Chūnbǐng

Spring pancake

Eating Spring pancakes on the day of Lichun in a restaurant
Type	Pancake
Place of origin	China

Spring-pancake (Chinese: 春餅; pinyin: chūnbǐng) is a traditional Chinese food unique to the northern regions. People eat spring pancakes on the day called lichun to celebrate the beginning of the spring.

The spring pancake took its rise from the Jin dynasty and has prospered since the Tang dynasty. The lichun was valued by both Chinese ancient kings and civilians. Unlike kings’ great celebrations, civilians celebrated the lichun by eating spring pancakes wrapped around fresh vegetables and meat, which is called bite-the-spring. Bite-the-spring implies that civilians are praying for a good harvest year through eating the fresh vegetables and meat at the beginning of spring. In the Qing dynasty, spring pancakes became a fried pancake wrapped around a filling that included ham, chicken, pork, black dates, scallions, walnuts and sugar. In addition, spring pancakes were one of the nine desserts for the regal banquet of Qing dynasty.