Hong Kong noodle history and the different noodle styles explained
- We explain how rice noodles, wheat noodles, egg noodles, bamboo pole noodles are made and the best foods to eat them with
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Hong Kong noodle masters explain iconic pairings in Cantonese cuisine
The four great inventions of China are considered to be the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing. Ask a layperson or foodie, however, and their answer might be congee, rice noodles, wheat noodles and rice.
You may wonder why noodles appear twice.
According to Dr Siu Yan-ho, a lecturer in the department of Chinese language and literature at Hong Kong Baptist University, the difference between fun (rice noodles) and meen (wheat noodles) lies in their geographical origins.
“The reason for this difference mainly comes from the various kinds of crops grown in China. Northern China mainly produces wheat, while southern China mainly grows rice,” says Siu.
Even to talk about noodles in Hong Kong in simple fun and meen terms is still oversimplifying things.
Politically, Hong Kong was a part of China’s Guangdong province before it was ceded to Britain under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, and in 1997 was handed back to China, which designated it a special administrative region.
