Food Story

A good place to start learning about another culture is to understand its cuisine. Dining is a fundamentally important component of Hong Kong's local culture. So here are ten stories explaining the history and evolution of some of Hong Kong's classic specialty dishes - because the food will taste even better when you know its story!

Lou Pho Piang (literally "wife cake")

A legend says that there is a teahouse with established history in Guangzhou, China, which was famous for Chinese pastry, cakes and dim sum. One day, a dim sum chef from Chiu Chow went to the teahouse to buy dim sum for his wife. However, surprisingly, after tasting the dim sum, his wife said "the winter melon puffs from my mother's family are far more delicious than these dim sums!"

The chef's wife then used winter melon paste, white sugar and flour to make some crispy and delicate winter melon pastry. The chef found the pastries simply irresistible. Its fresh flavours were far better than the Chinese dim sums served in the teahouses in Guangzhou. Afterwards, the chef brought the winter melon pastries to the teahouse and invited people to have a try. Everyone praised this snack after trying it. After being ask about the name of this delicacy, the chef said proudly, "This was made by my wife!" Therefore, the owner of the teahouse named the pastries, Lou Pho Piang (literally "wife cake"). Ever since, the Lou Pho Piang has enjoyed wide acclaim both locally and throughout the world.

Acknowledgements to Mr. Jacky Yu for providing the information.

Sachima

Sachima is a sweet snack. Some may call it ma chai (literally "little horse") and some may call it sa kei ma (literally "kill the one who is riding on the horse"). In fact, sachima is a phonetic transliteration of a Manchurian term, meaning "delicious snack".

There is a legend that attempts to explain the origins of sachima. The saying goes like this: a Manchurian general from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), whose surname is "Sa", loved riding horses, hunting and eating sweet snacks. One day, General Sa's chef carelessly broke some deep-fried noodles, covered in egg sauce, into pieces while preparing snacks for the general. So, he put together the broken fragments of the fried noodles with syrup, creating a new concoction in the process. By coincidence, General Sa shouted and urged for the snack at that same moment. Upon hearing this, the chef pretended to be very angry and cursed, "Kill the one who rode on the horse!", and quickly served the snack. Surprisingly, General Sa, who thoroughly enjoyed the dish, had misheard the chef's cursing, hearing "sachima" instead, and mistook it for the name of that snack. Hence, the general deemed the name appropriate, and it has been known as such ever since.

Acknowledgements to Mr. Jacky Yu for providing the information.

Egg Tarts

Egg tarts are a local delicacy much loved by Hong Kong people. In fact, where ever there are Chinese people, there are egg tarts. Originating in China, egg tarts are different from western pies. Although western pies have many different kinds of fillings, there is no such baked pie with an outer pastry crust with an egg custard filling. Egg tarts first appeared along the coast of the Canton province, China. At that time, a number of bread and pastry chefs learned how to make Western delicacies, such as curry puffs and croissants. During the 1940s and 1950s, the outbreak of war in mainland China made Hong Kong a comparatively more stable and safer place. Thus, many bread and pastry chefs moved to Hong Kong. Adopting techniques similar to that of making outer pastry for curry puffs, egg tarts gradually came into existence and developed into the much loved delicacy it is today.

Egg tarts have two main types of outer casing: short crust pastry and puff pastry. The creation of puff pastry requires skillful technique and patience. One piece of butter pastry and one piece of water pastry are stacked together, layer-by-layer. These pastries will separate after baking, forming a puff pastry case with many layers. However, because butter was very expensive during the 1940s, it was substituted with lard in those days.

Special thanks to the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants & Related Trades and Commercial Radio 1, Radio Programme 'Welcome Mr Chef' for providing the food story.

Shaomai (pork and mushroom dumplings)

Shaomai (literally translated as 'burn sell'; 燒賣) was originally called 'wheat twig' (shaomai; 梢麥), also known as 'ghost's ruffled head' (guipengtou; 鬼蓬頭). Every year in April and May, the 'wheat twig', or shaomai (梢麥) in the north of China are covered with a layer of white frost. When making shaomai (燒賣), a layer of frost-like flour is sprinkled at the opening after it has been sealed up (收口處) and the ruffled top edges resembles an ear of wheat - this is how shaomai earned its name. As 'wheat' (麥) and 'sell' (賣) share the same pronunciation in Mandarin, the dim sum was mistaken as 'burn sell' (shaomai; 燒賣) by the Cantonese.

With acknowledgements to Mr. William Mark for the information provided.