The first three words of the title of this post refer to a campaign of Xibei Youmian, a restaurant chain specialised in oat noodles. You(mian) is the Chinese word for ‘oats (noodles)’

                      

Naked oat has more than 2100 year history in China. The Chinese oat growing region reached 1.13 million ha in the 1960s, but declined from 1980s, dropping to about 0.3 million ha in 2003, the lowest in history. After that, the area increased gradually. There were about 0.7 million ha of oats in 2010, with a total yield of about 850,000 mt. The reason for the recent increase is the growing popularity of this cereal, at least partly triggered by a new successful restaurant formula. Domestic production cannot keep up with the demand as is shown by the following table of oats imports in recent years.

Year	Volume (mt)
2012	82838.543
2013	92754.628
2014	127889.496
2015	154582.284
2016	191440.349
2017	394309.739

Westerners tend to associate oat with breakfast. Oat meal cooked in water or milk is a popular alternative for bread. Oat has been eaten as a staple in a large area in Northwest China (in particular: Shanxi, Gansu, Inner Mongolia). However, while the Western oat meal has reached Chinese breakfast tables as well in recent years, the traditional shapes in which it consumed is noodles.

Chinese scientists from Baicheng Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Jilin) and Sichuan Agricultural University, using Oxford Nanopore ultralong sequencing and Hi-C technologies, have generated a reference-quality genome assembly of hull-less common oat, comprising 21 pseudomolecules, and also produced genome assemblies for diploid and tetraploid Avena ancestors, which enabled the identification of oat subgenomes and provided insights into oat chromosomal evolution.

In the first lunar month in the Chinese calendar, people in Inner Mongolia, especially in Hohhot, eat foods made with hulless oat flour in the form of noodles, rolls or pancakes involving various flavours. Oat is the staple food there. It is a low-yield, cold-resisting and salt-alkali-resisting crop with a short mature period, contain high protein, fat and many kinds of trace elements, such as iron, calcium and phosphorus. Oat powder can be made into noodles for mutton or vegetable soup seasoned with pepper and garlic.

Regular oat noodles are usually slightly thicker than the more common wheat noodles, due to the looser texture. The most typical presentation form of youmian in China is the cup noodle; short round hollow shapes that can be dipped in a savoury sauce, adding condiments of your choice. It is this type of oat noodles around which the above mentioned restaurant chain, Xibei Youmian, has been conceived. Xibei, though deliberately written with different characters, means ‘Northeast’, referring to the home region of Chinese oat. You have learned the word youmian in the opening paragraph.

  

Yet another traditional presentation form is the ‘oat fish’. This name is based on the shape, quenelles that, with a little phantasy, look like a fish. The picture shows fishes made from a combination of oat and yam.

                            

Some innovative chefs are trying out new recipes like oat dumplings and oat pudding. Others make larger versions of the hollow oat noodles that can then be stuffed with different kinds of fillings.

 

Xibei Youmian serves oat in various shapes and other typical dishes of China’s Northwest. You can find them all over Beijing and they are crowded with returning patrons every lunch and dinner. Try it out yourself and I am sure you will join me in shouting ‘I love You!’.

Promoting oats: traditional and innovative recipes

The government is actively promoting the consumption of oats by recommending to use it as an ingredient to traditional foods. The above ad from the government-run lifestyle magazine Lifetimes (Shengming Shibao) recommends to add oats to: milk (in combination with other ingredients), millet congee, egg broth and soy bean milk. Oat in millet congee is said to promote peace of mind and sound sleep, lower blood sugar and strengthen stomach and lungs. Sounds like I should give it try.

In 2020, Hylink Marketing and MinfPotato (Inner Mongolia) have launched a range of milk + oats products to be consumed as meal replacer.

In the same year, Wangbaobao launched hgh-fiber oatmeal, the brand’s first oatmeal product using 100% whole grain oats and no added sugar.

Wangpaopao has become China’s most innovative oats processor by launching a few new flavours each year that fit flavours that are in vogue at the time of launching. E.g., it launched a coffee-flavoured breakfast cereal mix in 2020, hooking on to the rise of the Chinese coffee culture.

Savoury oat meal

Wangpaopao has launched a range of savoury oat meals in June 2021; including chili and curry flavours.

Oats and ice cream

An example of an innovative recipe with oats is the ‘egg + oats’ ice cream, introduced in my post on ice cream.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.