Biangbiang noodles

Biangbiang noodles
Type Chinese noodles
Place of origin China
Region or state Shaanxi
Cookbook: Biangbiang noodles  Media: Biangbiang noodles
Biangbiang noodles
Traditional Chinese 麵
Simplified Chinese 面
Hanyu Pinyin biángbiáng miàn
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 油潑扯麵
Simplified Chinese 油泼扯面
Hanyu Pinyin yóu pō chě miàn

Biangbiang noodles, alternatively known as you po che mian in Chinese, are a type of noodles popular in the cuisine of China's Shaanxi Province. The noodles, touted as one of the "ten strange wonders of Shaanxi" (陕西十大怪), are described as being like a belt, owing to their thickness and length.

Description

The noodle is broad and hand-made. It was originally part of a poor man's meal in the countryside, but has recently become popular in fashionable restaurants due to the unique character used in its name.

Use in dishes

Dishes with this noodle are often topped with lots of red hot peppers for the cold winter in Shaanxi.

Chinese character for biáng

Look up ⿺辶⿳穴⿲月⿱⿲幺言幺⿲長馬長刂心 in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The character for biáng in calligraphic regular script.
The character for biáng in a Song font.
The simplified character for biáng in a Song font.

Made up of 58 strokes in its traditional form (43 in simplified Chinese), the Chinese character for "biáng" is one of the most complex Chinese characters in contemporary usage,[1] although the character is not found in modern dictionaries or even in the Kangxi dictionary.

The character is composed of 言 (speak; 7 strokes) in the middle flanked by 幺 (tiny; 2×3 strokes) on both sides. Below it, 馬 (horse; 10 strokes) is similarly flanked by 長 (grow; 2×8 strokes). This central block itself is surrounded by 月 (moon; 4 strokes) to the left, 心 (heart; 4 strokes) below, and刂 (knife; 2 strokes) to the right. These in turn are surrounded by a second layer of characters, namely 穴 (cave; 5 strokes) on the top and 辶 (walk; 4 strokes) curving around the left and bottom.

Phonetic substitution

Neither the traditional nor the simplified Chinese characters for "biáng" can be entered into computers because they are not yet encoded in Unicode, although they have been submitted to the Ideographic Rapporteur Group for inclusion in "IRG Working Set 2015".[2] However, phonetic substitutes like 彪彪面 (biāobiāomiàn) or 冰冰面 (bīngbīngmiàn) are often used instead.

The character is described by the following ideographic description sequence:[3]

⿺辶⿳穴⿲月⿱⿲幺言幺⿲長馬長刂心

Unicode

The character has not been added to Unicode yet, but the traditional and simplified forms are being considered by the IRG for inclusion in a future CJK Unified Ideographs extension.[3]

Mnemonics

Animated GIF showing the stroke order of biáng according to the mnemonic

There are a number of mnemonics used by Shaanxi residents to aid recall of how the character is written.

One version runs as follows:

Traditional
Chinese 		Simplified
Chinese 		Pinyin English translation
一點上了天 一点上了天 Yīdiǎn shàngle tiān Apex rising up to the sky,
黃河兩道彎 黄河两道弯 Huáng Hé liǎng dào wān Over Two bends by Yellow River's side.
八字大張口 八字大张口 Bāzì dà zhāngkǒu Character "Eight"'s (八) opening wide,
言字往進走 言字往进走 Yán zì wǎng jìn zǒu "Speech" (言) enters inside.
你一扭 我一扭 你一扭 我一扭 Nǐ yī niǔ, wǒ yī niǔ You twist, I twist too, (幺 'tiny')
你一長 我一長 你一长 我一长 Nǐ yī zhǎng, wǒ yī zhǎng you grow, I grow (長) with you,
當中加個馬大王 当中加个马大王 Dāngzhōng jiā gè mǎ dàwáng Inside, a horse (馬) king will rule.
心字底 心字底 Xīn zì dǐ "Heart" (心) down below,
月字旁 月字旁 Yuè zì páng "Moon" (月) by the side,
留個釣搭掛麻糖 留个钓搭挂麻糖 Liú ge diào dā guà má tang Leave a hook (刂 'knife') for Matang (Mahua, Fried Dough Twist) to hang low,
坐著車車逛咸陽 坐着车车逛咸阳 Zuòzhe chēchē guàng Xiányáng On our carriage, to Xianyang we'll ride (radical: 辶 'walk').

Note that the first two lines probably refer to the character 宀 (roof), building it up systematically as a point and a line (river) with two bends.

Origin of the character

Restaurant specializing in Biang Biang noodles
BiangBiang restaurant.
A Xi'an biang biang mian restaurant.

The origins of the biang biang noodles and the character biáng are unclear. In one version of the story, the character biáng was invented by the Qin Dynasty Premier Li Si. However, since the character is not found in the Kangxi Dictionary, it may have been created much later than the time of Li Si. Similar characters were found used by Tiandihui.

In the 2007 season of the TVB show The Web (一網打盡), the show's producers tried to find the origin of the character by contacting university professors, but they could not verify the Li Si story or the origin of the character. It was concluded that the character was invented by the noodle store.

One theory is that there was no such character or meaning for this word in the beginning, and the word actually came from the sound people make from chewing the noodles, "biang biang biang".

A legend about a student fabricating a character for the noodle to get out of a biang biang noodle bill also is a commonly believed theory about the origin of the character.[4]

According to an article on China Daily, the word "biang" actually refers to the sound made by the chef when he creates the noodles by pulling the dough and slapping it on the table.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "What is the Most Complex Chinese Character?". Mental Floss. Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  2. ↑ UTC Character Submission for 2015 by the Unicode Consortium
  3. 1 2 See Unicode Technical Report #45 and associated data File, UTC-00791. The file references this Wikipedia article as a primary source and a reason for inclusion.
  4. ↑ Beck, Stewart Lee. "The Hardest Chinese Character". Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  5. ↑ "Biangbiang Shaanxi street food". China Daily. Retrieved 19 November 2012.
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