1. Chinese noodles are pretty old. Can you guess how old they are?

2. Do you think Chinese people eat noodles mostly for breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Why?

3. Have you heard the legend of “Over-the-Bridge” rice noodles? What type of noodles might these be?

M at Hello again. In today's episode, we are talking about noodles, one of my favourite types of Chinese food. Now, I think most people around the world, if you ask them to name one famous Chinese food, I think most people will say, first of all, noodles. So, we all know something about Chinese noodles. I think most people around the world have tried Chinese noodles or have tried some kind of Chinese noodles. But let's start with some history. What do we know about the history of Chinese noodles?

J ocelyn OK, that's a good place to start. From what we know today, the earliest Chinese noodles date back more than 4,000 years. Some historians found a bowl of noodles buried deep in the ground near the Yellow River in China, and experts dated these as being 4,000 years old because they were able to give an accurate date to the ceramic bowl . But the first real written reference to noodles is from the Eastern Han Dynasty, around the year 100 AD.

During the Song Dynasty , noodle shops were very popular in Chinese cities, and we have many written references to eating noodles in these special noodle shops.

M at OK, so noodles were very popular during the Song Dynasty, and possibly before that time. But what about today? How popular are noodles in China today?

J ocelyn Noodles are still very popular in China today. There are thousands of varieties of noodles in China, and these differ by the shape of the noodles and the sauce or gravy. They can be dry, or in soup, or boiled, or fried, and there are so many different ways to prepare noodles. Many noodles have local characteristics, so in one city, you might find that most people eat one particular type of noodles, and then in a neighbouring city, the local people have a completely different version. Traditionally, noodles in China can be grouped by one of the three main ingredients: wheat flour (the most popular kind), rice flour , and a kind of bean starch (these are often called glass noodles ).

M at Now, my next questions are: when do Chinese people usually eat noodles? Is it like for lunch, for dinner? Do you eat noodles with other things? Do you share noodles? How does it work? Is there a fixed or a typical time or a typical way to eat noodles?

J ocelyn The questions are quite difficult to answer, actually, because China is such a huge country, and eating habits are very different from city to city, province to province. So it's not easy to generalise about eating habits. A lot of people say that in north China, people eat more noodles, and in south China, people eat more rice. But people in North China still eat rice, and people in South China still eat noodles.

In many parts of China, both north and south, people eat noodles for breakfast. They usually have them in a local noodle restaurant because it takes time to cook noodles, and most people are in a hurry in the morning. So, there is no typical type of breakfast noodle. In some areas, people have soup noodles for breakfast; in other places, they have dry noodles in sauce; and in some places, they eat fried noodles for breakfast.

So noodles are also a common lunchtime food because, if you are working, they are fast and cheap.

I think it's less common to have noodles for dinner in the evening just because they are quite heavy, and a lot of people like to eat a lighter meal in the evening. But in almost every Chinese city, you can find late-night noodle restaurants.

So you can see, for some people, noodles are a daily food; for others, it's more like a convenience food when people are in a hurry or busy with work.

M at I've heard some people mention some famous noodle dishes, some famous types of noodles, and there are many different famous ones in different cities and different provinces in different parts of China. But there's one I always remember. Actually, before I came to China, I remember reading a book, and in the book, they mentioned something called Over-the-Bridge rice noodles . Do you know the story? Can you tell me that? I've actually forgotten the legend of the story. Can you tell me what happens?

J ocelyn Oh, Over-the-Bridge rice noodles are famous in the southwest of China, in the province called Yunnan. The legend says that in the Qing Dynasty , there was a small island in the middle of a lake.

On the island lived a wise man, and he was studying to be an official. Every day, his wife sent meals to him. On the island, after the wife walked to the lake and crossed the long bridge, the meals often got cold when she gave them to her husband. One day, she cooked some rice noodles with chicken, but she fell asleep. When she woke up, it was evening already, but she found the food was still hot because of a layer of oil on the surface of the soup. Her husband was very happy with the hot food.

The legend of the “Over-the-Bridge rice noodles” was born, and many restaurants started selling them. It's quite popular today in the southwest of China.

M at That's it! I remember now. The wife carries the food over the bridge, and it gets cold. So the layer of oil keeps the noodles hot in the bowl. I've actually tried this; it's really delicious, and it's really hot. The noodles stayed really hot in the soup. So, my next question: now I know that at different times of the year, on different festivals, people eat certain foods, certain special things or particular dishes. Is there a special time in Chinese culture when people eat noodles?

J ocelyn There are certain times of the year when it's traditional to eat noodles. I think the most common one is birthdays. All Chinese people like to eat something called longevity noodles on their birthdays. There are many ways to make longevity noodles, but the most common way is to stew them in chicken broth. They often come with a fried egg and some green vegetable leaves.

When we were growing up, our family always made this on our birthdays, but nowadays, a lot of people celebrate their birthdays in a restaurant. But in most places, if you tell the waitress that it's your birthday, you will normally get a bowl of longevity noodles for free.