When I was first searching my mind for an idea related to this project, I realized that besides the common passion of Chinese Italians for flour-made noodles, there is another flour-based food type that both cultures favor--pancakes. Italians eat pizza, which is basically a pancake with other ingredients on top, while Chinese eat stuffed pancakes with additional ingredients inside the pancakes called “bing.” Under the broad category of “bing,” I selected brown sugar bing because it is one of the few special bings that produce a sweet taste and serve as a kind of Chinese dessert. Also, brown sugar, unrefined soft sugar, has long been a unique part of Chinese cooking, while cooking in other cultures usually relies on more refined sugar. Chinese culture also relates brown sugar to health benefits, especially for women, and tradition in Chinese gastronomy. Therefore, I decided to explore this all-time favorite traditional dish for this project.

Brown sugar is connected to more health benefits than white sugar and other refined sugars, not only in Chinese culture but also in the scientific society. I.I. Brekhman, a Russian biochemist, wrote an entire book on the relationship between brown sugar and human health. In the book, Brekhman concluded from research results that brown sugar is not only better than white sugar, which can cause toxicity in human bodies, but also it contributes to overall health by causing animals to gain less weight, increasing their mobility and improving their central nervous system. He also indicated in his book that brown sugar enhances animals’ reproductive functions (Bredman et al., 1983), an argument corresponding to the Chinese traditional view that brown sugar is good for women, especially during their menstrual periods. Brown sugar pancake adds brown sugar as the main ingredient, which simultaneously gives the bing a lovely sweet taste and more beneficial health effects. A brown sugar pancake is generally not a food of occasion; it can be served any time and at any place; but brown sugar itself is served often at times when a girl is experiencing her menstrual period or after giving birth.

The health benefits of brown sugar have been recognized by Chinese people for centuries. Brown sugar first appeared in historical records in the Han dynasty when its origin from sugar cane was recorded by Yang Fu in his book Yi Wu Zhi (Yue, 2002). Its beneficial health effects were first recorded by Li Shizhen in China’s most eminent and distinguished traditional book on pharmaceuticals Bencao gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica), in which Li wrote that brown sugar relieves the discomforts of spleens and livers and is good for blood, a claim later confirmed by scientific research concluding that brown sugar is rich in essential elements iron and calcium (Yue, 2002). When brown sugar was first discovered, it was considered a luxury food because of its scarcity and that is the reason why it was first mentioned in Yi Wu Zhi, a collection of all the rare luxuries in China during the Han dynasty. During the Qing dynasty, a large quantity of brown sugar was regularly supplied to the royal family in the Qianlong period (Yue, 2002). Humans never stopped their journeys to explore their tastes for sweet foods; as a result, brown sugar quickly earned a profitable market throughout the world, in countries including China, Japan, India, and Australia (Mazumdar, 1998).

Making brown sugar pancakes by myself allows me to see the beauty of cooking: you have full control over what you eat. Cooking provides me with the opportunity to enjoy food as a combination of creativity and self-care instead of simple nourishment. At the same time, it is also my comfort food and connection to home during this uncertain and isolating time living in a foreign country. Before this project, I often failed to see the culture behind cooking and eating. We easily identify occasional foods such as dumplings and rice cakes as carriers of culture but forget that each food has its own culture embedded in the process of making and eating. Simple food, such as a brown sugar pancake, also opens up the door to Chinese history and culture. When we cook, we have the time to reflect on the meanings of food, culture, and life. When we eat, we have the time to enjoy our thinking, happiness, and nostalgia.