On Food and Cooking

China also invented filled pasta, the
original ravioli, in which the dough surrounds
and encloses a mass of other ingredients. Both
small, thin-skinned, delicate hundun or
wontons, now usually served in southern
soups, and the thicker chiao-tzu or pot sticker,
often steamed and fried in the north, are
mentioned in written records before 700 CE,
and archaeologists have found well-preserved
specimens that date to the 9th century. Over
the next few hundred years, recipes describe
making thin noodles by slicing a rolled dough
sheet and by repeatedly pulling and folding a
dough rope; and the doughs themselves are
made with a variety of liquids, including
radish and leaf juices, vegetable purees, juice
pressed from raw shrimp (which makes the
noodles pink), and sheep’s blood.
Noodles — mian or mein — and filled
dumplings began in the north as luxury foods
for the ruling class. They gradually became
staples of the working class, with dumplings