"Sweet Story" (6-9): Shu people like sweet, Xianyang amber sugar, Kanto sugar

Regarding "sweet", it is described in the "Commentary on the Interpretation of Texts": "Sweet, beautiful also." From the sweet, from the tongue. Tongue, sweethearted. The original meaning is like the taste of sugar and honey, as opposed to bitterness; by extension, there is beauty, happiness, happiness, and so on. So, what kind of story does this "sweetness" that soaks into our taste buds and makes us feel beautiful? MuTian Technology will update Zhang Guangyuan's series of columns - "Sweet Story". Mu Tian Science and Technology Information Department is willing to become a disseminator of sugar culture, and trace "sweet" with you, taste "sweet", and fall in love with "sweet".

▌ Sweet Story (6) Shu people like sweetness

Emperor Wen of Wei's "Edict with the Courtiers" Yun: "Xincheng Meng Tai Shou Dao: Shu pigs, guinea pigs, guinea pigs, chickens, and birds, the taste is light, so the Shu people eat and enjoy the honey." The new city of Meng Taishou is the Meng Da of the Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period, which shows that during the Three Kingdoms period, sugar was a necessity in the life of the Shu people, and served as a condiment. Sichuan people eat spicy, and the history does not seem to be too long.

▌ Sweet Story (7) Xianyang amber sugar

"Yue Yuewa wants to eat the amber sugar of Xianyang, and the little mouth thinks."

Xianyang nursery rhymes: amber sugar, square, burnt yellow color amber light. Eat until the mouth sticks to the teeth, swallow to the throat sweet choking. Amber sugar, diamond-shaped, is both medicinal and sugary. The adults ate to stop coughing and wheezing, and the doll ate qi and blood.

Amber sugar, also known as tiger skin sandwich candy, is a traditional special food in Xianyang, Shaanxi. It was once a tribute to the court, famous in ancient and modern times, well-known in the Three Qins, and called Kyushu. It is made of millet and malt catalytic boiling to make caramel, add sugar, walnut kernels, ginger powder, tangerine peel, cinnamon and other excipients, and add ice alkali and shortness agent, and finely processed by selecting materials, beating, milling cakes, cutting blocks, air drying and other procedures.

Ancient sugar production was generally in the sugar mill, and there was a sugar mill street on the "Xi'an FuTu of the Qing Dynasty", and during the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were many sugar mills on this street.

Before the prevalence of foreign sugar, the Guanzhong area was famous for four kinds of sugar dim sum, namely Xianyang amber sugar, Sanyuan indigo sugar, Fuping qiong pot candy, and Yaozhou snowflake sugar. Xianyang amber sugar is the first of the "four sugars in Guanzhong".

According to legend, amber sugar was developed by Lü Buwei for the mother of Qin Shi Huang, that is, Zhao Ji to treat asthma, and later spread to the people.

The notes and novels record that the Wei family and the Wang family in the court street in Xianyang City are the best. The surname of Zhang in Panjia Lane in the city, nicknamed "Huihuizi Zhang San", is the most famous. He followed the ancestral secret recipe, and the tiger skin candy made was sweet in taste, finely packaged, lined with oil paper, wrapped in a layer of white paper, and then affixed with a red label with the words "added candy".

According to the Xianyang County Chronicle, during the Gengzi period, Empress Dowager Cixi fled to Xi'an for refuge, passing through Xianyang, feeling cold and coughing constantly. Xianyang Zhixian offered tiger skin candy, and after Cixi ate, he suddenly felt that his condition improved. Because the sugar color is golden, contains walnut kernels, milky white as jade, the finished product is yellow and white, shaped like a tiger stripe, more like amber, sweet and refreshing, crisp and delicious, tongue and teeth, with throat nourishing lungs, phlegm and cough, appetizing spleen, warm and cold food therapeutic effect, so the name changed to "amber sugar" has been used to this day.

Opening the sugar production chapter of the food industry in the "Shaanxi Light Industry Chronicle", the book mentions that before 1949, there was no mechanism sugar factory in Shaanxi, but there were many sugar houses in the southern Shaanxi region. There is no record of the Guanzhong area, which seems to be a blank space for sugar production. Since the 1950s, 126 small sugar factories have been set up in various parts of Shaanxi to extract sugar cane sugar from sugar cane or sugar beet, and the products include white sugar, brown sugar, cotton sugar, sugar cubes and rock sugar, collectively known as sugar. The Light Industry Chronicle does not mention the Guanzhong Sugar Factory because the concept of the sugar industry does not include caramel.

After 1954, all private workshops involving food were closed. After the reform and opening up, the amber sugar family workshop recovered again.

▌ Sweet Story (8) Kanto sugar

Yang Xiong's Dialects 13: "All the words of The Bread of the Tongues, from the Guan to the East, between Chen, Wei, Song, Chu, and Wei." During the Han Dynasty, the Guanzhong area west of Hangu Pass was called "Rao", while the Central Plains area east of Hangu Pass was called "Rao". Therefore, later generations have called it Kanto sugar.

Note that Kanto refers to Hangu Kanto, not Shanhaiguan.

Before the Tang Dynasty, people used the word 饴 more and less the word 饧, but after the Tang Dynasty, on the contrary, it reflected the changes in the economic development of Guanzhong and Guandong. During the Han and Tang Dynasties, Guanzhong's economy was the most developed, using more "Rao" and less use of Dumplings, after the Tang Dynasty, the economy of the Central Plains region in the Kanto region exceeded that of Guanzhong, and naturally used more "Dumplings".

Kanto sugar, also known as stove sugar, large pieces of sugar, hemp sugar. The Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs and brought Northeast sugar into the capital and became a festive dessert, which appeared in the Qing folk work "Yanjing Chronicles": Qing Dynasty Sacrifice Stove, Offerings Related to Eastern Sugar and Sugar Cake. Given a special meaning, sending the stove king to ascend to heaven, Qian Ding Wan instructed the stove god to say more good things and bless the peace of the family, but he still did not let go of worry, so he simply used Kanto sugar to seal the mouth of the stove king. Whenever it came time to send the king to heaven, each family had to buy Kanto sugar or sugar melons to put on the altar.

Kanto sugar in the northeastern countryside, cities, streets, alleys, street markets, there are vendors shouting: "big pieces of sugar, big pieces of sugar, crisp and fragrant big pieces of sugar." Sugar made from yellow rice and malt, a sugar stick drawn into a long strip is called Kanto sugar, and a flat round shape is called sugar melon. Crispy and fragrant, sticky, with a special flavor, is a kind of sugar loved by men, women and children.

The sugar workshop mainly has three major pieces: iron pot, large vat and case board. The raw materials can be millet, barley rice, rice, corn, barley malt, etc. The best raw material is rhubarb rice, the subject is called millet, commonly known as millet in the northeast. The equipment is simple, and the sugar making process goes through four processes: ingredients, boiling sugar, cooking, and kneading sugar. Although the finished sugar is sticky, it is very suitable for the northern climate, the weather is cold, the sugar melon is solid and there are some tiny bubbles inside, which are crisp and sweet and crispy to eat, and have a unique flavor. Real Kanto sugar is hard, can not be broken, must be split with a knife when eating, the material is very heavy and fine, there is no honeycomb in the middle, and the taste is slightly sour. There are two types of sesame seeds and no sesame seeds. Each piece weighs one or two, two two, four two. The big ones weigh one or two pounds, but they are used as a cover, and few people buy them.

Kanto sugar is actually "take a stone of rice, cook it, put it in a basin, tiller a bucket, mix it, and get a five-bucket for one night, and fry it into a dumpling." "Millet" is rhubarb rice made of sticky bean packets, and "tillers" are made of wheat, bran and other mixtures as culture medium. "Rao" is today's maltose. That is to say, with a stone of rhubarb rice, that is, ten buckets and a bucket of music are mixed together, after a night of fermentation can add 15 buckets of value, and then after boiling is caramel.

▌ Sweet Story (9) South Sugar and Hanseong South Sugar

Qingfu Cha Dunchong's "Records of the Yanjing Dynasty and Zhongguo": "Zhongguo and Nan sugar are everywhere.". Also known as assorted assorted sugar. "Yanjing Chronicles of the Sacrifice Stove": "Folk sacrifice stoves only use southern sugar, Kanto sugar, sugar cakes and clear water grass beans, so the sugar people worship the gods, and the clear water grass beans are so worship god horses."

Compared with Kanto sugar and Xianyang amber sugar, the concept of southern sugar is much broader, and the folk are often called southern sugar dim sum.

Nan sugar is well known, "south" is not the south of the north and south, but the Chaoshan dialect of the local language, the meaning of "pouring". The name of "Nan Sugar" reflects the characteristics of "pouring" in the production process.

Southern sugar in Chaoshan region of Guangdong. Selection of peanut rice, fresh lard, premium maltose and white sugar. The peanuts are fried thoroughly in lard, laid flat and placed in a rectangular iron plate with tofu film at the bottom, and then the lard, maltose, and white sugar are mixed in a certain proportion, heated in the pot, so that the melting is integrated, into a gelatinous, called "glycoside", and then the "glycoside" is poured on the fried peanuts, evenly penetrates around the fried peanuts, and condenses into southern sugar. Most of the bakeries are front and back workshops. Caramel with bean kernels is called "bean kernel south sugar", and caramel with fresh pork egg noodles is called "egg noodle south sugar". What the customer needs, use a plate knife to cut on the iron plate while it is hot, and sell it on a scale.

There is also a kind of southern sugar, which is the general name of Guilin crisp sugar, Guilin inch golden candy, Guilin sesame chips, peanut crisp, and peanut candy. It began in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty and is one of the famous specialties of Guilin. With sesame seeds, peanut kernels and sugar as the main raw materials, it has a unique flavor of fragrant, sweet, loose, crisp and crisp. Guilin crisp sugar is a treasure in southern sugar. Absorbing the production techniques of the two major factions of the previous generation of inner city crisp and outer city crisp, the elaborate powdery raw materials are pressed into rectangular small pieces, and the four small pieces are a pack. The entrance is crispy and easy to melt, delicate and moist, suitable for all ages. Osmanthus inch golden sugar has the beauty of a branch of southern sugar, columnar, slightly thinner than the little finger, inch long, hollow crispy heart, outer cloth sesame seeds, color like gold. Osmanthus sesame flakes are square in shape and as thin as cicada wings. Peanut candy and peanut crisps are unique and unforgettable.

Hancheng South Sugar, the products are dragon eyebrows, phoenix eyes, chicken bones, inch gold, sesame strips, peanut strips, snow walnuts, snowflake raw, red gum paint, hemp slices, etc., called "assorted south sugar". The main ingredients are white sugar, walnut kernels, peanut kernels, sesame seeds, the method is to heat and melt the sugar in the pot to a certain extent, mix in walnut kernels, or peanut kernels, or sesame seeds, according to the needs of the variety to add red or green, and then make a variety of shapes. There are diamonds, squares, bars, cylindrical, irregular and so on. Colors are red, green, white and translucent. The taste is crispy and sweet. It is characterized by the use of local natural raw fruits, which is green and environmentally friendly. The production is exquisite, the color, shape, taste and fragrance are excellent, and it is rich in various vitamins and organic matter. No oil, low fat.

Hancheng is in the north, why is Hancheng Nan Sugar crowned with the word "South", it is said that its production process was introduced from the south by the Hancheng Laofengxiang Gold Store in the early Qing Dynasty. It is also said that during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Wang Jie, a Yiren, served as the chief examiner of the study and government and the township examination in Jiangnan many times, and was familiar with the local specialties and introduced them to Hancheng. There is Guilin south sugar in the south, the raw materials, production process is the same as Hancheng south sugar, and even the name, method and shape of some of the varieties are no different from the Hancheng south sugar, but the main ingredient in the Hancheng south sugar increases the walnut kernels of the local specialties, making the varieties of south sugar more abundant.