Thin flat breads are rolled in sesame and baked to a crisp fragrant wafer. Zhoucun shaobing is now one of Shandong's most popular souvenirs. Photos by Ju Chuanjiang / China Daily

It may no longer be the center of commerce it used to be, but Zhoucun in Shandong has a lasting legacy from its glory days. Wang Qian discovers the origins of shaobing.

Thousands of years ago, Zhoucun was a buoyant commercial hub in Shandong. It buzzed with merchants from many countries, and some of them brought along recipes of their favorite snacks.

One of them is the shaobing, or roasted bread. It is a thin round wafer crusted with sesame and so fragile that it shatters into shards if you don't handle it with care.

Fragile moons that are richly crusted with sesame, Zhoucun shaobing uses a fusion of Chinese and western baking techniques fi ne-tuned by a dedicated baker. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The old art of making shaobing can be traced back to hubing, a type of thick baked bread from the Han Dynasty (206 BCAD 220).

Its name reflected its origins, as "hu" was a term used to describe Westerners. Traders who came in through the Silk Route from Western Asia introduced hubing into China.

This kind of hand-made bread soon became a best seller among the merchants in Zhoucun and many local chefs learned to make this.

Among the bakeries were Juhezhai.