Introduction and detailed information of Jiguang Cake
Source The first theory of origin
The history of Guangcake must start with Qi Jiguang’s fight against the Japanese.
One origin theory is that the people in southeastern Fujian prepared dry food for Qi Jiguang's army. But regarding this statement, a little-known legend in Cixi, Zhejiang can provide some support.
It is said that Qi Jiguang led the soldiers to hunt down and suppress the Japanese pirates. The most important thing was the speed of the troops. However, during the march, setting up pots and cooking took a lot of time, and Qi Jiguang could not think of other good ways. Once, when they were marching to the east gate of Longshan Mountain in Cixi, an old farmer offered Qi Jiguang many salty cakes with small holes in the middle and sesame outside. He said to Qi Jiguang, "This cake is bare." , wear it with a rope and bring Fu'an Jiguang cake with you. It can satisfy your hunger when you are hungry. After the news spread, people from all over the coast rushed to make cakes for the army. The name of the light cake has been spread since then. It is said that Emperor Jiajing of Ming Dynasty named it "Jiguang Cake" because of his contribution to helping the Qi family's army quell the Japanese. Because the cake has a slightly salty taste, it is also called salty cake.
The second theory of the origin
Another theory is that after Qi Jiguang liberated the people imprisoned by the Japanese pirates, he distributed his dry food to the people to satisfy their hunger. So the people called it Jiguang cake. Fu'an
Fu'an is the hometown of the famous "Mindong Electric Machinery". Fu'an, located at the "head of Fujian and the tail of Zhejiang", is one of the "land of four solids". Historically, "if you travel by land without heavy hills and mountains, you will be close to the water and close to the cliff; if you travel by boat with no twists and turns, you will have a view of the Yangtze River" ("Fu'an County Chronicle" ). During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, this area became the hardest hit area by Japanese pirates. The best Jiguang cake workshop profile
The reporter found a local workshop that has a good reputation and is said to "make the best Jiguang cake". The owner is Huang Yiling, 57 years old. Master Huang, who has been ill since childhood, has been engaged in the production of Jiguang cakes for more than 30 years, but none of his children (two boys and one girl) have inherited his legacy. Jiguang Cake
Master Huang said in very non-standard Mandarin that when he was young, due to physical reasons, he was unable to engage in heavy physical labor, so he often watched others working in some local Jiguang Cake workshops. Later, I simply did voluntary work for others, "eating my own food and doing other people's work." Gradually I mastered some skills, and then I started to spread my business.
His workshop is located on a small street in Yangxia Village, Yangtou Office, the city. It is a shack and is run by a couple. Apart from a dough kneading machine, there are no modern machines in the store, and it is purely manual operation.
Among the 20 or 30 workshops scattered in local streets and alleys, local people have very good comments about Huang Yiling's Jiguang cake: the upper surface of the cake is plump and smooth, with a bronze color; the inner layer of the cake is as soft as the sea. Cotton; the bottom layer is as hard as iron but not burnt.
According to the reporter’s observation, between 8:30 and 8:45 a.m. on March 11, nearly a hundred Jiguang cakes were sold out, and the buyers included men, women, old and young. , two of them came in a high-end car. According to Huang Yiling, some local government officials in Fu'an City also come to buy cakes; people from as far north as Beijing and south as far as Xiamen and other places come here to buy cakes. Mrs. Huang Yiling's words are even more interesting. She said that when people come to buy cakes, they always ask, "Your Jiguang cake has no legs, how can it run around?" How to eat Jiguang cake
Jiguang cake The local cooking method can be said to be carried forward to the extreme: local people will soak Jiguang cake in water until it swells, then cut it into pieces, and then fry it in a pot with mustard stems, meat slices, etc. It is said that this is also a famous local dish. This way of eating is still going on today. Interestingly, locals also claim that long-term consumption of this slightly salty cake has certain curative effects on stomach problems. Although it is a bit exaggerated, it still makes sense - for people with stomach problems, eating less and more meals is also a kind of therapy, and Jiguang cake is the perfect "eat less and more meals". Big and ready to eat.
Different from the seasonal production of Xianguang cakes in Pucheng, the production of Jiguang cakes in Fu'an is never interrupted all year round and reaches its peak before Qingming Festival.
During that period, Master Huang was busy all night, and his apprentices would also come to help, because when the locals paid homage to their ancestors and swept their tombs during the Qingming Festival, almost every family had to bring one or two hundred Jiguang cakes with them. Distribute it to children or adults who come to ask for tomb cakes. This custom continues to this day. According to a local old man surnamed Huang, when he was a child, he would go to the grave with his grandmother and give out this kind of cake every year. The old gentleman said that he was 76 years old this year. Where is the origin?
Jinxiang, Pucheng and other places in southern Zhejiang were also the frontiers of the anti-Japanese war in the Ming Dynasty. But in these places, this kind of cake is now called differently, some are called navel cake, and some are called salty light cake, while Fu'an is closer to the historical original, called Jiguang cake.
It is understood that the cake oven for making this kind of cake is made of a vat. This vat is not much different from the daily water vat, except that the mouth of the water vat is much larger, while the cake oven is made of a vat. The diameter of the vat used seems smaller; secondly, the water vat has a bottom, while the vat of the cake oven is bottomless.
The cylinder of the cake oven is placed in a bottomless wooden barrel, and then filled with loess and salt, so that the cylinder will not crack after it is heated. After the flour is fermented, cut it into pieces and knead it evenly, then roll it into strips, then cut it into small pieces of dough, and use a grenade-like tool called a "cake hammer" to flatten and round it, and then use the handle of the "cake hammer" Press a hole into the center of the cake dough. After being made, these cake bases are waiting for the appropriate heat of the cake oven to be baked.
In the salty cake workshop behind the house, Chen Limao first heated the cake oven to a certain temperature, then sent the cake blanks into the furnace, quickly arranged them on the wall of the cylinder, and then sprinkled some water on them. , and quickly close the lid. It is said that the cake base is steamed first. Five minutes later, he put a basket of lit pine charcoal into the furnace, shook it with a cattail leaf fan, and baked it. This kind of fan is in the shape of an inverted dustpan, made of strips and paper. After more than 10 minutes, Chen Limao used a small basin with a handle on the side and a shovel in one hand to shovel the salted cakes from the furnace wall. At this point, a batch of salty cakes is ready. Chen Limao said that a general special-purpose cake oven can bake about 80 salty cakes in one oven.
In Fu'an, Huang Yiling's methods and tools were basically the same. But where did this method of making cakes originate? Was it really introduced to southern Zhejiang from Fu'an? In Fu'an, some old people familiar with local history said that the making of Jiguang cakes was spread from Fu'an.
Mr. Huang Guijin, chairman of the Chayang Jiangxia Huang Clan Ancestral Hall (a cultural protection unit of Fujian Province), who holds this view, explained this: During the Ming Dynasty, during the Japanese invasion, Huang Chuan, a native of Yangtou, Fu'an, died in the 16th year of Jiajing ( 1537), he was appointed Tongzhi of Wenzhou Prefecture (in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, he was designated as the prefect and the assistant officer of the prefecture, in charge of grain, arrests, coastal defense, river defense, water conservancy, etc., and was stationed at designated locations---according to "Cihai"), This person "tended to be lofty and knowledgeable... he would be invaded by Japanese pirates, and he would lead the people to fight". Later, he "had worked hard to defeat the thieves, and died with little help" (according to "Fu'an County Chronicle") . Based on this, Huang Guijin inferred that the light cake making technology in southern Zhejiang was spread by Huang Chuan. Moreover, he also said that until liberation, Yangtou, Fu'an was a material distribution center for Shouning, Xiapu and other places in Fujian Province, as well as Taishun, our city. It was very prosperous at that time, and local bakery chefs were often invited to go out to teach their skills.
However, in the "Fu'an County Chronicle" compiled during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, no chapters and sentences related to Jiguang cake were found to support this statement.
According to the "Puzhuang City Cultural Relics Protection Plan" (formulated in June 1999), there is the following description: In the 17th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Tang He, the Duke of Xinguo, was ordered to be responsible for building the national Japanese-defense city walls. In the 19th year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1540), Li Junchun, the commander of Zhejiang Province, led his troops to station in Puzhuangsuo City for several months. It is said that in the 41st year of Jiajing reign (1562), the anti-Japanese hero Qi Jiguang led thousands of Qi's troops to enter Fujian via Pumen to pursue the Japanese pirates. According to relevant historical records of our city, in March and April of the 42nd year of Jiajing (1563), Zhejiang governor Zhao Bingran, commander-in-chief Yan Jifang, and commander-in-chief Hu Zhen led their warships to cooperate with Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang to suppress more than 70 Japanese pirate ships in Fujian. , beheaded hundreds of people, rescued more than 100 captive women, and the Japanese invasion has subsided since then. Moreover, there are relevant records in Fuzhou Prefectural Annals, which are enough to prove that Qi Jiguang entered Fujian far after Huang Chuan came to Wen.
The true face of this period of history seems to have to be left to the archaeological or historical circles to resolve. Ingredients
Among the hundreds of local snacks in Fuzhou and Ningde, Guangbing is a daily food eaten by ordinary people. Its raw materials are only flour, alkali noodles, salt, and a little sesame. As big as a silver dollar. Compared with Beijing sesame sauce biscuits and Jiangsu Huangqiao biscuits that are oiled and seasoned, it has its own characteristics. In addition, this light biscuit has a great background. Historical records
According to Fuzhou and Ningde official records: In the 42nd year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (AD 1563), the national hero Qi Jiguang led his army into Fujian to pursue and annihilate the Japanese pirates. Unwilling to keep raining for days, the army could not raise stoves. Qi Jiguang ordered him to bake the simplest cake, string it up with hemp rope and hang it on the soldiers to serve as dry food, which greatly facilitated the battle to annihilate the enemy. Later, this small cake spread among the people and was not only widely eaten, but also became a necessary offering for worshiping gods and ancestors. Later generations, in memory of Qi Gong, called this kind of cake "Guang Cake".
In Fuzhou and Ningde, people usually call cakes without sesame as "guang cake" and those with sesame as "Fuqing cake". But in Fuqing City, 60 kilometers away from Fuzhou and Ningde, people call cakes with sesame on the surface "guang cake". In terms of "tasteful", in comparison, the light cake made by Fuqing people is slightly better. People in Fuzhou and Ningde make light cakes
People in Fuzhou and Ningde used to use charcoal ovens to make light cakes. Now, to save trouble, most people use electric ovens to bake them. The people of Fuqing still retain their own way of making light cakes, which is not only fresh, but also interesting. To exaggerate, it can be called a labor art that integrates music and dance.
They use a large clay-covered vat nearly two meters high and about one meter in diameter to bake the cakes. First use bundles of pine branches to light a huge fire in the vat to burn the walls of the vat "white", leaving only embers at the bottom of the vat. Then, two people work together to put the prepared cake embryo into the vat, and quickly and accurately stick it on the vat. On the wall, if he were a little slower, he was afraid that his bare arms would be blistered. Since they were facing a large fire pit when baking the cakes, both of them were shirtless regardless of winter or summer. One by one, they passed the embryos, and one by one, they stuck the embryos into the tank. Their bodies stretched, yawned, and leaned up. They moved quickly and cooperated tacitly. The crackling sound of the cakes was like a musical accompaniment, and the rhythm was very strong. In less than ten minutes, all the hundreds of cakes are pasted and then slowly cooked over charcoal fire. It is really eye-opening. The light cakes baked in this large vat are golden and very crispy.
The small shops that sold out all the cakes in the urban areas of Fuzhou and Ningde are all stores and workshops mixed together. Fuqing's light cakes are made by workshops and distributed to vendors for sale. Therefore, in Fuqing, you can see stalls selling out pancakes everywhere along the streets. The pile of light cakes on the stall was like a hill, which turned into a street scene in Fuqing.
In the past, bare cakes were eaten by the common people and could not be used in elegant places. Maybe it's because of the change of fortune. Nowadays, big restaurants and hotels in Fuzhou and Ningde also cut the cake into clams, stuff it with bad meat, steamed pork, potherb, and green vegetables, and pour some vinegar and garlic sauce on it, and serve it as a banquet. A special snack served to guests.
No one would have thought that Guangbing would be as prosperous as it is today.