Take a picture of the New Year's flavor
Here's a little story about Wok Glutinous Sugar Tea. Legend has it that during the Tang Dynasty, a woman in Jiangsu and Zhejiang was elected to the palace, and soon she was pregnant with the prince, and the family sent the glutinous rice wok into the palace, and the emperor was very happy and listed the glutinous rice wok as a tribute. Pour boiling water into the glutinous rice wok, add sugar, and it is the wok-glutinous sugar tea. Since then, there has been a custom of women eating glutinous rice woks during pregnancy and childbirth in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and later, eggs and longan meat were also added.
The custom of eating glutinous rice and wok cakes during pregnancy and childbirth among women in Jiangsu and Zhejiang gradually disappeared in the nineties, and was replaced by red envelopes for pregnant women.
I interviewed my 80-year-old colleague who was in the fifties when she was a child, and had the gift of eating wok candy tea for guests during the New Year. An old colleague from the sixties also said that there was such a custom. In the 70s and 80s, I experienced it, such as in front of me, and also served guests with wok-sucked sugar tea during the Chinese New Year. Send the warmth of winter, steaming and warm the stomach.
My mother spreads the production of this wok-cake every year before the Chinese New Year, smoothing the bottom and middle of the pot with a knife n times, and I also participate in it, helping to light the fire, and I sometimes go to the stove to spread the wok-cake. First of all, wash the glutinous rice, wake up for about 2 hours, and burn it into rice, which should be a little rotten and easier to spread. Then, the two work together, one to light the fire and the other to spread the wok. The fire should be burned with firewood, not hard firewood such as mulberry, but a small fire, and the firewood should not be too strong. Otherwise, the wok will scorch. When spreading the wok, the force should be even, and the middle and lower part of the handle should be held, and the movement should be fast. So hot that I have to take off my padded jacket. The broken glutinous rice forms a thick layer at the bottom of the pot, and when the paper is thick, the firewood is extinguished. Too thick, not soft; Too thin and it will crumble. The tacit understanding between the stove and the stove can spread out the best wok. Use a shovel to pick up the woks, put them in a bamboo basket one by one, let them cool, make the woks smaller, and store them in the basket. When the guests came, their first reaction was to make a wok-candy tea to entertain them. I usually eat a little bit by myself, and soak a bowl in the morning, which is sweet and glutinous, and it is sweet until the evening. This wok-glutinous sugar tea is easy to brew and can be eaten with boiling water, just like today's instant noodles, it is the earliest instant food, and it is also nutritious and has no suspicion of junk food. In addition to the New Year, Xian Changchenguang will not spread the wok. The main thing is that there is a shortage of food and I can't afford to eat.
This wok, you can also eat it dry. Crunchy and fragrant.
In the area of Hangjia Lake, there is a custom of burning woks and eggs for sons-in-law. Before getting married, the mother-in-law brought out a bowl of sugar-roasted eggs to her hairy-footed son-in-law, and the number of eggs was in pairs, either two or four. It shows that the mother-in-law agreed to this prospective son-in-law in her heart, and 99% of this family affair has been completed. In the past, when mourners came to the house to report the funeral, the host would also bring out sugar water eggs, but the number was single, basically three.
Some netizens wrote a poem, just a few dozen words, and the image is appropriate. As follows:
The wok turns every day, and the stove is simmering.
Condensed like white jade, thinned like ice silk.
The guest has three teas, and the children's birthday ceremony is picked.
The surname of the pot is the word "Fengfang".
At present, the woks sold on the market are machine-milled, 25 yuan a big bag, about 20 bowls of sugar tea. This can't be compared with the handmade ones in the past, and the taste is also a little worse. Very few people have to spread the wok, the traditional craftsmanship, the taste of the year, unforgettable. I miss this special New Year's product - Wok Sugar Tea.