Friends who have watched the TV series "That Year the Flowers Bloomed and the Moon Was Round" probably will not forget that the favorite food of the Guanzhong woman "Zhou Ying" played by Sun Li is koshi cake.
In the play, she and "White Moonlight" Wu Ping had a very beautiful love story, as a catalyst for the relationship between the two, she appeared no less than twice, and she also had a line that said: "Koshiki cake, the best way to eat in five hundred miles is this." ”
Of course, the lines of the TV series are exaggerated, but the deliciousness of the cake is beyond doubt, after all, it was handed down by our ancestors thousands of years ago.
As a traditional cuisine in the Guanzhong and Jinnan regions, the name of the cake is not the flavor of the pastry itself, but because the cooking utensils that make it are unique.
Koshiki, is a very ancient steamer in ancient China, is a kind of shaped cylinder, the bottom of the container has a small hole, the appearance is smoked very black, like a black drum, mostly made of pottery, copper, wood, iron, etc., it is said that the pottery steamed out of the best taste, the Tang Dynasty great poet Du Fu has a poetry cloud: "Long qiao pounding beads illuminate the earth light, big retort cooking jade even village incense", the "koshi" in it is said to be used to make koshi cake koshi.
Although the cake is rough and arrogant, the cake is soft and delicate, which is addictive.
It is steamed from red dates, kidney beans, glutinous rice and other common ingredients in farmers, and as long as the cooked cake is opened, you can smell its sweetness from afar.
A layer of glutinous rice, a layer of red dates, a layer of kidney beans, glutinous rice is soft and sticky, the dates are steamed soft and rotten, emitting a strong jujube fragrance, kidney beans are equally soft and sweet, blending the fragrance of glutinous rice with the sweetness of red dates, take a bite, full of aftertaste, long aftertaste.
The deepest impression is that when I was a child, I could only see the koshiki cake that I could only eat when I visited the temple fair.
This delicacy is usually sold by a slightly bent uncle, pushing a small tricycle with a large cauldron on it, covered with a thick pot lid covered with white oil paper, and every time the lid is opened, a group of impatient customers will gather around and greedily breathe in this hard-won sweet taste.
Uncle's attitude towards each guest is very good, and the skills he has practiced for more than ten years allow him to skillfully fill out exactly the same amount with his eyes closed, and truly achieve rain and dew.
Perhaps only he, who is accustomed to smelling this beautiful smell, can face it over and over again without being shocked, and even get a sense of accomplishment in the eyes of the guests' expectation and approval.
I still remember the taste of the koshiki cake he made, which cannot be simply described by the word "soft and sweet", it is a very amazing, very unique incense, from the first bite to the last bite, after eating and want to come back to another one.
Counting many of Shaanxi's "out of the circle" cuisines, they all have a long and glorious history, and the famous koshi cake is no exception.
Legend has it that in the Western Zhou Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, the Prince of Western Zhou had a special cuisine, "Rice Bait Powder", "Zhou Li Tiangong" has a record of the food, "Powder Fin" is steamed by adding bean crumbs to the glutinous rice flour in ancient times, at this time there was no other ingredients added to it, and only in the Tang Dynasty period did it add red dates to enrich the taste of the cake.
With the advancement of time, the life of the industrious and intelligent working people is getting better and better, and all kinds of cakes of different colors have been born, such as puff pastry, sugar mixture, pulp skin, stove cake, steamed cake, puff pastry, and fried.
In "The Biography of Zhen Huan", the jujube mud yam cake that "Sister Mei" loves to eat, the lotus powder osmanthus sugar cake that "Huan Huan" likes, and the well-known pea yellow and walnut crisp, etc., are the leaders in the pastry family.
The reason why koshiki cake can stand in so many competitors is that its taste is loved by the public, and it is cheap and grounded, and second, it is also because it has a high nutritional value and has the effect of nourishing and strengthening the body, these three advantages, both simple and real, like the simple people who make koshiki cake.
If you come to Shaanxi, don't forget, find a street or alley, beautiful and beautiful bowl of Shaanxi food, koshi cake!