In my memory, glutinous rice is the food that our Koreans often eat, representing auspiciousness, glutinous rice products can be eaten by people and can be sacrificed, and even glutinous rice itself can be used for divination and exorcism. In the Yanbian area, people do not call it glutinous rice, but "jiangmi".
The food made of glutinous rice, in the Korean food culture, the most representative is "playing cake". Interestingly, the word "cake" is a Chinese title, which means "sticky cake" in the Korean title, and a typing in Chinese accurately describes the beating process of cake making, and here it is not only necessary to praise the conciseness and accurate image of the Chinese language.
The image comes from the Internet
When I was a child, in the era of planned economy, especially in the northeast, only my father was a regular worker, and my mother took care of the family at home, and my livelihood was often insufficient. Mother is skillful, good at making Korean food, in the small forest farm, supported a smaller Korean food workshop, pinched her fingers for thirty years, every time I think about it, I deeply feel the hard work of my parents. As a result, "cake making" has become an important source of our family income.
My father made a piece of thick wood to make a cake trough and two wooden hammers. The wooden trough is one meter long and eight, seventy centimeters wide, forty centimeters high, and the cross-section is flat-bottomed U-shaped, but my favorite is the wooden hammer, two wooden hammers are thick and strong, and it always feels like Li Yuanba possessed...
Cake dance hammer diagram
Mother always began to wash glutinous rice in the light of day, washed rice to soak for half a day, only the rice sucked up enough water to be able to steam through, how to judge whether it is soaked well, soaked glutinous rice pinched in the fingertips twisted into powder is the most appropriate. At that time, my mother was very busy, and often asked me to check the brewing of glutinous rice, and the twist of my fingertips was engraved in my childhood memory.
Father built a large pot stove in the courtyard, and in the afternoon he lit the stove, the flame licked the bottom of the pot like the tongue of the big yellow dog in the house, the mother did not wait for the big pot to heat up, she set up a steaming drawer in the pot, when there was clean straw, she laid a layer, and the steamed sticky rice would overflow with rice, spread a wet drawer on the straw, and then use a colander to spread the loose flat drawer of the glutinous rice, and then make a few holes in the rice to facilitate the ventilation, cover the heavy Korean cauldron lid, and give everything to time and the father who squatted on the stove.
Father is not good at words, but good at adjusting the stove fire, and soon the aroma of sticky rice will float all over the courtyard, and the diners who smell the aroma have long been around the courtyard and can't wait, nagging at each other to buy a few pounds today...
Once the glutinous rice is steamed, the highlight of the cake making is about to begin. Mother Ma Li had to put the sticky rice into a large basin, and the father poured the sticky rice into the washed wooden trough and picked up the wooden hammer.
Although the cake is said to be beaten, in fact, the first step is to grind, the father uses a wooden hammer to crush the glutinous rice into a ball, the glutinous rice has a strong viscosity, this step is the most laborious, the sweat will fall on the ground along the father's cheek for a while - in my impression, the sweat is huge, smashing on the ground can stir up dust.
The mother can not be idle, and must assist the father to fold the unfolded rice balls. This step is completed when the rice balls can no longer see the scattered grains of rice.
The second step is the most intense pounding, although the beating is fierce, but in fact, it is more energetic than the first step, I remember my father often told me that the pounding can not use brute force, the strength to use the wooden hammer and the rice ball to stick together, it can not be continuous and rapid pounding, the force should be clever, with inch strength, both to let the rice ball force, but also to be able to quickly let the wooden hammer and the rice ball detach, the second pounding. I often shouted for me to fight, but once I hit it, I could no longer pull up the wooden hammer from the rice ball, my father always said that I was useless, rolled to the side and watched, the diners around me were all uncles and aunts in the neighborhood, mocking me, letting me grow for two more years...
Put down the father's martial arts "inch strength" do not talk, the mother in the side to take advantage of the gap under the father's hammer, standing with bare hands in cold water to fold the hot rice balls, two people one left and one right, with tacit understanding, the rhythm of the beating is as beautiful as percussion, diners are constantly admiring the parents' craftsmanship, and now recall the love and tacit understanding of Fang Zhi's parents.
The cake was beaten until the grains of rice were missing, and the father finished his work, the diners gathered around, and the mother quickly cut and divided the cake with a knife coated with cooked oil. Before long, a pot of cakes was sold out. To this day, my father has been gone for many years, and my mother still not only laments the liveliness of the sold out cakes at that time, but perhaps it is really God who appreciates rice.
High-quality cake, to pay attention to the real material, now I go to the market to buy cakes, most of them are soft and sticky, no sticky aroma, a mouth to know that this cake is not authentic, glutinous rice soaked in water excessively, more water is filled, the cake lost its muscle. In recent years, even in the Yanbian area, it is difficult to find a piece of cake that I like, I only remember going to Hunchun to attend the wedding of relatives a few years ago, and in the banquet dishes that I did not have much expectation, I actually ate a few pieces of cake that were satisfactory, and the teeth were strong, the rice was full of flavor, and the mother who went with me was also full of praise.
Beat the cake and dip the bean noodles with sugar
Cake for the Korean people represent auspicious and beautiful, is to accompany our life of food, from birth to death with a lifetime, from the birth of the full moon, 100 days, one year, birthday, wedding banquet, sixty flowers, sacrifices and other banquets are indispensable food, married girls back to their mother's home to bring cakes, representing the daughter's filial piety and sincerity.
The most interesting thing is that during the college entrance examination, when you take the exam in Korean, you are not admitted but "glued". The cake is sticky and represents auspicious, so the parents of the candidates will stick a piece of cake to the wall outside the examination room, hoping that their children can successfully "stick" to the ideal university.
In the year of my college entrance examination, SARS was raging, students stopped classes and studied at home, and the mother was worried, afraid that her son's name would fall behind. The day before the college entrance examination, my mother bought a three-pound cake to paste on the wall of the examination room at night. The mother loves to be tidy on weekdays, worried about the impact of going to the wall of the examination room to paste cakes on the health, but thinking of her son's college entrance examination, she gritted her teeth and wore a mask to go to the night to paste cakes. After returning, he was radiant, saying that the parents who went to paste cakes at night could be described as crowded, and the examination room should also be interesting to set up wooden boards on the outer wall and demarcate the "cake playing area", the mother completed the mission and did not affect the health, and was very happy in her heart, praising the humane setting of the examination room.
Exam room cake area
Later, I was successfully admitted to college, and my family finally became a college student, and my mother always believed that the credit was not on her son, but on the cake that could be pasted on the wall of the examination room...
The stickiness of the cake is derived from the amylopectin, which is linked to each other to form a body network structure, resulting in a strong stickiness of the cake. Just made to beat the cake strong elastic teeth, sticky, can not finish eating to rest assured of the refrigerator, refrigerated cake will become hard as bricks and stones, can defend themselves, eat again need to cut into thick slices of heating, heating can only be fried in oil, can not be steamed, can not microwave, otherwise soft as a paste can not be eaten. Fried in oil, the cake is crispy in the shell but soft and palatable on the inside, and it is poured with honey for a great taste. For example, in the middle of winter, frozen persimmon juice can be used instead of honey, crisp and sticky, piping hot and cold, full of sticky aroma, fruity, and the taste of collision is filled in the mouth, making people addicted.
After fifteen years of studying and working outside, leaving Beijing and returning to his hometown, his childhood memories can't help but churn in his heart. A few days ago, I asked my mother where the cake trough hammer and other things were now, and my mother said that I was not in my hometown for those years, the old house was demolished, and these things could not be put in the building. After saying this, the mother did not speak, and after a while, when she turned to leave, the person who recycled the old object used an axe to chop the trough at once...
It hurts, it hurts!
But I was also silent.
I knew that the axe was the mark left by my father, the memory of the hard struggle in my mother's heart...