Gu Xiaoguang: "Brother Of chess pieces and burnt cakes" in a warm mountain village

The picture shows Gu Xiaoguang making chess pieces to burn cakes.

Tangshan City, Hebei Province, has a complete mountain, sea and plain landform, and has produced many rich delicacies since ancient times, especially the chess piece baked cake that has been passed down for 500 years, which resembles a chess piece, is embedded with meat filling, baked crisp, and has a unique taste, and is recognized as the "taste of taste" that leads the local customs. With a long history, hard fame and a large market, there is no shortage of famous teachers and apprentices who study and make chess pieces and baked cakes. Among them, Gu Xiaoguang, a villager from Wolf'eryu Village, Zuojiawu Town, Fengrun District, Tangshan City, became a famous local "chess piece baked cake brother" because he was obsessed with baking cake making from childhood and carried forward a small baked cake.

"It's both to make a living and because I really like it." Speaking of the origin of the chess pieces, Gu Xiaoguang, who has a square face and a smiling eyebrow, is straightforward. Because of his poor family's financial situation, he graduated from junior high school in 2007, and 17-year-old Gu Xiaoguang came to Chengguan Baijiagou to worship his teacher. Relying on a "steady energy", he started from each basic process and learned the full set of skills of making chess pieces and baking cakes. After completing his studies, he returned to his hometown to build stoves, support cases, and bright crafts, and sold chess pieces and burnt cakes with plates at the entrance of the village street.

In the production of chess pieces and cakes, Gu Xiaoguang not only respects tradition, but also is diligent in making new ones, breaking through the technical difficulties of baking a handmade cylinder oven with an electric oven, and developing a new recipe that meets the tastes of young people. The chess pieces he made were tender on the outside and tender on the inside, the meat filling was fragrant, crispy and delicious, and it was called "crispy to the mouth".

In 2013, Gu Xiaoguang founded Tanggu Jinfang Food Co., Ltd., "Gujinfang", "Gu Xiaoguang", "Gujia Boy" and other chess cake brands, won the title of "Top Ten Rural Specialties" in Tangshan, and was identified as "Hebei Time-honored Brand" by the "Hebei Time-honored Brand" Identification Working Committee.

Nowadays, Gu Xiaoguang's chess piece baked cake has long gone out of the small mountain village and come to the bustling urban area to "camp and set up a village", the store factory is complete, the bulk hardcover is complete, not only selling local peripherals, but also exported overseas.

"We came out of the mountain roots, and we must not forget the villagers at any time." This is a sentence that Gu Xiaoguang has always remembered in his heart. Since 2012, Gu Xiaoguang has returned to the village every year to go door to door to comfort the widows and the elderly. Seeing the lack of cultural and entertainment venues in the village, he did not say a word to pay for everyone to build houses and buy equipment; he heard that the road to the peach orchard in the village was often muddy and difficult, and the villagers had not yet arrived home picking baskets of peaches, and the road was bumped a lot, so he quickly found an engineering team to repair the road.

Doing a good job of baking cakes outside and returning to the village to do more good things for the villagers has long become a major driving force for Gu Xiaoguang's life, "In order to do this well, you have to work hard to earn money." Father Gu Soldier instructed his son's words, Gu Xiaoguang has always remembered.

Knowing that It is not easy for Gu Xiaoguang to do business, the villagers often feel that they are too willing to go, gu Xiaoguang comforted everyone: "In recent years, I have opened a small factory, have my own brand, saved some small savings, and finally have the ability to do something for everyone, I have to seize the opportunity." "The humorous tone of Tangshan's dialect is full of sincerity and simplicity. (Guo Haitao, Sun Weifu)