Zenggao: Sticky Rice and Dates Steamed in an Ancient Vessel

World Travel 编辑部 · 2026-09-16 · 4 min read

The character in zenggao is read zèng in standard Chinese but jìng in the Guanzhong dialect. The name comes from an ancient steamer: there were pottery zeng in the Neolithic, later bronze and iron ones — and some parts of Shaanxi still steam it in an iron zeng today.

One pot of sticky rice and dates

Zenggao is a traditional snack of Xi'an, the Guanzhong plain and southern Shanxi, made mainly from glutinous rice and red or candied dates with beans and raisins. It requires soaking the rice, loading the steamer and controlling the fire, and the ratio of rice to dates is strictly 65 to 35; the result is rice and dates fused into something soft, sticky and sweet.

General Feng Yuxiang once praised Xi'an zenggao as the bird's nest soup of the common people.

From ancient rice cakes to zenggao

It is thought to descend from the Western Zhou rice confection known as fenci, and to have taken its modern form in the Tang through steaming dates and rice together; the "crystal dragon-and-phoenix cake" recorded in Wei Juyuan's menu for a Tang banquet is related to it.

So behind this humble breakfast runs a line from the Western Zhou to the Tang — plain in appearance, long in pedigree.

When to eat it

Fine in colour and form, firm yet soft, sweet and sticky with a full flavour, zenggao is a winter and spring breakfast favourite. Meetings in Xi'an and Guanzhong commonly serve it in the morning.

Rice and dates merge, the colour is fresh, the texture chewy and sweet, the date aroma rising — sweet as honey to eat. Best hot; it hardens as it cools.

Practical Notes

Common at breakfast stalls — buy it hot and eat it hot.
The portion is generous; one serving easily fills a person, so share if you can.
The dates are the soul of it — do not pick them out.