Why did wheat consumption of East Asia take the form of noodles and steamed bread, while in west Asia and Europe it was consumed as baked bread?

Question

Why did wheat consumption of East Asia take the form of noodles and steamed bread, while in west Asia and Europe it was consumed as baked bread?

In: Other

Answer 1

In general, most of China was not nearly as heavily forested as ancient Europe was. Wood, aka fuel, was a more scarce resource and the basis of Chinese cuisine tends to employ more energy efficient techniques, like chopping food up into small pieces to increase surface area and decrease cooking time.

Steaming is also a technique that is energy efficient, far more so than baking. So the ancient Chinese rarely had ovens, and steamed their bread.