From Fuzhou. Popular in Fujian and Fuzhou diaspora.
Pin · Fuzhou (nudged 0.33° N of the meat-swallow pin)
- OriginFuzhou · Min · Fuzhounese
- First record
- 1870 · Empires & migration
- Fold
- Wonton, trailing skin
- Cooked
- Boiled in clear broth, often with peanut noodles
- Wrapper
- Wheat doughFilled; savory; thin flour wrapper
- Filling
- Pork pounded to a springy paste; very thin wrapper
- Cooked
- Boiled in clear broth, often with peanut noodles
- Served
- An everyday snack
- Size
- About 4 cm across
Not known yet We don’t yet have a written story or a recipe for Fuzhou bian rou. What we do have is below, with its sources.
Where
Open the map →
Evidence
Fairly sure. A dated text records it by 1870.
We list 3 sources: 2 primary or archaeological, 1 secondary. How grading works.
First record Maclay & Baldwin, Alphabetic Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 1870, p. 668: 扁食 "pieng sik, a sort of meat dumplings" (D); first found, under the older Fuzhou name, not 扁肉 itself
Sources
- A
Round 2. Primary, OCR text read (p. 668, running head PIENG; page image not viewed): under the character 扁, "Flat, low, not globular ...", the list of common compounds includes "pieng sik, a sort of meat dumplings", and…
Round 2. Primary, OCR text read (p. 668, running head PIENG; page image not viewed): under the character 扁, "Flat, low, not globular ...", the list of common compounds includes "pieng sik, a sort of meat dumplings", and 扁食 is printed among the numbered character compounds for that entry. The preface is dated Foochow, June 14th 1870. Identity match: PARTIAL. It proves that a meat dumpling called 扁食 was an everyday Fuzhou-dialect word in 1870; it does not use the name 扁肉 and gives no wrapper, filling or cooking details, so it cannot tell bian rou apart from other wonton-type dumplings. No entry for 扁肉 or for 肉燕 was found in the OCR text (the OCR of the romanised Foochow is poor, so that is not conclusive). - A
清稗類鈔, 飲食類, entry 扁食 (Wikisource transcription, section 106)
RELATED TERM ONLY: '北方俗語，凡餌之屬，水餃、鍋貼之屬，統稱為扁食，蓋始於明時也。' A northern usage; does not mention Fujian or 扁肉.
- S
Baidu Baike (as noted in the atlas; not re-opened)
Existing basis: the name is tied to Ming-era 扁食 bianshi, a general term for boiled filled dumplings.
Notes from the research
Name tied to Ming-era 扁食 bianshi, a general term for boiled filled dumplings (Baidu Baike).
Family A
