The "Three Cannons" that can be eaten, seen and heard

Foreign guests experience the production of "Three Cannons"

"Three cannons" is a foreign tourists and Chengdu citizens in a variety of festivals often see Chengdu special snacks, in recent years, the "three cannons" also went abroad, to Dubai and other places to participate in festival activities, the Chengdu cuisine spread overseas.

At the beginning of the last century, Li Hongxing, a Chengdu native who carried his burden to the streets and alleys to sell rice dumplings, opened a snack bar opposite the Qingyang Palace, and the snacks were mainly rice dumplings and tangyuan. Li Hongxing has a good hand, and the rice dumplings he plays are sticky and delicious, but the business is not good. The tea shop next door is full of friends, and the crowd is boiling, so it is not lively. One day, Li Hongxing was worried, and saw that there were several tea guests next door, and the tea boats stacked in his hands were thrown to the tea table one by one, and the metal tea boats clanged and fell in front of several guests, and then the tea bowls were placed in turn and the bowls were brewed. Li Hongxing made a clever move, so he found a stack of tea boats, a wooden board, divided the tea boat into two rows on the wooden board, the rice dumplings were pinched and thrown on the wooden board, the wooden boards shook, a stack of metal tea boats made a clanging sound, the customers saw it, they all felt fun, one pass ten, ten pass a hundred, Li Hongxing's business flourished, and his rice dumplings were no longer called sticks, renamed "three cannons".

Li Hongxing is Li Gang's grandfather. Li Gang remembered that when the business of the "Three Cannons" reached his father Li Changqing, it was quite prosperous. Li Changqing's 4 children all helped in the shop and took in several apprentices. Li Gang is the old man in the family, he remembers that when he was in elementary school, he would go home after school and push grinders and glutinous rice with his sister.

Every year, Chengdu's traditional lantern festival, flower fair, are indispensable to the "three cannons", tourists such as weaving lanterns, new Qile toys emerge in an endless stream, but on this "bang bang" three sounds, suddenly can attract people's eyes. Li Gang remembers that one year he was also interviewed by CCTV at the lantern festival.

Big red cowhide square drum, yellow chengcheng copper tea boat; snow white rice dumplings, golden soybean powder. The "Three Cannons" are Chengdu's famous snacks that can not only be eaten, but also seen and listened to. In April this year, the list of the sixth batch of municipal intangible cultural heritage representative projects in Chengdu was officially announced, and the "three cannons" of Chengdu snacks were listed among them.

Wu Xiaolin, the master who sells rice dumplings, is almost 50 years old, and he learned crafts from Li Gang's father in his 10s. He instructed his apprentices to keep pressing and kneading the rice in the pot so that the rice dumplings could always be soft. When a customer came to the door, Wu Xiaolin's apprentice pulled out three balls of rice dumplings and threw them on the cowhide drum, and the dumplings slammed on the cowhide drum, bounced up, and fell into the dustpan filled with fine soybean powder. Wu Xiaolin wrapped the dumplings with yellow bean powder, put them into a bowl, poured two spoonfuls of sticky brown sugar, sprinkled a spoonful of fragrant sesame seeds, and a bowl of "three cannons" became. This originated as a tapas delicacy that walks the streets and alleys, and its preparation process is still simple and fun today.

"The traditional way of eating the 'Three Cannons' is to be accompanied by red and white tea, which can reconcile the sweetness of the 'Three Cannons'." Li Gang said.

Reporter Wang Lanwen/Photo