culture of wheaten food.<\/p>\n

As the saying goes \u201cChina stands out of the world in terms of wheaten food, while Shanxi stands out of China in terms of wheaten food.\u201d People in Shanxi Province has around 2,000-year history of making wheaten food and there are currently around three hundreds types of wheaten food within the whole province.<\/p>\n

It is where Shanxi is located makes Shanxi the kingdom of wheaten food. Shanxi is located in plateau inland where enable those corns that can stand drought to grow up. This natural condition has longingly molded various wheaten cuisines, and largely we can categorize them based on how we make them – boil, steam and fry.<\/p>\n

For boiled noodles, the most known one is \u201cDaoxiao Mian(\u5200\u524a\u9eba)\u201d, which is regarded as the brand of Shanxi over China. It\u2019s made through a very delicate method : chefs need to be trained specifically to use blades to slice the paste into strips of noodles. Therefore, the noodles are with enough chewiness but without much thickness.<\/p>\n

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Daoxiao Mian(\u5200\u524a\u9eba)<\/p><\/div>\n

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It is usually eaten with black vinegar or tomato-based sauce.<\/p><\/div>\n

Boiled noodles are quite common in other parts of world as well, however, steamed noodles are relatively rarely shown up globally. Among which, the most interesting one I believed is \u201cYoumian Kaolaolao(\u839c\u9eba\u6832\u6833\u6833)\u201d, a fence-shaped steamed oats food. \u201cYoumian(\u839c\u9eba)\u201d stands for \u201coat\u201d in Chinese, while \u201ckaolaolao(\u6832\u6833\u6833)\u201d refers to the fence-like shape. This dish is famous for its texture, because it\u2019s made of oat instead of wheat which makes it less sweet; and its health value, oat is known to possess the value of reducing the blood pressure and dieting.\u00a0Youmian Kaolaolao tastes relatively bland and people tend to have them with tomato sauce or vinegar sauce, in which vinegar is another known special in Shanxi Province because it helps to promote digestion especially for People in Shanxi Province since their lives are filled with all kinds of wheaten food.<\/p>\n

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