Sanyuan indigo candy is one of the traditional precious foods in Shaanxi Province. It is drumstick-shaped, largely light, and the golden yellow skin is evenly covered with a layer of white sesame seeds. After biting open, inside is a snow white delicate honeycomb sugar heart. It is named for its large, fluffy, flower-like fruit. Whether it is used to entertain guests or to give gifts to relatives and friends, it is called high-quality food and enjoys a high reputation inside and outside the province. Juxtaposed with Jilin Fuyuanguan indigo candy and Henan Anyang indigo candy, it is one of the three famous indigo candies in China.
Sanyuan indigo sugar, originated in Sanyuan County, Shaanxi Province, was first produced in the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty (1506), has a history of more than 490 years. According to legend, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, every waxing moon, hawkers in the southern region used the local high-quality rice (that is, glutinous rice) to make rice cakes and transport them to Sanyuan and Jingyang to sell. At the end of the Year, it is inconvenient to sell the remaining rice cakes to bring back, and they are stored in the homes of relatives and friends, and hung upstairs to let them dry. After the following year, it is mashed into a stick, fried in oil and sold. This kind of next year's aged rice cake, dew, and then crushed and into a stick, fried in oil, the inside is fluffy, the volume is expanded, it is crispy and sweet to eat, it has a different flavor, people call it "marshmallow". Over time, people gradually groped and came up with a set of methods for making marshmallows. Add a certain amount of soybean milk to the rice flour to make it more fluffy and foamy, and stick sesame seeds or sugar on its surface. The eaters praised: "肓,(Guanzhong dialect, meaning "good") 纘太! Therefore, it is also called "flower sugar". In the 26th year of the Qing Dynasty (1900), the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, and Empress Dowager Cixi fled to Xi'an with the Guangxu Emperor. Local officials collected delicacies and offered "flower candy" as a local precious food, which Was greatly appreciated by Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi saw that the shape of "Zhihua Candy" resembled a kind of indigo fruit she had seen on the grassland, and found it interesting, and took its harmonic sound, Suiyun: "Simply call it Indigo Candy, both image and chic." Later, people changed their name to "indigo candy" and listed it as a tribute. Wen Yi, a Qing Kangxi jinshi, has a poem in the "Memorial Hall Manuscript": "Born of ice and snow, the heart is like a valley, the color is like a lotus root, and the flavor is told to be a man."
Mihara indigo sugar, its appearance is wrapped in white sugar powder and sesame seeds. It is made of fresh, high-quality glutinous rice, fine soybeans, sugar, vegetable oil, etc., accompanied by cooked sesame seeds. Its processing process is made by 24 processes such as material selection, washing, soaking, grinding, steaming, and noodles, rolling slices, rubbing strips, blank making, shading, storage, blanking, oil immersion, frying, pouring, and hanging skin. General winter blank making, four seasons processing finished products. It takes about half a year from feeding to finished product. The finished product is cylindrical, largely loose, golden skin, white flesh, silk mesh, sweet and crispy, soft and easy to melt.
Mihara indigo candy has a long history, tastes and shapes, and sells well. At present, in addition to being sold inside and outside the province and Beijing, Guangzhou and other places, it is also exported to Hong Kong and other places. Since the reform and opening up, Sanyuan County has produced about 1,500 tons of indigo sugar every year, which is sold well in more than 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country. In 1985 and 1987, it won the title of "Shaanxi Provincial High-quality Product" and "High-quality Product of the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries", and in 1988 and 1992, it won the "Silver Award of the First China Food Expo" and the "Gold Award of the China Special Economic Zone Achievement Expo". After Tasting nanmao brand indigo candy, Bo Jie, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and the younger brother of the last emperor Puyi, wrote the seven Daewoo inscriptions of "Indigo Sugar Palace Food".
(Image from the Internet)