Mantou are typically eaten as a
staple food in northern parts of China where
wheat, rather than
rice, is grown. They are made with milled
wheat flour, water and
leavening agents. In size and texture, they range from , soft and fluffy in the most elegant restaurants, to over , firm and dense for a worker’s lunch. As
white flour, being more heavily processed, was once more expensive, white
mantou were something of a luxury in preindustrial China. Traditionally,
mantou,
bing, and wheat
noodles were the staple
carbohydrates of the northern Chinese diet, analogous to rice, which forms the mainstay of the southern Chinese diet. They are also known in the south but are often served as street food or in restaurants, rather than as a staple or home cooking. Restaurant
mantou are often smaller and more delicate and can be further manipulated, for example, by
deep frying and dipping in sweetened
condensed milk. Colors or flavors may be added with other ingredients from
brown sugar to
food coloring in mantou making. For special occasions,
mantou are sometimes kneaded into various shapes in
Shanxi,
Shaanxi, and
Shandong. Precooked mantou are commonly sold in the frozen section of
Asian supermarkets, ready for preparation by
steaming or heating in the
microwave oven. A similar food, but with a savory or sweet filling inside, is
baozi.
Mantou is the older word, and in some regions—such as the
Jiangnan region of China, and
Korea—
mantou (or the equivalent local pronunciation of the word) can describe both the filled and unfilled buns. In
Japan, the equivalent local reading of the Chinese word (
manjū) refers only to filled buns. ==Etymology and history==