Liu Guowen is making frozen rice candy.
Yesterday, with the arrival of a cold air, the temperature in Ningbo plummeted, and the cold wind was strong. Located in the Zheng's Seventeen-Room Scenic Area in Zhenhai Lipu Town, the old Liu Frozen Rice Sugar Shop has ushered in another year's peak sales season. Early in the morning, 66-year-old Liu Guowen was busy in the back kitchen of the store, hot stove, boiling caramel, stir-frying and stirring... The room is full of rice and sesame seeds, which are mouth-watering.
More than ten square meters of room is piled with frozen rice fat, peanuts, sesame seeds and other ingredients, Liu Guowen with years of production experience, without weighing, with the feeling can be white sugar, caramel, water into the cauldron proportionally. After heating for a few minutes, pour sesame seeds, peanuts and rice flowers in amounts, then open the bow left and right, stir quickly with a spatula, stir well and then shovel the rice flowers into the wooden frame of the board while hot, and use a rolling pin to flatten the rice flowers, and finally use a knife to cut the rice flowers into strips. The whole process is clean and neat, in one go.
"Making frozen rice candy can only be done manually, and machines cannot be replaced." For example, when stirring, not only to stir evenly, the action should be rapid, if the time is too long, the water evaporates too much, it will stick together, and the taste will be a little 'sand'. "The frozen rice candy made by Liu Guowen is crisp and sweet, does not contain additives, and is deeply loved by the public. Many people have specially rushed from Cixi, Yuyao and other places to buy, and many foreign customers in Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have purchased through telephone and WeChat.
"The most important thing in making frozen rice candy is to make frozen rice fat, and I use high-quality Northeast rice with full grains." Liu Guowen said that after washing the rice, it should be soaked for more than ten hours, and then steamed with traditional steamer wood, repeatedly kneading the steamed rice with the hand, when the feel is soft and hard rice, it can be cooled, and finally moved to the tanning field to dry, you can get translucent dry frozen rice. Frozen rice is fried to become golden frozen rice fat.
"I've been making frozen rice candy for over 50 years, and I've been making it with my father since I was a teenager." In the past, frozen rice candy was made for a living, and now, Liu Guowen still insists on this craft and refuses to put it down, more for the sake of inheritance.
Every traditional cuisine, after the precipitation of time, is no longer as simple as a stomach, and every taste has long been rooted in people's emotions. Food wrapped in feelings can often ripple in people's hearts and touch the softest part of the heart.
In the era when there was no candy, fries, or chocolate, what children missed most was that piece of frozen rice candy, crispy and sweet.
"I have eaten frozen rice candy from Master Liu's family since I was a child, and when I was a child, frozen rice candy can be said to be a 'luxury', and what I can't eat usually can only be eaten by entertaining guests during the New Year." Mr. Cai, a citizen, braved the wind and rain and came to buy frozen rice candy. He said that three generations of the family like to eat frozen rice candy, although the living conditions are now better, but other snacks are not as good as the taste of this old bottom, every autumn and winter, he will come to buy frozen rice candy.
In addition to the traditional frozen rice candy, Liu Guowen also makes different kinds of desserts such as sesame candy, peanut candy, ginger candy and so on to meet the needs of people with different tastes, and in terms of technology, he is also advancing with the times. "In the past, sugar was more precious, and the people were reluctant to use it, but now with the change of people's eating habits, they like to eat low-sugar foods, so I have now reduced the proportion of sugar a lot, hoping to make more young people like frozen rice candy."
Reporter Zheng Kaixia Correspondent Dai Xuguang Text/Photo