Noodles are an important and traditional kind of food in Chinese dishes. There are all kinds of Chinese noodles, and they are in different shapes (形状) with different kinds of food ingredients (食材). They are an important part of the main foods in China. Not only are noodles delicious and easy to cook, but also they are a symbol of long life.
Chinese-style noodles are also an important kind of food of the East Asian countries which are close to China such as Korea, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam. Chinese noodles make a big difference to the people’s eating habits in these countries. And the people in these foreign countries use the traditional Chinese ways to cook noodles. Behind different cooking ways of the Chinese noodles is the wisdom (智慧) of the Chinese people.
The ways to call the Chinese noodles are different in different parts of China. China is so large and there are many dialects (方言) of Chinese. People in different places like using their own dialects to call the noodles in their hometowns. People always use pinyin (拼音) to call the names of each kind of noodles. In Chinese pinyin, the noodles are called “mian” “fen”. “Mian” means that the noodles are made from wheat (小麦) and “fen” is the flour (面粉) in English. However, in Hong Kong and some places in Guangdong Province, the people call the noodles in Cantonese (广东话). What’s more, the people in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and some other Southeast Asian countries use Hokkien (闽南语) to call the noodles.
Noodles play such an important role in the Chinese food culture. Let’s enjoy a bowl of delicious long noodles on our birthdays and get good luck.
【小题1】Are noodles an important kind of food in Japan?【小题2】What do people in different places like using to call the noodles in their hometowns?
【小题3】How do you like the noodles in your hometown? Why?
