The steamed buns look like dragon fruit. Photo: web

Steamed bun in colourful patterns, or flower pastry, is a kind of Chinese folk food, which is not only healthy and delicious, but also contains strong local flavors. On Monday, a woman in East China's Shandong Province showed a pot of "fruit" steamed buns in videos posted online, sparking heated discussion online.

In her videos, some steamed buns look like dragon fruit, some like radishes and others like corn, each of which looked like an exact doppelganger of its real life cousin. Inside the "dragon fruit" was the white flesh and black seeds and there was even "mud" on the tips of the white radish. The flower pastry date back to the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) and are still popular in Shandong's Yantai, Weihai and others areas in Jiaodong Peninsula. "The art of flower pastry exists in the life of local people, reflects the aesthetic concept and spiritual quality of human art and simplicity, with distinct artistic characteristics and life interest," experts said. "Such folk culture is worth inheriting."