When I was a child, there was still a lot of food in Jiangyin City, an antique street, as if it was the same as the streets and alleys of today's ancient town, just as if it was a little wider, all the way to Hongqiao, it entered a wider street with a bit of Republican tone, from west street through Sima Street, Hongqiao Street, and then there was a street, all kinds of restaurants are really quite a lot, and each shop has the characteristics of each shop, but unfortunately at that time also can't figure out the name of the store, or after decades of changes, the name has long been blurred and forgotten. However, the food inside should not be forgotten, among which the square cake in the dim sum shop at the head of the square bridge is the most impressive.
Because in my opinion, the reason why these square, snow-white tuk cakes are named after the square cakes is not because the tone of the cake is square, but because of the name of the bridge here - square bridge, the cake of the square bridge head - referred to as "square cake". Xiao Tatsumitsu is actually not very happy to eat the pretty sweet square cake, but my grandmother is happy, my eldest brother is happy, and choosing the square cake, naturally go to the snack bar in Fangqiaotou to buy it.
However, the square cake here is really good, just every day to line up here is too many people to get, Jiangyin people also have a special preference, from the house to build a new beam, married to have a son, must send cake balls, and the square cake of the square bridge is naturally the first choice. Fangqiao diagonally opposite is the famous eight provinces and three states of the jiangsu xuezheng lord's yamen, next to the examination shed of the examination person examination, and the square bridge is exactly the famous South Gate Bazi bridge boat dock in Jiangyin to the examination site of the only way, occupying such a heavenly and geographical place and the square bridge head of this dim sum shop fang cake, you think, what is the square cake? It's a square official hat! It's a symbol of being confident and bold! It's a sweet, fluffy, sweet, sticky snack!
The key is that it is also convenient to carry, not easy to stick to ah, so, all over the show to go to tell each other, in order to test the yuan to test people, the square cake at the head of the square bridge is bound to eat a few pieces with a few pieces, the price is cheap, the key is to please the "spring meaning", so, to wait for the day of the list, get the high school lifting students, grateful to Dai dede to buy a hundred and eight square cakes from the square bridge dim sum shop to thank the care of the eight parties, such news came out, this is also returned, hurry, if you want to be a big official, this cake is a must buy! Marriage should buy cakes to beg for spring, birth villains should buy cakes to be auspicious, build a house to buy cakes to ask for color heads, for a time, the square cake business at the head of the square bridge is prosperous. Later, I wished that the name of Fangqiao was also named because of Fang Cake, wasn't it? Otherwise, how could I have been born in Jiangyin City, until I became a history teacher in the county, and only then did I know that the square bridge in front of the cake shop was not called FangQiao, but Fangqiao?
Let's not say that it has a long history of square cakes, popular, talk about my experience of buyer cakes, this cake shop is also quite reasonable, a large number of square cakes must be booked, and the square cakes made in the store are to deal with the business on the façade, even if this often has to wait in line, it is this queue waiting, let me see the process of making square cakes. The family that makes square cakes is special, so in the past, people would steam cakes, that is, steaming was not like square cakes, such as my family. This steamer does not say, the steaming board is not the same, is a few pieces of wood put together, "twittering" a few times, the teacher Fu spelled out the template, with the general people do not have a sieve so on the template to sift rice flour, rice flour is mixed with glutinous rice flour and japonica rice flour according to a certain ratio, the sieve eye is particularly thick, so the powder on the sieve is not my home sieve out of the fine, sieve almost, with a special concave template on the flat and neat rice noodles on a card, immediately appeared a lot of small pits,
The aunt next to her picked up a large bowl of black stuffing and scooped it into the pit with a spice spoon. Oh, this filling is not an ordinary thing Oh, there can be many varieties, there are sesame mixed with white sugar plate oil, there is date paste, there is red bean paste, the general square cake of the square bridge is red bean paste, after a night of boiling and sugar plus pork board oil plus osmanthus orange peel and other ingredients of stir-frying, the filling at this time is black, slightly white flowers, that is the color of the lard in the bean paste after cooling, and it will become a black and bright good thing after steaming out.
The filling is put in, the sieve powder continues, wait for the powder to cover the steaming board, scrape with a wooden board, next to the printing template so pressed, a blunt long knife on the top of the horizontal three knives vertical four knives of everything, it completed the production of the square cake, remove the wooden board on all four sides, leaving only the pad board below, gently put it in the steamer, after a while, the steamer full of square cakes is piled up like a hill, with the roar of a blower, ten minutes, the steaming square cake is out of the cage, in the fog-like steam, The old aunt skillfully on the white jade-like square cake quickly clicked on the spring red head, the square cake can be sold, so the already long dragon-like team quickly shortened, the small mountain-like steamer quickly disappeared, the praise was everywhere, before, I had completed the buyer's cake foot money, a bowl of square bridge wontons, at this time, I hurried home to make a difference, so that the family can still taste the square cake that is still hot, that is Grandma's favorite.
Probably because the people of Jiangyin are too happy to send square cakes, so that our cakes are "dead and smelly", and when they see the square cakes, they are sour. But people who like it are still not tired of eating, not tired of eating, such as my brother, more than sixty years old, and still thinking about the square cake of the square bridge, which makes me look inexplicable, how can I like to eat square cake so much? He replied to me with a smile: Eating the unchanging nostalgia of my hometown, eating the beautiful memories of childhood.