Jianbing

History

Jianbing originated in the Northeast of China. Its history can be traced back 2,000 years to Shandong province during the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). According to legends, chancellor Zhuge Liang encountered the problem of feeding his soldiers after they lost their woks. He ordered the cooks to mix water with wheat flour to make batter, then spread it on shields, or flat copper griddles over a flame. The dish raised the soldiers’ morale and helped them win the battle. After that, jianbing was passed down through generations in Shandong province and gradually spread to different parts of China.

Reasons for popularity

One of the most popular street breakfasts in China, Jianbing can be easily found in many cities. The characteristics of jianbing account for its popularity in China and the West.

First, jianbing is never ‘pre-cooked’. In order to preserve its crispness, customers have to wait for their turn, which often results in a queue, although the preparation time is short. Part of the attraction is that customers can watch the raw ingredients come together to form the dish.

Jianbing can satisfy different people’s tastes as it can be made with many different ingredients and mixed with different sauces, jams and flavors in different proportions. According to the vendors outside East China Normal University, though some customers like spicy flavors and some do not like cilantro, they can create their own jianbing.

The low cost of jianbing is also one of the reasons for its popularity, as the basic ingredients are themselves inexpensive.

Besides, jianbing is a type of Bing that has rich nutrient values. It contains abundant nutrients as it can be made of soybeans, mung beans, black beans, lettuce, peanuts and eggs.

The taste of jianbing is also major reason for its popularity. Alisa Grandy, a western food vendor who serves jianbing in Portland, describes Jianbing’s taste as fantastic and special because the combination of different ordinary ingredients makes the taste greater than the sum of them. In the book Food and Chinese Culture: Essays on Popular Cuisine, it is described that the look and smell of Jianbing Guozi are as good as its taste, and it tastes better when serving with green garlic and fermented flour sauce with the sweetness of its crispy layer.

Regional variations in China

The traditional jianbing is originated in Shandong and flourished in Tianjin. jianbing is basically made of flour and eggs with different fillings and sauces. As there are many variations depending on tastes and preferences in different regions, many cities have their own versions of jianbing. Shandong-style Jianbing and Tianjin-style Jianbing are the two most common versions of Jianbing in China.

Shandong-style jianbing

Jianbing from Shandong province tastes crispy and harder as its batter is formed from the flour mixture that mainly contains coarse grains such as corn, sorghum and millet. In the old days, people had Shandong-style jianbing mainly by rolling it with scallions or serving it with meat soup. Nowadays, the variety of fillings are richer and differ according to one’s preference, for example, sweet potatoes, lettuce and pork are also used as fillings.

Tianjin-style jianbing

Jianbing from Tianjin is a transformation of the jianbing originated in Shandong. It is also called jianbing guozi (煎餅果子) and Guozi refers to its youtiao stuffing.Tianjin-style Jianbing tastes softer as its crepe is made of green mung bean flour, which contains less gluten. Also, Tianjin-style Jiangbing is topped with youtiao (油條 fried dough stick), while the Shandong-style one sold by street vendors is usually topped with baocui (薄脆 crispy fried cracker).

Internationalized jianbing

Jianbing is also served in the U.K., U.S. and Australia by Western vendors and young Chinese entrepreneurs. In the U.S., it has become one of the newest food trend and gains high popularity among Americans and Asian customers, particularly Chinese overseas students. Western vendors were inspired to start jianbing business back home after first trying it in China.

Apart from the traditional Chinese jianbing, some vendors in the U.S. offer various versions of it to cater to American customers’ taste, such as vegetarian jianbing and gluten-free jianbing. Culture-crossing fillings like barbecue pulled pork, bacon, cheese, hot dogs and Spam are additionally provided to let customers create their own customized Jianbing.

Besides, fillings of jianbing are diverse with new innovations. A food truck in New York called “The Flying Pig jianbing” provides different filling options of Jianbing such as dried pork floss, pork belly and bamboo shoots. In another shop called Mr. Bing, the crepe batter is made of millet flour, buckwheat flour and purple rice. Many characterized jianbing are also shown. For example, the cha chaan bing with peanut butter and condensed milk, and the Peking duck bing with the duck sauce, cucumber chunks and duck slices are introduced.

Dosai is a very famous south Indian dish similar to that of jianbing