What to eat this month
Shanghai eats by the calendar: knife-fish in February, spring-shoot soup and green rice balls before Qingming, cold noodles and wine-lees dishes in the heat, meat mooncakes and hairy crab in autumn, sticky-rice treats for the New Year. Pick your month — the dishes below link to the must-eat list, where each one says where to get it.
Twelve monthsChina time today: Oct
Deep winter: sticky-rice sweets and hot soups, and late in the month the queues for New Year deli boxes begin.
Lantern Festival tangyuan, and around mid-month Laobanzhai's knife-fish noodles go on sale — the first taste of spring.
Spring bamboo shoots arrive: yanduxian on every home table, qingtuan queues at the old pastry shops.
Qingming (early April) is the qingtuan peak; knife-fish season ends; the last of the spring shoots.
Zongzi appear ahead of the Dragon Boat Festival; the city's outdoor season begins — breakfast windows are at their best.
Dragon Boat zongzi, then the switch to summer: cold noodles from the dim-sum shops, wine-lees cold dishes, salted soda and ice bricks.
Peak heat. Cold noodles, drunken and wine-lees dishes, iced soy milk; sit-down benbang meals move to the evening.
Still summer food. By late in the month the first 'June yellow' young crabs are already gone and the mooncake ovens are being lit.
Mid-Autumn: the meat-mooncake queues at Guangming Cun and West District Lao Da Fang run to hours; hairy crab season opens late in the month.
The best eating month: female crabs for roe, mooncakes still warm, cool enough for a long benbang lunch.
Male crabs for 'butter'; radish fritters return to the street corners; hot noodle soups again.
Crab season winds down; eight-treasure rice and tangyuan are boxed for the New Year; deli counters at their busiest.
Each month lists only what is in season; the year-round essentials (Pan-fried pork buns (shengjian mantou) · Pork chop with rice cakes · Red-braised pork belly (benbang style) · Savoury soy milk with youtiao — the 'Four Heavenly Kings' breakfast · Scallion oil noodles · Soup dumplings (xiaolongbao) · White-cut chicken (Xiao Shaoxing style)) count in any month. A peak is not an exclusivity rule — availability varies by shop.