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Breakfast and Brunch in China - an overview

Zao can Many Chinese will buy breakfast from street vendors who open around 5am and are gone by 8am. These vendors offer a variety of different breakfast dishes. Frequently found in the morning in China, with regional variations, is a bowl of thin flavoursome broth, rice noodles and marinated sliced beef flavoured with shallots, raw garlic and sometimes chilli. This can be accompanied by a bowl of wonderfully warm soymilk. Breakfast can also be rice porridge or soybean milk soup. On the street breakfast ‘biscuits’ are baked in a tandoori style clay kiln or in steel drums. In most areas breakfast foods are the same as lunch and dinner. Generally speaking rice with small amounts of vegetable and meat. In Canton dim sum and congee are primarily breakfast choices. In Northern China breakfast might include steamed breads, unleavened pocket bread with sesame or steamed buns with meat or vegetable stuffing. In Central and Eastern China a traditional start to the day would include xifan - a glutinous rice dumpling with fried bread sticks, salted mustard greens and dried pork mince. Then there is a soup made from fried tofu and cellophane noodles, plain rice or congee and numerous side dishes like salted duck eggs, pickled vegetables, century eggs and of course sweetened or savoury soy milk. Other breakfast fares found more often in Southern China include rice noodle rolls or cheong fun, pan fried noodles with bean sprouts, spring onions and soy sauce, fagao - rice cakes, thin pancakes rather like crepes, turnip cakes. The dim sum breakfast is often eaten at specialist restaurants for brunch and is a world in itself.

Breakfast Recipes from China

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