What is in season in Shanghai. and what to order when the market changes.

Spring

  • Qingtuan (green rice balls): Glutinous rice dough coloured with mugwort or barley-grass juice, filled with red bean paste or savoury salted egg yolk and pork floss. They fill Shanghai shop windows for a few weeks before Qingming in early April.
  • Yanduxian (salted and fresh pork soup): A clay-pot soup of salted pork, fresh pork belly and spring bamboo shoots, simmered until the broth turns ivory. Shanghai treats it as the herald of spring and eats it through April.
  • Spring bamboo shoots: Chun sun, tender spring bamboo shoots, give yanduxian its crunch and fragrance and turn up in savoury qingtuan fillings with diced pork while the season lasts.

Summer

  • Shanghai cold noodles: Firm wheat noodles dressed with sesame or peanut sauce and shredded cucumber. Noodle shops and dim sum houses add them for the hot months, when the city looks for anything cold.
  • Zongzi (leaf-wrapped rice dumplings): Pyramids of glutinous rice wrapped in leaves for the Dragon Boat Festival in early summer. Shanghai favours savoury pork versions, some marinated in fermented rice-wine brine.

Autumn

  • Hairy crab: The Chinese mitten crab peaks from October into early December, females first and males a month later. Yangcheng Lake crab is the most prized; restaurants serve it steamed with ginger vinegar or picked into noodles.
  • Savoury fresh-meat mooncakes: For the Mid-Autumn Festival, a few local shops and restaurants fill flaky pastry with minced pork and serve the cakes hot, a savoury contrast to the sweet mooncakes eaten across most of China.

Winter

  • Tangyuan (glutinous rice balls): Sweet rice balls filled with black sesame paste, eaten at Chinese New Year and the Lantern Festival. The name sounds like the word for reunion, so families share them at year end.
  • Salted pork: Salted pork, xian rou, carries the savoury depth of winter. In spring it goes into the pot with fresh pork belly and bamboo shoots, which is where yanduxian gets its name.

Seasonal: tours, tastings and classes in Shanghai

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