Produced by Planner/Coordinator Xie Hong
Text, picture, video / Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Liang Zhengjie correspondent Liang Ping
For authentic Cantonese, the golden fried heap symbolizes festivity and wealth, and is an indispensable food for the New Year. It has a golden color, a thin, crisp and fragrant skin, soft and sticky, and a sweet and delicious filling. Among them, the Jiujiang frying pile of the provincial intangible cultural heritage project is the only kind of flat and round fried heap in the country.
The fried piles in Guangdong are all peanuts, sesame seeds, popcorn, slices of sugar... The materials are similar, and the shape is mostly spherical, but why is it that only the Jiujiang fried heap is flat and round? As a Cantonese, perhaps most people do not know the reason. Recently, with this question, the reporter came to Jiujiang to find out.
Historic frying heap
In Guanling Village, Jiujiang Town, Nanhai, Foshan, the yangcheng Evening News reporter Lao Yuan could smell the smell of oil wafting in the air. Following this smell of oil, the reporter came to the door of a frying heap processing plant, saw the guests driving large carts and small cars, and put the purchased fried piles on the car. Mr. Chen from Chancheng bought ten boxes at once and filled the van's cargo compartment, "This is a gift from the factory for employees for the New Year." While placing the goods, he told reporters that it has been more than ten years since he came here to purchase, and employees can't forget the taste of the New Year.
Pandui has a long history, the origin can be traced back to the Qin and Han Dynasties, according to records, the Tang Dynasty was previously called "frying hammer", and later in the Southern Song Dynasty, as the people gradually moved from the south of the Central Plains to live around Lingnan, the pandui was also introduced to Guangdong. Qing Shunzhi's "Chronicle of Jiujiang Township in the South China Sea" and the Ninth Year of Qing Guangxu (1883) edition of the "Jiujiang Rulin Township Chronicle" also have records of fried fried heaps, which are a kind of spring cake, commonly known as pan-fried heaps, which were originally used by families for their own use and were not sold as commodities.
As a traditional New Year specialty of Jiujiang, crispy fried heaps are an essential food for gifts, gifts, New Year celebrations and ancestor sacrifices for every household during the Spring Festival. For more than a hundred years, Jiujiang Fried Heap has become a label for the sense of taste, incorporating the simple and warm New Year memories of the locals. No matter where you are, the taste of hometown floats around the world. Remembering this taste, you can't forget that story, that emotion, that land that was born and grew up in Si.
"As long as you eat it, you can't forget the taste." Miss Guan, who is far away in South America, asks the villagers in Jiujiang to mail the local fried heap every year. More than 20 years ago, she went to live with her family in a foreign country. "This taste maintains a bond of affection, and the taste of local feelings will never be forgotten." She told reporters.
According to incomplete statistics, there are about 600,000 overseas Chinese in Jiujiang, and every Spring Festival, overseas Chinese in Jiujiang will find ways to buy Jiujiang fried piles for the New Year's Eve, and mailing The Jiujiang fried piles have become a unique memory of maintaining strong nostalgia.
An innovative fried heap
In November 2015, the jiujiang frying heap production technology was successfully declared as a provincial intangible cultural heritage project. As the fifth generation of non-hereditary heirs, Hu Jiajie has taken over the management of "Zou Guangzhen Zhenji Fried Pile" for more than ten years. In order to prepare for this year's Spring Festival, he has been busy since the end of last year. When the Yangcheng Evening News reporter met him, he was boiling syrup.
Hu Jiajie's ancestor Zou Bennan was the founder of the flat round fried heap in Jiujiang, and later Zou Bennan passed the fried heap shop to his son Zou Riquan, who in turn passed the shop to his second daughter Zou Zhu, and then passed the shop to Hu Jiajie's father, Hu Bolun.
According to villagers, in the last year of Guangxu, Zou Bennan began to make fried heaps to sell in Jiujiang Polder. In the Republic of China period, Zou Bennan opened the "Zou Guangzhen" shop on Taiping East Road, constantly improving the process and innovating varieties, and was famous for the Jiujiang Puff Pastry Fried Heap.
In terms of shape, Jiujiang fried pile is undoubtedly the most local characteristic of the Chinese fried pile "family". Unlike most frying heaps that are spherical in shape, Jiujiang frying heaps are flattened and rounded. This major change is rumored to be related to Zou Bennan, a native of Jiujiang. Legend has it that Zou Bennan accidentally fell to the ground when making a frying heap, inadvertently flattened with his feet, and then wrapped in the upper skin and fried out, which tasted better and more crispy, and was widely popular in the market.
"The shape is more related to the ingredients of the fried dough." Hu Jiajie believes that Jiujiang frying heap uses whole glutinous rice flour, which is the biggest difference from other fried heaps.
Zhu Haocheng, the head of the Jiujiang Dagu Xihui Frying House, also agrees with this statement, proposing that the use of glutinous rice dry flour scooped out is different from others.
In addition, Zhu Haocheng said that the end of the year and the beginning of the year is the best time for the listing of various raw materials of the frying pile, so the Jiujiang fried heap produced at this time is also the best in the whole year.
In response to some customers who reported that there were black spots (oil residue) in the frying pile, Zhu Haocheng repeatedly compared and found that the use of stainless steel pots to fry black spots would disappear, so all abandoned the iron pot.
The reporter saw several machines spinning in the processing plant. "This is a centrifuge, used for degreasing." Hu Jiajie introduced that since 1997, the store no longer uses the traditional natural degreasing method, "natural degreasing takes a week, and degreasing with a machine takes only 15 minutes, and the effect is better." However, some customers specifically asked him to provide a non-degreased fried heap, which is said to be more "loose". "A hundred customers a hundred requests." He laughed.
In the process of frying the dough skin with white sesame seeds, Hu Jiajie said: "At that time, The pearls of Ah Yan Zou stipulated that it was not allowed to shoot the fried pile. However, he tried to tap with water, and the white sesame seeds did not fall, and he has been doing this since. This avoids the phenomenon of "walking the filling" and looks more beautiful.
All handmade for quality and not quantity
At present, the main producers of Jiujiang fried heap are Zou Guangzhen and Xi Shuangfeng, and the daily output is thousands, but it is still in short supply. The reason why the Jiujiang frying pile making technology has become a provincial intangible cultural heritage project is because it is a fully handmade craft.
"Although there are now automated production machines, some processes cannot be standardized, such as rolling powder skin as thin as a cicada's wing, which is difficult to control without human hands." Hu Jiajie said. However, in workshop-style production, it is difficult to significantly increase the output, and there are not many workers who are familiar with the manual craftsmanship.
Since the fried heap is a seasonal food, with the rising labor costs in recent years, Zhu Haocheng said: "It is difficult to retain skilled workers. In the past, he opened a restaurant, and at the end of the year, he could only let the waiters in the restaurant temporarily "transform" the processing of fried heaps.
After hundreds of years of precipitation, Jiujiang Fried Heap is left to the operators with a sense of mission, and what is left to customers is local feelings.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Zhu Guangyu