THE WORD 

       F‧A‧N

         The Characterization History of F‧A‧N

Traced back to the early 秦朝Qin Dynasty, the expression “饭” was first added to the language spoken at the time, 雅语Old Folk Chinese. The word was exclusively used to recount the type meals that were eaten using bare hands. It's not until the 宋朝Song Dynasty when the first rice cultivation was introduced to the common villages that had the potential desired natural environment for growing rice and folks started to use 米饭 as an alternative phrase for rice.  Throughout thousands of years, as rice became an indivisible part of any Chinese meal, the term 饭 is now used in current Mandarin as a habitual terminology for food. Thus when combined with other words in Mandarin Chinese, it could have lots of other different meanings ranging from lunch午饭 and dinner晚饭 to even describing a person that eats a large amount of food饭桶. 饭, inevitability is one of, if not the most important term in 中华烹饪Chinese Culinary.