▲The rice cake is ready, go home and eat the rice cake. Figure/Figureworm Creative
-Fengwujun Language-
It's time again when the people of the whole country eat rice cakes together
If there is a "peace prize" in the Chinese gastronomic community, it must be given to rice cakes.
Instigated by map cannons, Southern and Northern foodies were at war all year round. Eating rice dumplings fights for sweet and salty mouths, eating steamed buns fights for filling without filling, and drinking soup fights before and after meals. Every year from the spring to the winter solstice, until the end of the year, see the rice cake, can be stopped.
▲Osmanthus glutinous rice cake. It's bad, it's the feeling of the heart moving, the mouth moving, and the stomach wanting to move. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Rice cake, a magical food. It is both a staple food and a snack; it is both a conformist and ever-changing, and it is common everywhere, becoming the confidant of foodies in the north and south. So, where is the best rice cake in China?
Tohoku's rice cakes are as simple as life
The poem says it well: When you are old, you look forward to the high and the good, and you sincerely wish for wealth. In the eyes of Chinese, eating rice cakes in the New Year is a very auspicious thing. Northeast China, as the latitude of China to the "high" region, makes rice cakes especially high.
Rice cakes are inseparable from their origins, and most of the rice cakes in various places are steamed based on glutinous rice. In the south, japonica rice is added, and in the north, coarse grain is often added and then pounded. The rice cakes in the northeast are "sprinkled".
▲Rice cakes made on the streets of Jilin Province. Figure/Figureworm Creative
To make Northeast rice cakes, water is the key. Prepare a pot of freshly ground yellow rice noodles, mixed with water, neither granules, flowers, nor clumps. This measured pinch is all based on the feel. Novices often need a huge basin, put a little noodles in it, after sprinkling water, the noodles add more water, the water has more chuāi noodles, and the test is N times to succeed.
The next thing is simple, spread a layer of kidney beans and dates into the steamer, heat it up, heat it up, and sprinkle the flour layer by layer. How high the pot is, how high the rice cake can be steamed. Sprinkle on the last layer, top the kidney beans and dates, cover the pot and steam for 15 minutes.
Northeasterners call rice cakes "dry food", which establishes its status as a staple food. Yellow rice cake is golden and perfect, the taste is sticky, simple and plain, cut into triangular chunks, the most suitable for hunger. It feels like northeasterners, real, strong, not sweet, straight to the point.
▲ Su rat, also a rice cake in the northeast, belongs to Manchu cuisine. Figure/Figureworm Creative
To be fair, northeasterners lack a little imagination about diet, and in their hands, there are only two forms of yellow rice noodles, one is steamed cake with kidney beans, steamed cake wrapped with kidney beans, and the second is sticky bean buns.
The method of sticky bean bun is also simple: yellow rice noodles are mixed with corn flour to make bun skin, kidney beans or red beans are cooked and mashed to make bun filling, wrapped and steamed. Pay attention to a little, just fry it in oil and make a "sticky fire spoon". In the waxing moon, making hundreds at a time and freezing in a large water tank in the courtyard is the most recognized Annual Gift from the predecessors. Often before the first day of junior high school, the children of the family stole half of the inventory.
▲ Heilongjiang Jiamusi backs the mountain tun, just out of the pot of sticky bean buns. Figure/Figureworm Creative
In the TV series "The Years of Burning Passion", the northeast boy left his hometown to fight, and there were only two things in nostalgia, one was to eat sticky bean buns, and the other was to marry a woman from his hometown, like his mother, with big hands and big faces, putting down the hoe to take the broom, the house was in charge of the children, and the outside of the house could also bark and drink livestock. The attitude of northeastern people to life is simple, sincere and unpretentious, and steamed cakes with yellow rice noodles and a full meal can make them feel endless joy and satisfaction. The taste is certainly monotonous, but it is the taste of wisdom.
The painting style of the three eastern provinces is harmonious and unified, and the food is in the same vein, only the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in southern Jilin can show some alternative characteristics when eating rice cakes. The Korean people eat cakes for the New Year.
▲Korean cakes. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Cake is a traditional Korean flavor, and it is never absent during the New Year's Festival. Playing cakes, as the name suggests, is the process of beating, and the process of beating is also the process of showing off.
To make cakes, the glutinous rice is soaked in water overnight, steamed in the cage drawer, and then the glutinous rice is placed in a wooden or stone trough, and two men stand on both sides of the wooden trough and beat it repeatedly with a large wooden mallet. Next to the wooden trough, a woman is required to sprinkle a small amount of water on the sticky rice from time to time until the grain of rice is completely invisible in the wooden trough.
A family of cakes is often watched by many people. Neighbors help, children in the family clap their hands and applaud, cake makers sweat and are full of energy, from time to time make a "hey, hey, hey" sound to encourage each other, full of faces written the most glorious labor. Sometimes, newlyweds also play cakes together, husbands beat, daughters-in-law add water, with tacit understanding, work is not tired. When a piece of cake is made, they complete a show of love for the working people.
▲Merchants who play cakes at Yanbian Market. Figure/Figureworm Creative
After a thousand hammers, the glutinous rice cake will become smooth. The most important thing about eating cakes is three words: take advantage of the freshness. Just played out, not dry and not hard, snow white delicate. Cut into small pieces, dipped in sugar soybean flour to eat, sweet and refreshing, especially addictive. If it is frozen and steamed, it is delicious, but it doesn't feel right.
Among the major vegetable markets in Yanbian, there is a market for stuffed cakes. Bean paste, peanuts, sesame seeds, five kernels, cooked with sugar, rolled in the cake, beautiful, none of them have the essence. The only natural choice for cakes is Suzi leaf - Suzi leaf milling powder, which can be added sugar and thickly wrapped in small pieces of cake, selling like dark cuisine, with an unusually fragrant entrance. The rustic combination of rice and vanilla gives the perfect balance of fragrant, spicy, spicy and sweet flavors, with a small explosion on the tip of the tongue, but it is not complicated. The taste is indescribable and can only be experienced by yourself. Unfortunately, the shelf life of the cake is extremely short, and only locals have this blessing.
▲ Of course, the Korean people often fry rice cakes and eat them. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Northwest & North China: Yellow rice can top half of the sky of rice cakes
Rice cakes in North China are often made of grains as the main raw material, which is more suitable for sweets. Beijing's traditional rice cakes are not new, sugar steamed glutinous rice noodles are just that, but they are very fun to eat.
Yu Geng, a Qing dynasty diplomat, had a daughter named Yu Deling, who served as an interpreter for Cixi. In her autobiography, she wrote that rice cakes were used to offer to the Buddha and ancestors during the New Year. According to the rules in the palace, the first piece of rice cake must be made by the empress dowager herself. The eunuchs prepared rice noodles, sugar and yeast, and Cixi and the female relatives and the dough were made into dough and steamed in a pot. People say that whoever has the highest rice cake has the highest blessing. Miraculously, Cixi is a champion every year.
Presumably, in order to coax Lafayette to be happy, the eunuch added double yeast to her rice cake, which was the best to look at, the most difficult to eat, and the face was not in it, just like the Qing government in those days.
▲The pot cake of the Baiji Rice Cake Shop in Niujie, Beijing. Photography / He Rong
Today's old Beijing New Year, often last year's cake shops, dim sum shops to buy "three cakes" - pot cake, bowl cake, cut cake. The three cakes are based on glutinous rice or yellow rice, the pot cake and the cut cake have a meter square, the block is huge, the texture is loose, and you can see layers of kidney beans, red dates, bean paste, nuts, red and green silk, hawthorn strips, rich in layers, sweet and soft glutinous, slightly sticky teeth; the bowl cake is placed in a small bowl, soaring, soft, exquisite and lovely. The three cakes are brightly colored, look happy, and can meet the scene, and beijingers are very satisfied.
Compared with rice cakes in other parts of China, Beijing's three cakes lack the strength to persevere, but they have an all-encompassing posture, which is a bit similar to the personality of Beijingers.
▲Yellow rice fried cake tumbling in a frying pan. Figure/Figureworm Creative
People in the northern region generally have a heavier taste, from Shanxi to Hebei, eating rice cakes is often fried. Shanxi's yellow rice fried cake has the highest appearance, which is said to be because the yellow millet in Shanxi is bright in color, full of particles, and the color is more tempting after frying.
To make yellow rice fried cakes, you must first steam the yellow rice, steam it, wrap it in a drawer cloth, knead it into dough, cut it into small pieces and fry it in a pan. Wide oil, simmer, fry until the rice cake bulges small bubbles out of the pan. Eat it while it is hot and dipped in white sugar, crispy on the outside and sticky on the inside, full of oil in the mouth, and the heat is bursting. Fried foods promote the rapid secretion of dopamine, which makes people happy and excited, so knowing that this is a carbure bomb, they instinctively bite down one bite after another. In front of the yellow rice fried cake, human self-control is so fragile.
▲ Of course, yellow rice can also be steamed into this kind of yellow rice osmanthus cake with a righteous appearance. Figure/Figureworm Creative
The people of the Great Northwest do not seem to have a rule for eating rice cakes, but they often eat yellow rice cold cakes, which are made of glutinous rice and yellow rice, and are essentially members of the rice cake family.
What makes Yellow Rice Cold Cake special is that it has been fermented. Before making rice cakes, yogurt is added to the boiled noodle soup and stirred to make sour water, which is used to soak rice and yellow rice, and fermented at room temperature for 24 hours. The well-pulverized rice grains are steamed with glutinous rice syrup, without the slightest sour smell, but with a small fresh sweetness.
▲Xi'an North Courtyard Gate Yellow Rice Cake. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Pretty Jiangnan: Dry food is wet, sweet and salty are eaten
"Family flour to make rice cakes, imitation Sutai age high." Suzhou people often proudly say that rice cakes were invented by them.
The classic version of Jiangsu rice cake is a Su-style osmanthus lard rice cake with white gold. The glutinous rice flour is mixed into a porridge paste, steamed in a wood steaming grid, steamed cake blanks with sugar osmanthus flowers kneaded thoroughly, then added sugar stained plate oil cubes, folded well, let stand for 12 hours, naturally cooled.
Lard with carb water, no one can control the mouth. If you're losing weight, stay away from this rice cake. Even if it is only a small piece, as long as it is fried in the pan and smells the fragrance, you will understand that everything is over, even if you have the firm determination of the revolutionary fighter, you will have to spend a day of "indulgence".
▲Osmanthus rice cake is also a classic snack in the Gangnam region. Figure/Figureworm Creative
However, the Zhejiang people were not convinced. Zhejiang people often mention that legend: during the Warring States period, King Wu was immersed in wine, and Wu Zixu fought in Cicheng, Ningbo, and had a premonition that the country was in difficulty, so he secretly made bricks from glutinous rice and buried them under the city of Lu. Wu died and Wu perished, and in the year of famine, the people dug three feet into the ground and survived the famine year by relying on sticky rice bricks.
Zhejiang people firmly believe that Cicheng rice cake is the best rice cake in the world.
Cicheng rice cake is the legendary "water mill rice cake". Choose the good japonica rice, soak it in water for 3-4 days, grind it into rice paste with water, press it to remove the water, crush it with your bare hands, and then steam it through the steamer basket, and finally roll it into a strip of rice cake of uniform size. Nowadays, the machine for making water mill rice cakes has been very convenient, but the old Cicheng people still choose handmade rice cakes. They feel that the machine-made rice cakes are less flavorful.
▲ Vendors selling rice cakes in costumes on the streets of Cicheng. Figure/Figureworm Creative
From the perspective of foreigners, the difference between machine rice cakes and handmade rice cakes is difficult to distinguish, and the difference between Cicheng rice cakes and foreign rice cakes is not obvious, and they are more curious about a snack in Ningbo - rice cake dumplings.
Rice cake dumplings are made of rice cakes as dumpling skins, and filled with ingredients such as mixed vegetables, dried herbs, pickles, bamboo shoots, sugar, sesame seeds, etc., which can be sweet or salty, and are eaten freshly, and the appearance is like flat dumplings with the size of the palm. Twenty years ago, rice cake dumplings were popular delicacies, but now they have become a nostalgic childhood snack for middle-aged people. Perhaps, if the dumpling shop is opened in Beijing, it can catch fire? Isn't this the Chinese version of subway?
▲The New Year is approaching, and the rice cake shop in Rugao, Jiangsu Province, is busy making rice cakes. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Most of the rice cakes in Jiangnan are white, which at first glance is not much different, and they can make desserts, but also often cook dishes and soups. People who like to eat salty rice cakes can't help but go to Shanghai.
There is a famous snack in old Shanghai - rib rice cake. Yan Geling wrote in the novel "Fanghua" that the "fresh" rib rice cakes on Huaihai Road are so famous that they can't sit down in the store, and most of them are standing on the road with plates to eat. The mother invited her daughter to eat rice cakes, bought only one guest, and brought soup and spicy soy sauce plates to her daughter... Readers lament the poor hearts of parents in the world, but they are more curious about how delicious this rib rice cake really is.
The novel is purely fictional, but Shanghai does have a chain of "fresh rib rice cakes", founded in 1921, and has always been famous for rib rice cakes. People's Square now has a branch, and it will be full on weekends.
▲ Rib rice cake, pork and rice cake, the taste of the New Year is stronger. Figures/MarketMap
Pork rib rice cake, made of large pieces of pork backbone or rib meat, marinated into the flavor, wrapped in flour, diamond powder under the pan and fried thoroughly, thick, golden, crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. The rice cakes are soft and sticky, cooked in oil that has fried the ribs, and are crispy and wrapped in the smell of meat. After serving the dish, the sauce is drizzled with the aroma of apples, and then a yellow label Taikang spicy soy sauce is served to the customer, which is sweet and spicy, ensuring that it is not greasy at all.
Shanghai people will eat, a plate of rice cakes change the pattern to eat, Shanghai also has a rice cake roasted yellow fish, fresh yellow fish fried to both sides of the golden brown, fried garlic and broth cooked, sprinkled into the rice cake, drizzled with green onion oil, rice cake sucked up the fish juice, the taste is delicious and beautiful, but also the best in the salty rice cake industry.
Southwest & Southeast: There are strange things in the rice cake world
The further south China goes, the more complex the population becomes. Han Chinese, Hakka, ethnic minorities... Different cultures, different rice cakes. Under the influence of the food culture of various places and ethnic groups, several top beams and pillars have appeared in the southern rice cake industry, and several strange flowers have also blossomed.
▲ Hakka mugwort, made of wormwood and glutinous rice flour, is also a kind of rice cake. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Chen Xiaoqing, director of "Tip of the Tongue", said that once he took the team to visit the eight city vegetable market in Xiamen, and a little girl in the northeast of the team even ate eight red turtles, which scared the people in the south silly.
The red turtle kon is a traditional dessert in Fujian and Taiwan, and is a glutinous rice food used for birthday celebrations, sacrifices, and temple offerings, and is a rice cake in terms of material and use. The red turtle is the size of a palm, pressed with a turtle pattern, with a sweet filling inside, and a cushion with plant leaves, which is the cute god in rice cakes.
The texture of the red turtle is smooth and tender, it is not too sticky to eat, and it is more acceptable to northerners. For the Minnan people, its symbolic significance is far greater than the edible significance.
▲ Red turtle kun, like many foods, is first offered to gods and ancestors during the traditional New Year festival. Figure/Figureworm Creative
According to minnan folklore, the ninth day of the first lunar month is the birthday of the Jade Emperor, and it is necessary to offer rice cakes to worship, which is called "the first nine worship of the Heavenly Gong".
In the past, every new year on the ninth day of the Chinese New Year, every household would set off firecrackers in the early morning, light red candle lights, and kneel at the offering table, kneel three times and nine times, praying for the blessing of the stars in the new year and the safety of the family. On each offering table, there will be several red turtle kon.
Nowadays, Han people rarely have the habit of sacrifice, and eating rice cakes in the New Year seems to have become a simple relief, only in the south, seeing such a special rice cake as red turtle kun, we will realize that rice cakes are a culture, it is a food that "people and gods eat together". The people communicate with the gods and ancestors through rice cakes, praying for peace, smooth wind and rain, and abundant grain.
▲The ceremony of worshipping the heavens in Tianbao Town, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, is held every year on the ninth day of the first lunar month. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Also attaching importance to communicating with God are the Dai.
In Xishuangbanna, the Dai people almost universally believe in the southern transmission of Theravada Buddhism and have preserved some sacrificial activities. During the Dai New Year, Songkran Festival, every household carries offerings to worship the gods. The Dai people also have rice cakes, called elephant ear rice cakes, which are also made of glutinous rice, and the production process is cumbersome.
Many people say that the Chaoshan region is The last gastronomic highland in China, which is probably related to its dialect. A "self-talking" region is often easier to retain its own cultural identity. The Chaoshan people eat qū (粿粿) for the New Year.
▲Rat koji, use dried banana leaves as a koji pad. Figure/vcg
Koji koji is made of koji grass, the young leaves and flowers of the grass are washed, cooked, mashed, add glutinous rice flour and water to knead into a ball, put the filling, embossing, and can be formed. Steam for 15 minutes, preferably when served warm. The taste is like a red turtle, and it has the bitter aroma of grass, usually wrapped in mung bean paste, sweet. Some people like to eat salty, so they use glutinous rice mixed with diced pork, diced shiitake mushrooms, and ground peanuts as filling, like the glutinous rice version of roasted wheat. For many northerners, this taste is really weak to accept, or the mung bean paste version is suitable for all ages.
▲ In the Chaoshan Ancestral Hall, a sacrifice called "Fever" is being held, and the offerings are numerous. Photography / Lu Lianyu
A long time ago, rat koji was just a cold food eaten during the Qingming Festival, and then somehow, it became a rice cake eaten in the New Year. There is a video on the Internet called "Rat Koji is ripe, it's time to go home for the New Year", and countless people have a sour nose. In addition to communicating with God, the most important role of rice cake is probably the "timer" - when the rice cake is ready, it is time for the person who has left home to go home.