wife cake
粵菜
甜品
素
粵菜
老婆
餅
焗
素
甜品
Table of Contents
Chinese #
Cantonese #
老婆餅
Pronunciation ( Yale) #
lóuh pòh béng
Wiktionary #
Mandarin #
老婆餅
Pronunciation ( Mandarin) #
lǎo po bǐng
Wiktionary #
Simplified #
老婆饼
Wiktionary #
Description #
Wife cake is a Cantonese bakery item. Also known as sweetheart cake, it’s a round flaky pastry filled with a wintermelon paste.
Origins
There are several stories explaining the name of this pastry, for example an ailing man named it after his wife who sold herself into slavery to pay for his doctor (apparently they didn’t have Medicare for All), or less dramatically, a man like this pastry his wife made so much that he named it after her.
Characters #
老婆 is wife ( 老 is old, and 婆 is lady, so it’s just like the American use of old lady to mean wife). 餅 is cookie or pastry.