Numerous myths abound concerning the origins of this slightly savory sweetcake whose main ingredient is Chinese Winter Melon. One describes a woman who sells herself into slavery to pay for her father-in-law’s health care. The husband invents the cake, and through selling it, earns enough to buy back his wife.  Another version has him stopping by in a teahouse, where he recognises her pastry and is reunited with her.  A third describes a man from Chaozhou 潮州 (Teochew) who went to an old-fashioned teahouse in Guangzhou 廣州, and brought back many snacks dimsum 點心 for which the teahouse was famed.  His wife turned up her nose at all of them, claiming none was equal to her mother’s cakes.  The man returned to the teahouse with samples of the cakes, and became famous for them.  Hence the name “Wife cakes.” ^[7] 

Another variant maintains that Empress Xiao Cigao 孝慈高 (1332-1382), the wife of the founder of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋 (1328-1398) developed a method of combining melons with flour into a portable pastry.  She conceived this recipe in response to the need for troops to carry provisions with them over long distances without rotting or breaking. Over time, this method is thought to have evolved into what is now known as the wife cake.

The Chinese term laopo 老婆 is an affectionate diminutive reference to one’s wife, working the same as “Old lady” does in English.  The dish is variously translated as “Sweetheart,” “Old Lady” or “Wife” cake.   It is complemented by an “Old Man” cake Laogong bing 老公餅, with a more savoury and heavier filling, with similar, parallel myths.

Recipes vary, but in general include winter melon, sugar and sesame seeds in the filling, with two  layers of floury crust.  Some recipes call for candied winter melon, which takes a long time to prepare, but can be used for other foods, and is a candy in and of itself, used for example, in trays of snacks at Chinese New Year. Some descriptions maintain that South East Asian varieties include five spice, but that this is not found in southern Chinese versions.

The main ingredient, Chinese winter melon donggua 冬瓜, is the species Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn. ^[1,2] Also known as fuzzy melon, hairy melon, Chinese squash, Chinese vegetable marrow and wax gourd among others, it grows predominantly in southern China, but also throughout South and Southeast Asia, where it is used in local cuisines.  This melon is recorded in the Collected and Annotated Materia Medica Bencao jing jizhu 本草經集注 by Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456–536).^[5] Writing roughly between 492-498,

he described this vegetable’s properties as follows:

^{White winter melon is slightly cold.  It primarily governs minor swellings in the lower abdomen. It benefits urination, and stops thirst. Collect after frost, set it aside for a years (until New Year?). Break it open and remove the seeds, wash with water, let it dry, then pound it. Remove the pulp and use that. The nature of winter melon is cold, it resolves poisoning, wasting and thirsting disorder, stops vexation,. Simply pound it, wring out the juice and drink it.}

^{白冬瓜　微寒。主除小腹水脹，利小便，止渴。 被霜後合取，置經年。破取核，水洗，燥，乃擂。取人，用之。冬瓜性冷利，解毒，消渴，止煩悶，直擣， 絞汁服之。[5]}

Elsewhere in the same work, winter melon is recommended as a cure for food poisoning from crabs. Winter melon does not appear in earlier layers of the Materia Medica.

It does appear in earlier recipe texts, however, such as the Essentials from Golden Casket Jingui yaolüe 金匱要略, a Song dynasty medical text based on a late Han Dynasty work.  Winter melon is also used in the Eastern Jin work, Emergency Preparedness Recipes to Keep Close at Hand Zhouhou beiji fang 肘後備急方, in recipes for food poisoning from fish, and in cooling salves for the hands. Thus its uses in culinary and recipe medicine date back to at least the fourth century CE, if not to the second century.^[6]

Winter melon appears in numerous locations in the famed recipe text from the Northern Wei 北魏 dynasty, the Essential Arts of the Common People Qimin yaoshu 齊民要術.^[3] Here it was used in sweet desserts,  clear soups, and in instructions for planting, cultivation and harvesting.^[4]

Early recipes thus tend to present winter melon for use in medicine, in candied preparations or in soups, sometimes as a preventative or in response to seafood poisoning.  It remains to be seen whether the baking of winter melon into cakes can be found prior to the Ming Dynasty, but these early imperial texts indicate other culinary and medical uses.

[1] Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas eds., The Cambridge World History of Food (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

[2] Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn. in GBIF Secretariat (2017). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist data set https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2019-08-22.

[3] Huang, Hsing-Tsung. Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 6, Biology and Biological Technology, Part 5, Fermentations and Food Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. pp. 123-32.  https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=k4brwQEACAAJ

[4] Qimin yaoshu 齊民要術 (Essential Arts of the Common People),compiled by Jia Sijie 賈思勰 544. Ctext.org

[5] Stanley-Baker, Michael, Chen Shi-pei 陳詩沛, Zhang Duan 張端, and Tu Hsieh-chang 杜拹昌. Bencao jing jizhu 本草經集注. Eds. Hung Joey 洪振洲 and Hung I-Mei 洪一梅. V. 1. Singapore, 2018. https://doi.org/10.6681/NTURCDH.DB_DocuSkyBencaojing/Text.

[6] Stanley-Baker, Michael. Daoist Buddhist and Medical Texts from the Six Dynasties [Daobudmed6d]. Ed. Hong Yimei 洪一梅. Research Center for Digital Humanities, National Taiwan University, 2018. https://doi.org/10.6681/NTURCDH.DB_DocuSkyDaoBudMed6D/Text.

[7] Zhong Ying 鐘穎. “Qixi yu meishi” “七夕”與美食 (Fine foods of the seven-seven holiday). Canyin wenhua 餐飲文化 Vol., 2013, 10-11.