In China, the earliest record of Chinese traditional Suan cai production is in the Book of Odes (or Classic of Poetry), dating back to 11th to 7th centuries BC.

In the poem Xin Nan Shan (Chinese: 信南山; pinyin: xin nan shan), there is a description of how the ancient Chinese produced suan cai by pickling gourds:[1]In the midst of the fields are the huts, 中田有廬、 And along the bounding divisions are gourds.

疆場有瓜。 The fruit(s) is sliced and pickled, 是剝是菹、 To be presented to our great ancestors, 獻之皇祖。 That their distant descendant may have long life, 曾孫壽考、 And receive the blessing of Heaven.

—Classic of Poetry (translated by Xuepen Sun and Xiaoqian Zheng, in Shi Jing [Book of Odes])In the 7th century BC, the workers building the Great Wall of China lived on cabbages and rice.

[2] A Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534 AD) agricultural book, Ch’i Min Yao Shu, illustrates the detailed procedure of producing 18 types of suan cai using different vegetables.

The chopped sour leaf and upper stem is combined with scrambled egg in the dish pak khat dong pat kai.

When the dish includes only the main stem and tuber of the cabbage (in the style of zha cai), it is called chee chuan chai in Thai.

It is used as a side relish or in dishes such as thịt kho dưa cải (braised pork and pickled mustard), canh cải chua (sour mustard soup) and cơm rang dưa bò (fried rice with beef and pickles).

A popular sitcom and namesake song depicting lives in Northeast China titled Cui Hua Shang Suancai (翠花, 上酸菜, lit.