a term of uncertain origin which first appeared in print at the beginning of the 17th century, although the object it denotes—a small and usually globular mass of boiled or steamed dough—no doubt existed long before that. A dumpling is a food with few, indeed no, social pretensions, and of such simplicity that it may plausibly be supposed to have evolved independently in the peasant cuisines of various parts of Europe and probably in other parts of the world too. Such cuisines feature soups and stews, in which vegetables may be enhanced by a little meat. Dumplings, added to the soup or stew, are still, as they were centuries ago, a simple and economical way of extending such dishes.
The dough for most dumplings has always been based either on a cereal, whichever was the staple in a given region (oats, wheat, maize, etc.), or on one of the vegetables from which a bread dough can be made or partly made (potato, pulses, etc.). Other ingredients for the basic and original dumpling were few: salt, water, and perhaps leaven. If herbs were added, for flavour or colour, this did not compromise their simplicity. Green dumplings, dumplings with herbs, were quite common. In Scotland a green suet dumpling used to be made in spring with dandelion and nettle leaves, hawthorn buds, and anything else that came to hand. Spinach was often used in a similar way, e.g. in Germany and Austria.
However, despite its simplicity, the humble dumpling, or anyway the range of foods to which the name is applied, has evolved in the course of time from the prototypes into something more complex. A first step was provided by the filled dumpling, in which the dough encloses something else, for example apple in an apple dumpling, and a sour Zwetschke cooking plum (its stone replaced by a lump of sugar) in the Austrian and Czech Zwetschkenknödel. The legitimacy of fruit-filled dumplings is rarely challenged; but it must be acknowledged that their existence takes the dumpling, at a single step, out of the role of supplement to a main dish and into the role of dish-in-itself.
Similar considerations apply to dumplings into which richer ingredients (such as finely minced liver in Leberknödel, the liver dumplings of S. Germany and Austria) have been incorporated. Yet it is no long step from them to the kind of product which reverses the proportions, being essentially a meatball. In this connection see also kibbeh and kofta, noting that a kibbeh from Iraq may be a meatball inside a semolina covering (which gives it some claim to be called a dumpling), whereas others have no such covering and at the most incorporate a little cereal as binder or extender. An object of the latter sort is not a true dumpling; it is but one of the numerous tribe of dumpling lookalikes, things which are neither dumplings nor English but have been called dumplings, when an English name for them has been required, on the basis of form and cooking method without regard to the third criterion, composition.
However, these excursions beyond the original meaning of the term are as nothing by comparison with what has happened in the Orient, where English-speakers, seeking a term which could be applied to various kinds of oriental filled pasta (see mantou; jiaozi; etc.), unhappily chose ‘dumpling’. This heinous excursion is explained at more length under dumplings of Asia.
Returning to Europe, it would be fair to say that dumplings are almost ubiquitous in that continent, but by no means of equal importance in the various countries. They are more popular in colder climates, for the obvious reason. But even there they vary considerably in popularity. It might be generally agreed that there are three regions in which they have flourished most: England, which English people like to think of as the home of the archetypal and most authentic dumpling; the much larger area of C. Europe (including Bavaria, Austria, Bohemia), which is one vast hotbed of Germanic dumplings; and the specialized habitat provided by Italy for gnocchi, so intimately linked with pasta and outside the common run of dumplings that they are treated separately. Each of the first two regions will be considered in turn.
Early dumplings were probably balls of bread dough taken from the batch used to make bread. However, people soon began to make dumplings from other ingredients, e.g. suet or white bread. By 1747 Hannah Glasse could give no fewer than eight recipes for dumplings, of which two were for ‘hard’ dumplings made from plain flour and water, ‘best boiled with a good piece of beef’; two were for apple dumplings; and others were for Norfolk dumplings, yeast dumplings, white bread dumplings, and suet dumplings. When she indicated size, she usually said ‘as big as a turkey's egg’.
Norfolk is the chief dumpling county of Britain, but the history of its honourable (and plain) dumplings has been obscured by French intervention. The story told by Dumas in his Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine (1873) that the Duke of Norfolk was fond of dumplings, and that they are named after him, is wrong, as is the recipe Dumas gives. Indeed, the recipe is so wildly wrong that it looks as though Dumas was the victim of a practical joker when he visited England, possibly the same person who told him that Yermouth [sic], home of bloaters, was in Ireland.
A good description of how Norfolk dumplings were and are made is given by Mrs Arthur Webb (c.1935):
The farmer's wife very skilfully divided a pound of dough (remember, just ordinary bread dough) into four pieces. These she weighed, and so cleverly had she gauged the size that they weighed approximately 4 oz each. She kneaded, and rolled them in a very little flour until they were quite round, then put them on a plate and slipped them into a large saucepan containing fast-boiling water. The saucepan lid was put back immediately, and then, when the water came to the boil once more, 15 minutes' rapid boiling was allowed for the dumplings.
Dumplings in Norfolk are not a sweet. They are a very substantial part of what might be the meat course, or they might serve as a meat substitute. In the villages I found that they were sometimes put into a very large pot and boiled on top of the greens; then they are called ‘swimmer’.
Eliza Acton (1845), apparently referring to Norfolk dumplings, specified several accompaniments: wine sauce, raspberry vinegar, or sweetened melted butter with a little vinegar.
Suffolk dumplings, unlike those of Norfolk, are made of flour and water, without yeast. (Eliza Acton recommended adding milk to make a thick batter.) They are steamed or rapidly boiled, so that they rise well. They may be eaten with meat gravy, or with butter or syrup. They often include currants if intended as a sweet dish.
Oatmeal dumplings are common in N. Britain, where oats are widely grown. Derbyshire dumplings, relatively small, are made from equal amounts of wheat flour and oatmeal, with beef dripping and onion; to be added to a beef stew half an hour before serving.
In the region of Bavaria (see Germany), Austria, and Bohemia (see Czech Republic and Slovakia), the common material of dumplings is stale bread. This is broken into small pieces and soaked in water or milk, and combined with any available enriching ingredients: bacon, eggs, cheese, chopped liver, or herbs. There are sweet types stuffed with fruit. In some of the more refined kinds flour or semolina or (since the 19th century) potatoes are used in the basic mixture.
Another kind is the Nockerl, made from a softer dough of flour with butter, milk, and egg (or leftover noodle dough may be used). Because the dough is soft, it is not rolled into balls to make the dumplings; small pieces are picked off with the fingers and thrown into the boiling water (or the dough is spread on a Nockerlbrett, a thin wooden board from which little bits can be flipped into the water, using a knife). Small ones are sometimes formed by pressing the dough through a coarse wicker sieve, and used as garnishes in soup. This technique, the dough itself, and the name Nockerl, are clearly influenced by the Italian gnocchi. (Salzburger Nockerln are something different; not dumplings but sweet egg confections which defy any conventional classification.)
Another related dumpling, made in a similar manner, is the Spätzle (literally ‘little sparrow’), most common in the Alsace and S. Germany. These are tiny dumplings, made with strong white bread flour or semolina, egg, warm water, cream, or milk. They can resemble quenelles, bolstered with liver or cheese, but are usually very small and best served with a thick gravy or a dish such as lentils with bacon and cabbage.
The Dampfnudel (‘steam noodle’) is interesting. This is a medium-sized German dumpling made of yeast dough, cooked in a shallow bath of milk in a tightly lidded pan. The heat transmitted through the bottom of the pan browns the underside of the dumpling, which rests on its bottom. The steam above the milk, slightly superheated by pressure due to the close-fitting lid, hardens and browns the top. The middle, surrounded by boiling milk, which transmits less heat to it than does steam, remains soft and extensible so that the dumpling rises and, when cooked, has a brown top and bottom and a soft, white central zone. It is served with meat, or as a dessert with jam and butter or a sweet sauce.
Potato dumpling types are exemplified by Kartoffelkloss, small, light German dumplings of potato, flour, breadcrumbs, and egg. Another name for this dumpling is Glitscher (‘slider’) because it goes down easily. Other potato dumplings include the Russian pampushka, a dumpling made from a mixture of raw grated and cooked mashed potato enclosing a filling of cooked minced beef and onion or curd cheese, egg, and herbs. It is boiled in salted water and served with sour cream and onions.
See also clootie dumpling.
These are different from European ones. Indeed what English-speakers in the Orient call dumplings are more like what would be called filled pasta in Europe. The Chinese type of dumpling, in particular, with its thin wrapper of wheat flour and water paste folded over the filling and pressed shut, bears a close resemblance to ravioli.
Chinese records of dumplings go back at least as far as the Sung dynasty (ad 960–1279), when they were described as being sold (with other foods) from stalls much in the way that snacks are in modern China. Mantou are among the best-known Chinese manifestations of the genre, but probably originated in C. Asia rather than in China itself.
Whatever the truth may be about their ultimate origin, this type of oriental filled ‘dumpling’ has spread westwards; it is met in Tibet as momo, in Russia as pel'meni (usually with a meat filling), and in Jewish cuisine as the similar kreplach.
In their home country, these Chinese dumplings take various forms. Wonton (a pun on the Chinese for ‘chaos’) are dumplings made from a wheat dough which is usually bought in prepared sheets, folded over a filling, most often of minced pork and onion, with the edges left untidy and wavy (hence the name).
Jiaozi (the word means ‘corners’) are small semicircular dumplings made by folding a circle of plain flour and water dough over a filling, usually savoury such as chopped pork and cabbage. The joint is pressed to seal each tightly before they are boiled. All the dumplings are put simultaneously into boiling water, which at once goes off the boil. It is brought back to the boil and cooked three times: this is said to make the dough firm.
In many parts of Asia the dumplings commonly met are rice dumplings.
T'ang t'uan (boiled ball) is a small Chinese dumpling made of a kneaded dough of glutinous rice. It has a filling, usually a savoury one such as pork and onion, and is cooked by the same method as jiaozi.
Another small Chinese dumpling made of glutinous rice flour, but this time with a sweet filling, is yüan hsiao. The filling, which must be of a fairly solid consistency (e.g. a mixture of crushed nuts and sesame seed, sugar, and fat), is damped and rolled in a tray of dry flour, and picks up a coating. Then it is boiled by the same method as for jiaozi. This sweet dumpling is traditionally eaten on the ‘Festive Night’ of the 15th day of the New Year, and that is what its name means.
Japan also has glutinous rice dumplings, mochi. For these, the dough is wrapped round fillings of, for example, red bean paste; or the dough itself can be made into little shapes and wrapped in cherry or oak leaves. In either case the dumplings are steamed. They are featured at the Japanese New Year; and it has been known for sumo wrestlers to be mustered to achieve a sufficiently strong initial pounding of the cooked rice.
Ondé ondé is the name of a small Indonesian sweet dumpling, also made of glutinous rice flour, which contains a knob of brown sugar; it is rolled in grated coconut after boiling.
One more example, this time using sago, comes from Thailand. This is saku sai mooh: small sago dumplings enclosing a filling of pork, onion, and groundnuts; cooked by steaming; served hot or cold.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Acton, Eliza (1845), Modern Cookery for Private Families, London: Longmans.
Webb, Mrs Arthur (c.1935), Farmhouse Cookery, London: George Newnes.
