Eat in Luzhou: exquisitely crafted Naxi bubble gum

Naxi bubble gum has a history of more than 100 years, is a unique specialty of Luzhou, it is selected from the finest white sugar, maltose and sesame, after more than 20 processes made, with its white color, sweet, crunchy slag, non-stick teeth and other characteristics, and deeply loved by the majority of consumers.

As a traditional snack, Naxi bubble gum is quite unique. The first step is to boil the sugar, pour a certain proportion of white sugar and caramel into the pot and boil, during which it is constantly turned, and after half an hour, the boiled syrup is poured into the pot floating on top of the cold water for cooling. Then remove the sugar cubes that have solidified and seize the time to pull the sugar.

Pulling sugar is the most difficult part of the Naxi bubble gum making process, and the craftsmanship of the sugar pulling master is extremely demanding. This Zhou master who is pulling sugar has been making bubble gum for more than twenty years, and the sugar cubes are changing shapes in his hands, and his methods seem simple but are very difficult. Master Zhou first presses the sugar block into a strip, then hangs on the wooden nail, and then stretches the sugar block with force, so that after repeating several times, it takes two people to cooperate, the sugar block is pulled longer and longer, and air is injected into it, and the last pull must be four people to cooperate, one of them quickly runs, stretches the sugar block to about ten meters, and at this point, the sugar block is over.

Naxi Longfeng candy factory manager Lei Yingyu told reporters that this sugar master has been working for more than 20 years, the process of pulling is very laborious, it is difficult to learn and it is not easy to learn the craft, this is has been done for three or four years, slowly pull the bubble gum well.

The sugar pull master told us that the pull sugar is to pull out the stomata of the bubble gum, and they have done calculations, and there are more than 2300 stomata after the pulled bubble gum.

After pulling the bubble gum, it needs to be cut with a red-hot kitchen knife, and then use an electric fan to continuously blow hot air on the bubble gum to melt the surface of the bubble gum to make it easier to wrap the sesame seeds. When the bubble gum is coated with sesame seeds, even if it is completed, it can be packaged.

Lei Yingyu said that more than 25 degrees of bubble gum can not be put, generally below 25 degrees can be stored, they generally produce bubble gum after September, the peak season is in the wax month, December and yuan.

Manager Lei of the bubble sugar factory told reporters that it is the peak season for bubble gum sales, and they have to work 12 hours a day to make more than 500 bags of bubble gum to supply the market.

Traditional craftsmanship is so unique and complex! This makes people sigh a little, thanks to the unique skills of these old craftsmen, we can still taste the taste of childhood. (Reporter: Ye Tao)