Candied fruit and preserved fruits are traditional foods with national characteristics in China. Exquisitely made and steeped in history. There are already records of peaches and plums in the Book of Rites and Internal Rules. Later, the fruit is soaked in honey or sugar liquid, and after boiling to make a delicious sweet dish, called honey frying or sugar frying. Often made as a tribute. Wu Zimu of the Song Dynasty wrote in the chapter describing the life of the official court in the "Record of Dreams": "Except for the night, the Neisi Meaning Bureau (the name of the institution that supplies the emperor's food) enters a delicate night fruit box, which is clustered with all kinds of fresh fruits, shi fruits, honey frying, sugar frying and market food." Among them, honey frying, sugar frying is now honey money. Because it can last for a long time, it has become an ideal gift to send off relatives and friends at that time. Therefore, people use the term "candied fruit" to collectively refer to foods such as honey frying and sugar frying.
Between the Tang and Song dynasties, the emergence and increase of sucrose promoted the development of honey money to a new stage. Varieties, fancy, increasingly colorful; the raw materials used, in addition to fruits, also extended to vegetables, flowers, medicinal materials; the production technology is more sophisticated, the products are not only beautiful flavor, but also pay attention to shape and color, such as carved candied fruit, engraved flowers, birds, fish and animals, lifelike, breathtaking. It has written a brilliant chapter in the history of human food.
The traditional production areas of candied fruit are mostly in places where sugar is abundant, such as Guangzhou and Chaoshan in Guangdong, Rongcheng, Jinjiang and Xiamen in Fujian, Neijiang and Luzhou in Sichuan, and Ganzhou in Jiangxi. There are also places with abundant fruit and vegetable resources or technicians, such as Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Zhenhai in Zhejiang, Suzhou and Wuxi in Jiangsu, and Pingxiang in Jiangxi, while Beijing is famous for producing preserved fruits.
Since the opening of the port of Shanghai, merchants from all over the world have set up workshops in Shanghai to manufacture various kinds of food, and honey money has the production of four major strains of Su, Guangzhou, Chao and Fujian. In addition to maintaining the characteristics of each gang, the production technology also absorbs the strengths of various places, and gradually forms products with Shanghai style, such as orange plum, peach, fig, etc., and there are several large-scale, well-known candied fruit factories in the country, both in the place of origin of their own orchards, but also set up branches in foreign ports, product marketing at home and abroad, becoming the main source of emerging honey money. Unfortunately, private enterprises have been frequently destroyed since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and they were already dying on the eve of liberation.
After the founding of New China, the production of candied fruit belongs to the commercial industry of the fruit industry, and the national headquarters attaches great importance to the production of candied fruit, and has repeatedly called on the fruit industry to expand its operation. The production units are supported in many ways, so that the workshops that were originally produced by hand have gradually evolved into semi-mechanized factories, and the production technology has broken the old habits of the past that have been secretly passed down, and exchanged with each other, and on the basis of inheriting traditional skills, there is improvement and innovation. Products are often used by the state to entertain foreign guests, and are highly praised! After continuous efforts in various places, most provinces and cities in the country currently have honey money production, and an unprecedented prosperity has emerged!
In the following chapters, the common varieties of the market are selected according to the classification method of the production unit. First, sugar coating, second, syrup, third, sugar juice, fourth, aroma.
conscience
November 1, 2021