<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > century-old commercial port Yipica Zhizhou Village</h1>
A small baked cake is famous for its thin and crispy flavor; many people have never been to its place of origin, but because of a cake, they remember an ancient city. In 2006, Zhoucun Baked Cake was identified as the first batch of "Chinese time-honored brands", and a cultural scholar who lived in Zhoucun in the 1960s and 1970s was inspired to write a couplet: a century-old commercial port, a cake knows Zhoucun.
Zhoucun baked cake
From the Silk Road
Walking on the streets of Kashgar, Xinjiang, people will see the roadside roasting stove, the breadmaker is generally a Uyghur old man, with a white beard, deep eye sockets, a pair of weather-beaten hands kneading the dough, stretching and molding, about 30 centimeters in size, with a wooden mallet to gently knock on a few rows of patterns, both breathable and beautiful; then dipped in sesame seeds, hold up the bread, open the stove lid, put your arm into the pit, paste it on the pit wall. The pit is about a meter high, with a large belly and a small mouth, resembling an inverted large water tank. Looking closer, the fire was red, and a stream of heat came rushing in. In just about ten minutes, the naan is roasted, the surface is brown, and the wheat smell is fragrant. It turns out that this is the "hu cake" that has existed for more than 2,000 years!
The origin of Zhoucun baked cake can be traced back to the "Hu Cake" on the Silk Road. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period or even longer, the silk weaving industry had already appeared in Zhoucun; in the Han Dynasty, the Qilu silk industry centered on Zhoucun developed rapidly. From the Zhoucun Mingjiao Temple to the Tang Dynasty Manichaeism sites, continuing to the Tang, Song, Yuan period, Arabia and other places through business or other means to Zhoucun more people, some of them have become today's Zhoucun ethnic minority residents, they brought the food culture of the nomadic people in the western region represented by Hu Cake to Zhoucun.
Heaven and earth are favorable and give birth to Zhou Cun baked cakes
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, Zhoucun was already a "dry wharf" where merchants gathered "the goods of the world", with a permanent population and an endless floating population that was many times larger than that of ordinary county towns. Among them, bureaucratic families and rich merchants account for a certain proportion, they are consumer groups of high-end goods, with high consumer demand and strong purchasing power. It is precisely under this social demand condition that Hu Cake may be transformed into today's Zhoucun Baked Cake. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Zhoucun baked cakes were introduced to the court through Zhoucun merchants in Beijing, and zaifeng, the regent of the Qing Dynasty, repeatedly transferred tributes to Zhoucun baked cakes and became famous tributes.
Before the advent of the big shortbread, two kinds of dim sum called "sugar crisp" and "thin and crispy noodles" were popular in the Zhoucun area, which were very popular with consumers. The inventors of Zhoucun baked cakes, Guo Yunlong and Guo Haiting, father and son, were inspired by these foods to make large shortbread cakes. Again, the Zhoucun area is a combination of hills and plains, used to make the raw materials for the production of large shortbread, in the past, mainly using wheat and sesame seeds produced locally in Changshan and Zhoucun, these wheat flour is crispy, sesame flavor is strong, only with these raw materials can make thin, crisp, fragrant, crispy large shortbread, raw materials in other regions are irreplaceable.
In addition, the coarse grain in the Zhoucun area is processed into pancakes to eat, which are made of iron hammers, and as early as the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were Shanxi merchants operating iron pots and hammers produced in Shanxi in Zhoucun, which is the main instrument for baking baked cakes. At the same time, the apparatus for extending and molding the cake burner is made of fine porcelain tea trays, which are mass-produced in Zichuan and Boshan, 20 or 30 kilometers away from Zhoucun. With a large population and developed commerce, various social activities are bound to be many, and hospitality, gifts, entertainment and leisure all require exquisite local specialty foods. In addition, at that time, Zhoucun was located in Luzhong, with convenient transportation, and all these external environments gave birth to the production and development of Zhoucun's large shortbread.
"Big shortbread" is set in the aggregate
Guo Yunlong, a native of Yulongwan in Huantai County, was originally an apprentice to a traditional bakery shop, and after his apprenticeship, he worked in the store for several years, and the master funded him to set up a "convergence zhai" in Zhoucun Youdian Street. At the beginning, it was still a traditional hanging stove sesame cake, and Guo Yunlong made a roast cake with sufficient portions, good taste, moderate fire color, and red hot. Later, Guo Yunlong noticed that when women spread pancakes, sometimes there was a little bit of grinding paste, often mixed with some sesame seeds, burned into crispy burnt cakes to feed children, he was inspired by it, and also tried to knead the burnt cake into the thin, baked out of the after-effect crisp and refreshing, different, more popular with consumers than traditional baked cakes. Later, Guo Haiting assisted his father to support the storefront of "Convergence Zhai". At that time, the middle of the burnt cake was thin, the surrounding area was thick and uneven, and it resembled a wooden ear, so it was called "wood ear burnt cake". Although the "convergence of zhai" is in the market and the business is booming, Guo Haiting is still not satisfied with the current situation of the process operation of the baked cake, and makes a fuss about striving for "thinness". After a long period of experimentation, the original rolling agent was changed to extended by hand, and finally the "wooden ear" of the baked cake was removed, making it like thin paper, and successfully produced a thin, crisp, fragrant and crispy large shortbread. And the past line bundling changed to a paper package printed with a font size, which is both beautiful and generous, and easy to carry, this process and packaging are used and are popular with people. In 1904, after the opening of the Jiaoji Railway, the big shortbread became a seasonal snack for merchants and merchants, and the "Bada Xiang" of the Zhoucun business community was specially ordered as a gift, and sent to various places outside the port in boxes through the railway. The so-called "century-old commercial port, a cake to know the Zhou Village".
The business of "Aggregate Zhai" is becoming more and more prosperous, and many people have come to the door to seek advice. Guo Haiting selflessly introduced them to the production method of large shortbread, and the number of large shortbread production workshops continued to increase. By 1951, there were 10 shops in Zhoucun that processed baked cakes, with about 80 employees and an annual output of about 150 tons of baked cakes. During the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea in 1952, the people of Zhoucun donated Zhoucun baked cakes to comfort the Chinese Volunteers who fought bloodily. In 1955, the relevant departments provided flour and sesame seeds, and after the workshops processed the baked cakes, they were uniformly packed and shipped to the Soviet Union for exhibition and sale, and the reputation of zhoucun baked cakes spread far and wide.
The inheritance and development of Zhoucun baked cake
In August 1956, 11 bakery production brands, including "Juju Zhai", "Dexiang Zhai" and "Sanyicheng", totaling 13 furnaces, and the families and children of some stores merged to form the "Public-Private Partnership Zhoucun Baked Cake Processing Factory". In 1958, the "Zhoucun District Commercial Branch By-food Processing Factory" was established. In 1961, the trademark was registered under the place name "Zhoucun". In September 1980, he participated in the National Famous Pastry Craft Exchange Conference held in Changsha, and Zhoucun Baked Cake was rated as "National Famous Specialty Product". For decades, Zhoucun baked cakes have often been used as a "designated food" for state banquets and receptions of foreign heads of state and international friends, and have undertaken the heavy responsibility of etiquette and exchange.
The reason why Zhoucun baked cake has been passed down for hundreds of years is due to its unique recipe and process. Zhoucun's traditional handmade skills of baked cakes were successfully selected into the "National Intangible Cultural Heritage" protection list in June 2008. There are eight series of freshly baked cake products, more than 50 packaging varieties, and the products sell well in more than 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. In 2018, Zhoucun Baked Cake was selected into the "National Cake Classic". In January 2019, the "Chinese Time-honored Forbidden City New Year" activity jointly organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China and the People's Government of Shandong Province was held in the Cining Palace of the Palace Museum, and Zhoucun Baked Cake was invited to participate in the exhibition and sales, which was very popular with Chinese and foreign tourists.
Round as the moon, as thin as paper, as brittle as the leaves of the poplar trees in autumn. Do not eat Zhoucun baked cake, I don't know that the world's baked cake can be so thin and crisp, fragrant and full-bodied, sweet to moderate, crispy without sticky teeth, crisp without crunching teeth. A piece of cake, kneaded by the maker with his heart, dances with a spirit to give it life; a piece of cake, passed down from generation to generation, is handmade, revealing its true, good, and beautiful character. As a "Chinese time-honored brand" that condenses the historical and cultural accumulation of Thick Confucian Merchants, Yizhou Village Baked Cake has been adhering to the business philosophy of "thin is burnt cake, thick is conscience", inheriting and carrying forward the professional ethics of the older generation of baked cake makers, and dedicating the most traditional craftsmanship, the most authentic taste and the safest products to the majority of consumers. (Li Qinghong)