What to eat this month

Deep winter, the hotpot months: copper-pot mutton and lamb spine every night, candied hawthorn and roast sweet potatoes on the corners, mustard cabbage rolls as the New Year cold starter. Spring Festival can fall late in the month, and with it the queues for hand-rolled yuanxiao begin.

Lichun (3-5 February) is 'biting the spring' — spring pancakes for the week around it; the Lantern Festival brings rolled yuanxiao made in front of you; mustard cabbage stays on the New Year table. The last full month of the mutton-hotpot season.

Winter food on its way out: the last month for candied hawthorn, roast sweet potatoes and lamb spine, and for the mustard cabbage of early spring. Chilled pea cake starts to make sense, and the old shaomai house switches to its spring 'three fresh' filling.

No particular seasonal item this month — Qingming has no Beijing dish on our list. Eat the fixed must-eats, and the spring snacks: chilled pea cake and the sticky-rice ball that the old shops traditionally put out from the New Year to the end of summer.

Summer eating begins: smoked-plum drink goes on the tables from now to September, zhajiangmian is ordered rinsed cold, and the orange soda in the returnable bottle comes into its season.

Cold noodles, iced smoked-plum drink, chilled pea cake — and the shaomai house moves to its summer fish-and-shrimp filling. The Dragon Boat Festival has no Beijing dish on our list; eat the fixed must-eats.

Peak heat. Smoked-plum drink instead of soda with the duck and the grilled meat, noodles rinsed cold, and pea cake eaten on the spot — it does not travel in this weather. Hotpot and lamb spine are still sold but out of season.

Still summer food: cold noodles, plum drink, orange soda. By the old shop calendar this is the end of the sticky-rice ball season, though it now sells year-round.

The turn: smoked-plum drink's last month, and the classic season for iron-plate grilled meat opens with the cooler evenings; the shaomai house goes to its autumn crab filling. Mid-Autumn usually falls here, and mooncakes are not on our list — the halal old snack shop that rolls yuanxiao sells them too.

The winter season opens: copper-pot mutton hotpot and lamb spine from now on, candied hawthorn carts return once the shell will set, roast sweet potatoes everywhere, and offal stew on a cold night.

Deep winter again: hotpot, lamb spine, grilled meat, candied hawthorn and roast sweet potatoes, with mustard cabbage rolls back as the winter cold dish. The winter solstice has no Beijing dish on our list; the hotpot is the answer anyway.