During the Mid-Autumn Festival National Day holiday, Foshan received more than 6.9 million tourists and achieved tourism revenue of more than 2.2 billion. Tourists are weaving, and the lively Foshan is back. After playing in Foshan, what specialties will you bring to your friends and family? Blind cake must be a well-deserved "C bit"!
Foshan Blind Cake (courtesy of Chancheng District Local History Office)
For more than 200 years, blind cakes have been popular, not only becoming a well-known Foshan specialty, but also a memory on the tip of foshan's tongue.
"Guangdong Imprint - Foshan Blind Cake"
Blind Cake Small Science
Foshan blind cake is one of the traditional dim sum with Guangdong characteristics, one of foshan's local specialties, and is known as the four famous cakes of Guangdong together with chicken cake, Zhongshan almond cake and Xiqiao flatbread. Blind Cake was created during the Qing Jiaqing period and has a history of more than 200 years.
According to the Republic of China's "Foshan Zhongyi Township Chronicle", "the cake food line, the blind public cake of the Crane Garden Society's joint mark is the most famous, the townspeople always feed their relatives and friends from other villages, and the rest of the cakes are sold in the four townships in the interior, and the value of the cake maker is quite thick." ”
Blind Cake : Past Lives
The origin of the blind cake
Legend has it that during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, a blind old man named He He opened a "Qian Qian Tang" fortune telling in Heyuan Street, Foshan. He was sincere and humble, quite popular with the faith of some people, and after middle age, his reputation grew, his business was booming, and those who came to ask for help often brought children, and the daily Bu Yi Pavilion was noisy and noisy.
He He's eldest son, Fenxing, saw this situation and had a sudden whim, grinding rice into rice noodles, adding sesame seeds, peanuts, raw oil and evenly, filling with pork, baking into cakes with charcoal, and baiting children.
Because this cake is sweet and crispy, not only children love to eat, adults have also begged, in order to recover the cost, father and son had to sell the cake at a low price, but the neighbors still rushed to buy, and called it blind cake. Over time, the business of selling cakes was even better than the business of fortune telling, and the father and son closed the fortune telling hall and opened the "Heji Cake Food".
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According to the "Foshan Light Industry Chronicle", the two sons of shengchao, the eldest son Fenxing, the word "Yu Zhai"; the second son and Xing, the word "Li Zhai". Yu Zhai's father managed Buyi and Yu Zhai's ingenious business, grinding them into powder with charred rice, mixing them with oil, sugar, peanuts, sesame seeds and other things, baking them into cakes over charcoal fire, and selling them to the inquirers to bait children.
The cake is sweet and crispy, the quality and price are suitable, the buyers are many, passed on, far and near, to the "Qianqiantang" blind public place to buy cake people in passing by called "blind public cake".
When the blind cake was first made, the shape of the cake was larger than that of copper dollars, and there was no pork heart. The descendants of the blind Gong are afraid of the word "Blind Gong", with the fat meat stuffing in the cake, named "Meat Heart" cake, which was opened at the original site of the Jiaoshan Fang, and the signboard was only called "Heji Cake Food".
During the Republic of China, the newspaper advertisement of Heyuan Street was marked with "Meat Heart Cake", but people still used to call it "Blind Public Cake", which has remained so named to this day.
The process of making blind cakes
Rice is mainly produced in the south, so unlike most northern cakes, blind cakes are not prepared with flour, but are made from glutinous rice with sugar and other raw materials. Dripping water and bonding with syrup is the most unique production process of blind cakes, which are crispy and delicious, suitable for all ages.
The raw materials for blind cakes are glutinous rice, mung beans, ice flakes, peanuts, sesame seeds, peanut oil and so on. The raw materials must be processed delicately until they are cooked to fragrant, and then weighed according to the recipe, opened the flour, beaten, baked, cooled, and packaged.
The flour opening process is a major feature of the blind cake making process. Different from other cakes, blind cake flour is to directly mix the raw materials, not use water, pay attention to repeated pressure, rolling, kneading, rubbing manual skills, to avoid tendons, sugar particles.
The steel sheets are crossed, a pile of food paper opens in a fan shape, and five or four cakes are placed on the paper into a roll, as fast as lightning, and a barrel of blind cakes is neatly presented in front of you. This is a unique handicraft show belonging to the blind cake.
Blind Cake · This Life
The official name of the blind cake
When it comes to the naming of the blind cake, there is also a story. In ancient times, blind people were most tabooed by others to be called blind. Therefore, although the blind cake has been passed on by word of mouth, the descendants of He He are reluctant to use the "blind cake" as a signboard, but instead use the name of "Heji Meat Heart Cake". Despite this, Foshan's neighbors have always used to call it "blind cake".
Street Sculpture - Selling Blind Cakes (should be photographed, courtesy of chancheng district local volunteer office)
Until 1952, Foshan participated in the South China Material Exchange Conference and officially trademarked "Heji Meat Heart Cake" as "Blind Cake", and at this point, the name "Blind Cake" circulated in the anecdotes was officially named.
Revolutionize production processes
Seeing this, you may wonder, the blind cake mentioned above is stuffed with pork, but the blind cake we eat today does not have pork, why is this? Originally, in order to extend the shelf life, but also to take care of people with different eating habits, the current blind cake has no longer added pork, and the production process of blind cake is also constantly improving.
In 1984, on the basis of retaining the original excellent process technology, the blind cake products adopted some advanced production equipment and packaging technology, and the shelf life was extended, creating conditions for export sales, and sales increased significantly. This is why the blind cake we eat now is not the same as the one made by the He family father and son.
Represent Foshan, go out of Foshan
Specialties are rich in local characteristics, historical and traditional handicrafts, and are the excellent heritage of the nation. Souvenirs are important traditional tourism commodity resources, and its value lies in reflecting the local culture and humanistic culture of a city.
In 1955, Foshan Cake Industry (including Heji Cake Shop) merged with other private shops in other industries to form Heping Biscuit And Candy Factory and Liqun Candy and Biscuit Factory. In 1999, in order to adapt to the market environment, Foshan Heji Cake Industry Co., Ltd. was transformed into Foshan Heji Cake Industry Co., Ltd., inheriting the traditional handicraft production and making the blind cake continue to develop.
Workers packing blind cakes (Wu Yu, 2017, courtesy of Chancheng District Local History Office)
Nowadays, the sales of blind cakes have steadily increased, Foshan Heji Cake Industry has been recognized as "Chinese Time-honored Brand" by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, recognized as "Guangdong Time-honored Brand" by the Guangdong Provincial Time-honored Brand Working Committee, and the blind cake making technology has been listed in the "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Foshan City", and won the titles of "Foshan Eight Excellent Traditional Foods First Place", "Foshan Ten Treasures", "Top Ten Souvenir Cultural Brands in China's Baking Industry", "National Catering and Baking Industry Classic "Souvenirs", "Guangdong Traditional Snacks".
From history to modernity, from local to international, blind cakes always emit the eternal fragrance of Foshan.
Text: Tang Yongyin
Source: Foshan News Network
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