With the progress of society, machine production has gradually replaced traditional hand-made, and "precipitation" and "polishing" have become two words of extreme luxury in this era. However, there is such a group of "Shou" artists in Daoxiang Village (Suzhou), a time-honored brand in China, who shoulder the inheritance of Daoxiang Village's pastry making skills and are willing to do only one thing in their lives, and they use skill, time and ingenuity to create classic deliciousness, and continue the traditional Chinese spirit of creation from generation to generation.
Daoxiang Village Suzhou Guanqian Street store.
Founded in 1773, Daoxiang Village was originally a tea candy shop in Guanqian Street, Suzhou, which was loved by diners because of its unique taste and exquisite craftsmanship, and had a high reputation in the Qing Dynasty. There is a record in the book "The Story of Southern Food": When Emperor Qianlong went down to the south of the Yangtze River, he accidentally tasted the honey cake of Daoxiang Village in Suzhou, praised it as "the best product in the food, delicious and rare", and gave a gourd plaque, since then Daoxiang Village has become famous all over the world.
After the vicissitudes of life, two and a half centuries of baptism, today's Daoxiang Village has developed into a well-known large-scale modern food enterprise group at home and abroad. While having an advanced modern production line, Daoxiang Village still adheres to the inheritance of handicraft, and inherits the traditional pastry making skills through the master-apprentice system, which can be traced back to six generations.
Inheritor of traditional pastry-making skills in Daoxiang Village.
Among them, Xu Quansheng, the inheritor of **, was influenced by his father to enter Daoxiang Village and has been working for more than 40 years. And his father from the ** period to the founding of New China, engaged in pastry making in Daoxiang Village for decades, and never left Daoxiang Village.
Xu Hongsheng, the fifth-generation inheritor, is also a son inheriting his father's business, and his father introduced him to Xu Quansheng, apprenticed to his teacher, and studied for three years. The master has a kind of persistence, even harshness, in the process and technique of making skills. For example, the Suzhou-style mooncake making technique of Daoxiang Village, which has been included in the list of Jiangsu Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage, must have 18 layers for a simple puff pastry roll. Why does it have to be 18 floors?Xu Hongsheng said, in the words of the master: there is no reason, this is the rule. One less layer today, there may be two less floors tomorrow, and this opening cannot be opened.
Therefore, the inheritors of traditional pastry making skills in Daoxiang Village not only pay attention to "art" but also "morality", and the unique skill of "pressing the bottom of the box" will not be easily taught, you must have enthusiasm, but also endure loneliness. Ai Man, the sixth-generation inheritor, recalled that the master observed him for more than three years before he began to really teach him.
Daoxiang Village Acceptance Ceremony.
At the end of August this year, the "250th Anniversary Conference of the Founding of Daoxiang Village" with the theme of "Integrity and Innovation, Steady and Far-reaching" was held in Suzhou, the birthplace of the "Daoxiang Village" brand. Under the witness of the guests, the six employees took Xu Hongsheng, the fifth-generation inheritor of Daoxiang Village, as their teacher, and were determined to better inherit and carry forward the traditional pastry-making skills of Daoxiang Village.
Traditional skills are the crystallization of the wisdom of the people of all ethnic groups for thousands of years, and are the precious heritage of the Chinese nation. The persistence and development of generations of inheritors of Daoxiang Village are all aimed at preserving these constituent elements that have cast the glorious history and culture of China.