China’s interesting history of dumplings
BEIJING: During the Spring Festival, Chinese families come together for a reunion. And dumplings, also known as jiaozi, usually play a central role in this tradition.
In the north, fillings like celery and chives do not just provide flavor but symbolize diligence and longevity. In the south, ingot-shaped egg dumplings and fried yau gok are known to carry people’s hopes for a prosperous new year. But despite the popularity of dumplings in China and around the world, their origins are not clear.
Archaeologists in east China’s Shandong Province told Xinhua that the earliest physical record of dumplings dates back approximately 2,500 years. Tengzhou in Shandong, which is about an hour’s drive from Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, was the capital of a small state called Xue during the Spring and Autumn period (770 BC-476 BC).
Wang Dongmei, deputy director of the archaeological research department at the Shandong Museum, said that during an archaeological project in 1978, archaeologists discovered a corroded, shut bronze container in the tomb of a Xue monarch who ruled about 2,500 years ago.
“After prying it open, we found yellow, triangular food items that were about 5 or 6 centimeters on their longer sides, resembling dumplings and covered in a layer of white powder that blew away with the wind. When we prodded them gently with a bamboo stick, they crumbled, revealing stuffing-like crumbs inside, but it was no longer possible to identify the filling,” Wang said.
She noted that the tomb, which had been untouched by looters, housed 28 bronze ritual vessels containing well-preserved cattle, sheep, chicken and fish bones.
“To my knowledge, no older dumplings have been found in Shandong or in any other region across the country. This suggests that dumplings, which are a unique part of Chinese culinary culture, likely originated in Shandong,” said Hu Xinli, the lead archaeologist of the excavation.
Skipping forward to the Eastern Han period (25-220 AD) and the Three Kingdoms period (220-280 AD) and moving to the southwest of the country, dumplings seem to have become an indispensable part of Chinese cuisine.
Dumplings from over a thousand years ago have also been discovered in northwest China’s Xinjiang.
“Due to the dry climate, well-preserved pastries and dumplings from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) have been excavated from the Astana Tombs in Turpan, Xinjiang,” said Hu.
“From the archaeological sites of the Spring and Autumn period to modern dining tables, dumplings carry the sentiment and cultural identity of the Chinese people and symbolize their love for life and their anticipation for the future,” added Hu.