I had a Wenxi boiled cake.
In fact, it has been known for a long Time, so long that it is separated by a century. Belonging to my last century of frolicking, that time to wander in Shanxi, or the era of the decline of coal, all the way smoky and dreary, to the remote route, the only big city is Datong, the stone people in the Yungang Grottoes were all kinds of coal smoke smoked like a masquerade, and many times cut off the body of the head, but also the crow-style black, blue and bright. The whole city is tasteless to the peak, all military barracks and cottages, old streets with eaves full of weeds, the bleakness of northern civilianization, a few steps will scurry out a woman, gabbing and counting children.
Also can not afford the cold outside, not much effort to slip Home.
Outside of the vinegar, there is simply no specialty to speak of. Suddenly, I saw the box of wenxi boiled cake in a grey glass cabinet, red, green and Gold, the nineties cheapened the joyful energy, but there is no desire to buy to eat, look and go.
The name of the boiled cake is odd, so there is an impression, and then really blame themselves, how not to buy to try? How are the cakes cooked? Rare and soft and fragrant? Proposed or clear and dry? Even with Baidu encyclopedia later, I couldn’t imagine why a round ball-shaped snack had such a strange name.
The Spring Festival finally saw the real face, hating the whole box designed in gold, produced by an old Food factory in Wenxi. In that desolate yellow land, the past popular snack gift era, this is probably the most decent packaging, eaten in the mouth, sweet enough to make people demented.
The outside is the skin of white sesame. Inside is a mouthful of honey, eat half a piece is too much. Naked, idiotic, silly sweet, eat or do not understand the origin of the name, and not interested in studying the origins, is really a deserted northern snacks, suitable for the big house, the lights are on the whole Family happy to eat, full of fake smiles, cool like the Spring Festival Gala on the public service announcements inserted.
Beijing Daoxiangcun is widespread, densely distributed in various districts, but completely factory operation, simply can not eat; so once in the Xicheng City saw the “Guixiangchun” with the signboard of the former store after the factory I was so happy to see “Gui Xiang Chun” with the signboard of the front shop and the back factory in Xicheng that I had the desire to eat it. When I saw a black soft snack, it was written boiled cake, I wanted to ask about the origin, but the waiter of the old state-run store, Feng Rong Sheng Beng, did not bother to look at you, and the foreign workers recruited were too timid to say the point, so I did not get it.
I wore a fashionable coat and confined myself to the old store coldly shopping, and not good enough to pretend to be enthusiastic about the package.
But this is much better, the outside is thin flour, wrapped in shredded coconut, representing a certain era of admiration for the South, but inside is a rich date paste, slightly bitter, revealing the date paste filling is the characteristics of their own manufacturers processing. Boiled cakes should be the production process of concentrated called, there are many foreign food into the capital, over time forget the original origin, resulting in many improved version, the addition of shredded coconut shows this feature.
But it is also the improvement of the past era, like a rural girl into the capital as a nanny, wearing a hatred of the sky when fashionable, a kind of fixed earthy.
This Gui Xiang Chun’s date paste snacks are all good, no other than handmade.
There are date puff pastry, another 1980s snack featured in side food stores; there are date paste biscuits, which are simply a product of the New Year paintings; there are also crispy date paste, which is also a kind of earthy and complicated food; walking around the streets with a big red snack box, the whole thing feels like a goblin wandering out from inside Lao She’s novels.
Many old people come and buy them in silence, buying a few pieces in a humble way, but of course there are also the giants who buy a big box, temporarily resting in this dying world of desserts.
Guo Wenjing wrote “Luo Camel Xiangzi”, an opera based on Lao She’s novel, in which Tigress is played by a plump, tall and gloomy actress, who comes out in a scene of laughter, very exaggerated. I’m willing, eat something good, drink something good, I love my Beijing. ” is simply the faithful collective cry of a new generation of hoboes.
In fact, a serious study should reveal that during the Mongol Yuan period, a large number of Muslims migrated from the West to the Middle Kingdom, bringing with them the sugar-loving habits of the Arab world, which combined with the noodle carving techniques of the northern lands and slowly developed in the region to form a new snack system.
But after years of tossing and turning, there is very little left. I also bought Guixiangcun, the first halal snack store, a kind of grape milk crisp is a specialty, I bought it to send to a distant Muslim friend, but the plastic bag does not have a halal logo, he refused to eat, aggrieved I want to take a photo to verify the identity, but too redundant, think about it and give up.
In the cold of the streets of Beijing, you can occasionally see frightened girls with headscarves selling halal snacks, at first I thought they were from nearby Hui counties, but later I learned that many came from the Qinghai-Ningxia area and somehow wandered into the capital to do this kind of business. A variety of complicated pastry, some blooming, some thick clumps, efforts to decorate beautifully, all with the characteristics of northern snacks, large and brutally simple, like the city wandering the souls of these free northwest.
The Dasunzhai in Tongzhou is also a halal dim sum. The main store, empty and open, the counter is still old-fashioned glass windows, the salesman is still the face of the state, the soul of the 1980s attached to the body, the brain automatically echoes “70 years back in time “It is said that its sugar fire is said to have become famous in the Republic of China, during the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Tongzhou, carrying this snack for a long time, too much sesame oil, brown sugar, too much sesame sauce, completely stacked layers, like the style of God’s construction of the rock.
But this thick taste is not offensive, only rich, reminiscent of the exuberant splendor of peony flowers. But the best part is the stuffed dates, which are even more bitter. I can imagine the fragrance of the dates boiling in the pot, a thick, solid fragrance unique to the northern region.
The northern snacks, more simple and old-fashioned, like the kind of villagers in the northern countryside dressed plainly, without too many words, the sky is high and live down, with a withered face, not at all pleasant; but really patient contact, there is still joy, there is an old snack store in Qingzhou, Shandong Province, friends bring honey three knives to, the first time to eat so surprising food, a bite open, honey flowing, simply heartily sweet, sweet unusually rich, early in the morning The five o’clock queue can be bought, and then check the information, only to find that it is also a halal store, hundreds of years of history, there is actually a Song Dynasty formula of plum sugars, made of plums and perilla, the most appetizing
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