Photo: Wu Zhiwei
From "Memories of Kawanishi Damko"
On the rush day of the first month, walking on the ancient town of Bazi in western Sichuan is like being in a museum of new customs.
Speaking of zongzi, everyone thinks that this is a delicacy only available in the Dragon Boat Festival. In fact, in the area around Chengdu in Chongzhou, Dayi and Qionglai, the Spring Festival is also a must-eat rice dumpling. Therefore, in the Waxing Moon, there are often old people who collect good rice dumpling leaves, fill them with backs, and carry them to the town to sell. Rice dumpling leaves are sold in grades according to size. Most people will buy some rice dumpling leaves to go back for the Spring Festival to wrap rice dumplings. The money from selling rice dumpling leaves has also become a considerable income for many mountain savage families at the end of the year.
On Taiping Street in Xinchang Town, 92-year-old Uncle Fu left his hometown in the mountains at the age of seventeen or eighteen and came to the candy shop in Xinchang Ancient Town as an apprentice. After several years of painstaking training, he has mastered the practice of various pastries. In the 1980s, he finally had the opportunity to open his own snack shop. There is a foundation in the old candy shop, making traditional rice dumplings, parfaits, leaf rakes... It's really easy. Today, the house in the back of the former shop of the "Fu Kee Noodle Restaurant", which is already a local snack, is the family property that Uncle Fu saved up in those years.
Diagonally opposite zhou bloodwang, the famous zhou blood in Xinchang Ancient Town, there is a nest oil cake stall that is fried and sold, and it is also very busy during the Spring Festival. This square oil cake, which has a pretzel flavor and no filling, is to cut the whole peppercorn and salt into a glutinous rice ball and cut into a square. Fried in a hot pan of oil, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, salty and delicious. This round oil cake, wrapped in brown sugar bean paste filling, because there is a sunken nest in the middle, so it is named "nest oil cake".
On the old street of Anren Ancient Town, a variety of steamed Steamed buns for the New Year are almost parfaits. The rice is ground into rice milk, naturally fermented, wrapped in corn husks, placed in a steamer basket and steamed over high heat. Tempeh is an indispensable spice in Sichuan cuisine, and the most classic sichuan cuisine is inseparable from this tempeh.
Chongzhou's "Three Gems of Huaiyuan" (parfait, leaf rake and tofu curtain) were originally prepared for the New Year. The century-old shop "Yin Curtain" on the old street has been getting up at five o'clock every day since the winter, from grinding soy milk and ordering tofu to suppressing tofu curtains layer by layer, and busy until the afternoon. The prepared tofu curtains should also be sent to various places around Chengdu on the same day.
In the ancient town of Jiezi, the best tourist souvenirs are sold, except for the soup and linen cake, which is the characteristic dried radish. Dried radish is an indispensable classic during the New Year. In the New Year, there is no shortage of anything: less fish, and meat; less meat, and shrimp; but without this dried radish, it really can't work. The turnip after frost beating, naturally sweet. Cut into strips and let dry in the wind. What seasoning to mix with the dried radish is the key to pulling apart the results of each dried radish. Over time, the neighbors in the neighborhood have an old brand of oral satisfaction.
During the Spring Festival, Chuanxi Bazi also has a must-have snack for the New Year - fried hemp balls. Roll the fermented glutinous rice into the size of a rice ball, fry it in a frying pan, and when it is all floating, it is fished up and wrapped in a layer of sesame seeds, and the tender hemp balls on the outside are finished.
Published in Chengdu Business Daily on February 13, 2021, with excerpts.
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