In 1926, Lu Xun composed "Diary of a Horse", which revealed the plot of eating persimmon frosted sugar: a friend came from Henan and gave Lu Xun a bag of sugar cubes, Lu Xun opened it and tasted it, "cool and delicate, it is indeed a good thing", and he couldn't wait to eat it. Xu Guangping told him that this was a famous product of Henan, made of persimmon cream, cool, and if there were some small sores on his mouth, it would be good to rub it. Lu Xun then wrote down his regrets at that time: "Unfortunately, when she said it, I had already eaten a large part of it, and I quickly put away the rest, preparing for the sores on my mouth, so that I could use this to rub it." From the description of these few words, it can reveal the taste, production place, raw materials, and efficacy of persimmon sugar, which is both food and medicine.
According to the "Compendium of Materia Medica", "Persimmon cream is persimmon semen, which is scorched into lung disease, and medicine is especially good." The "Materia Medica" also records: "Persimmon cream, its function is long in cleaning up the scorched fire and evil, and it can also benefit the spleen and appetizers." Persimmon cream contains mannitol, glucose, fructose, sucrose and other ingredients, and the taste is delicate and sweet. Clinically, it is often used to treat lung heat and dry cough, dry throat and sore throat, sore mouth and tongue, vomiting blood, hemoptysis, hemorrhoid bleeding, thirst quenching and so on. It has been shown that topical use can effectively treat traumatic mouth ulcers in children, and has obvious efficacy on recurrent aphrota ulcers in the elderly. Persimmon cream is effective in the treatment of recurrent mouth ulcers and persimmon cream in the treatment of tonsils and oral mucosal ulcers.
Figure 1 Xingyang persimmon tree
In this interview, we invited Li Dongfa, the intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Xingyang persimmon frosted sugar. With the narration of the non-hereditary heirs, we have a deeper understanding of persimmon sugar.
Figure 2 Persimmon frosted sugar
Figure 3 Persimmon Sugar Interview Team Interviews Li Dongfa
According to teacher Li Dongfa, Xingyang has a long history of persimmon cultivation, about 2300 years. In Xingyang, nine out of ten people are engaged in persimmon cultivation, and the planting range is wide and the yield is large. According to statistics, the production of persimmons before and after liberation, according to the current calculation method, was more than 50 million kilograms.
Because persimmons are fresh fruits and have a short shelf life, Teacher Li Dongfa believes that if persimmons are not processed, persimmons will soften in the short term, which is not conducive to sales. In order to extend the shelf life of the product and increase sales revenue, the local people process persimmons into persimmon cakes for sale. However, as production increases, the simple sale of persimmon cakes will still be restricted. According to teacher Li Dongfa, in the past, the sales of persimmon cakes will not exceed the Yangtze River Basin, because once they pass through the Yangtze River Basin, the air humidity and temperature are relatively increased, and the persimmon cream on the surface of persimmon cakes in a high temperature and humid environment is easy to melt, and the shelf life is greatly shortened. In order to sell to different regions and obtain better economic benefits, the local ancestors reprocessed the black persimmon on the basis of persimmon cake processing to make it drier, called kang cake.
Figure 4 Kang cake
Because the flesh of Xingyang persimmon cake is thick and creamy, in the process of processing kang cake heating, the cream on the surface of the persimmon cake is easy to melt, and it is easy to stick into pieces after melting, and the persimmon cake sticking together is not conducive to sales. In order to avoid this problem, the cream on the surface of the persimmon cake is generally sieved down, called the sieve cream. The sieve cream can play two roles, one is to sift the frost on the surface of the persimmon cake to avoid persimmon cake adhesion when processing the kang cake; the other is conducive to the further dehydration and drying of the persimmon cake, reducing energy consumption and shortening the processing time in the process of processing the kang cake.
Figure 5 Persimmon cream
Persimmon cream itself can be directly used as a Chinese herbal medicine, which has the effect of clearing the lungs, suppressing cough and sputum, treating mouth ulcers, and also having an adjuvant therapeutic effect on diabetics. However, persimmon cream is not conducive to preservation, there may be mold, insect problems, in the past there was no advanced refrigeration facilities, so only persimmon cream can be exposed to dry and then placed in a cool place for storage. Because the storage conditions are more stringent, the purchase of persimmon cream by the medicinal herb bank is only guaranteed to supply the sales of the current year, and will not be purchased in large quantities. However, the remaining large amount of persimmon cream will deteriorate and cannot be used if it is not well preserved, so the local persimmon cake masters groped and explored, looking for ways to extend the shelf life of persimmon cream, and finally formed the production technology of persimmon frosting sugar.
According to teacher Li Dongfa, this year they carried out an intangible cultural heritage poverty alleviation project, established persimmon factories in poor villages, led local farmers to learn processing technology, formed family workshop-style processing, improved product quality, and through the deep processing of a series of products such as persimmon cakes and persimmon frosted sugar, to drive farmers in poor villages to expand persimmon planting and increase jobs for surplus labor. Persimmon cake processing if the complete use of factory production, the cost is higher, and the rural labor force is more, the use of these natural labor force for persimmon cake production, can promote rural employment, will also reduce the production cost of persimmon cake processing, for rural revitalization and poor village farmers out of poverty to provide a very good way to get rich.
Figure 6 The "Promoting Farmers' Income" conference in rural areas
Figure 7 Rural labor force engaged in persimmon processing
Text author: Shang Qiyue
Photo author: Teacher Li Dongfa, Xingyang Persimmon Frosting Sugar Interview Group, Provided by the Internet
Practice team: Luoyang Normal University", "Excavating the Yellow River Civilization and Realizing Rural Revitalization", summer social practice team