Earlier this week I posted about 端午 (Duānwǔ), the fifth day of the fifth month in the Chinese calendar. Today's character is 五 (wǔ), the Chinese character for "five".
Note that although 五 (wǔ) is pronounced identically to the character 午 (wǔ) in 端午, it's a different character with a different literal meaning. The fifth month of the lunar year can be referred to as either 五月 or 午月, but while 五 on its own means "five", 午 on its own means "noon".
There's only one word containing 午 that I've ever seen on a Chinese menu — 午餐肉 (wǔ cān ròu), or Spam/luncheon meat — a popular ingredient in Chinese hotpot! So I've decided to cover 五 instead today. I hope this isn't too tenuous a link with Monday's post...
The two main contexts in which 五 is used on menus are 五香 (wǔ xiāng), which is "five spice", and 五花肉 (wǔ huā ròu), which is literally "five-flower meat" and means pork belly. As I mentioned in my post on 花, the name 五花肉 refers to the five alternating layers of meat and fat that should be present in this cut of meat.
Here are some dishes with 五 in the name:
五香牛肉 | wǔ xiāng niú ròu | five-spice beef |
五香牛腩 | wǔ xiāng niú nǎn | five-spice beef brisket |
五香花生米 | wǔ xiāng huā shēng mǐ | five-spice peanuts |
五花肉燉蘿蔔 | wǔ huā ròu dùn luó bo | belly pork stewed with daikon |
五: | wǔ | radical 7 (二) | Cantodict | MandarinTools | YellowBridge | Zhongwen |
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