Everyday Chinese Bread

While much of the Chinese population picks up a rice bowl with every meal, Chinese of the northernmost provinces, including the citizens of Peking, pick up an oblong-shaped bun of steamed dough. It is in every way the equivalent of rice—white, plain, soft, with an overtone of sweet freshness.

• Just like bread on a Western table, these buns appear variously at the beginning or somewhere in the middle of a northern Chinese meal, often after a bowl of noodles or du