Shantou's rich and colorful snacks used to exist in the form of street stalls. After the test of time, "survival of the fittest, survival of the fittest". Among them, one of Chaoshan's special snacks, "Mai Kueh", belongs to the "players" who came back in the repechage after defeat. At present, there are special stalls on the streets of Shantou that are now sold, and some restaurants also use it as a dessert snack.
The cooked wheat cake has a tangy wheat aroma that wafts through the air far, far away. According to the "Compendium of Materia Medica", wheat has a sweet taste, can quench polydipsia, dry throat, sweating and urination, nourish liver qi, and nourish heart qi. Moreover, wheat cake is a coarse grain, which has the effect of strengthening the stomach, so it is suitable for men, women and children, and is beneficial to health.
Wheat cake is an extensive snack, which is obviously different from many snacks in Chaoshan that pursue refinement. Perhaps it is for this reason that when the material life is becoming more abundant after the reform and opening up, people's pursuit of food is all on the word "fine", and "fine tide cuisine" represents the mainstream value orientation. All of a sudden, the rough snack of wheat kueh disappeared from the market.
Confucius said that "you don't get tired of eating, and you don't get tired of being fine" has a far-reaching impact. In fact, there is disagreement among academics on the meaning of this statement. The ancient language is very different from modern Chinese, and the interpretation of "hate" in this sentence is different, and the meaning is reversed. Some scholars believe that it means "satisfaction", which means "the diet should be made of the best raw materials, and the processing should be as fine as possible"; However, some scholars believe that it means "press", and the meaning of this sentence is "don't press the grain too finely, and don't cut the meat too finely". These are two interpretations that mean diametrically opposed things.
However, in connection with its source, the "Analects of the Township Party" records as follows: "I don't get tired of eating, and I don't get tired of being fine." Eat food and eat, fish and meat are rotten, and do not eat; Lust is evil, and he does not eat; Lack of food, no eating; From time to time, do not eat; If you don't cut it right, you don't eat. Don't eat it, don't eat it. Although there is a lot of meat, it does not make it angry. Only the wine is immeasurable, not chaotic. Selling wine in the market, not eating. Don't withdraw ginger food, don't eat much. "It is to the effect that food with moldy grain, rotten fish and rotten meat is not eaten; Don't eat food with bad color; Do not eat improperly cooked food; It's not time to eat; Even meat that has not been slaughtered in the correct way is not eaten, and meat that has not been made with sauce is not eaten ......It can be seen that Confucius is very particular about eating, and some are even harsh, reflecting his pursuit of "etiquette". But you must know that what he said is mainly about sacrificial food, not the daily diet of the people. Confucius was only an official for three years in his life, and in general he was still a cloth cloth, and most of his diet was only enough to satisfy his stomach; The diet of the Spring and Autumn period was also in the rough stage, and the food was rough processed at most. Confucius put forward "do not get tired of eating, do not get tired of fine" refers to the diet when doing sacrifices and rituals, to choose the best raw materials, processing should be as fine as possible, so as to achieve the "benevolence" and "courtesy" of the will, is the embodiment of the spirit of Confucianism. As far as day-to-day life is concerned, this is poor and exquisite, and it should have starved to death a long time ago.
From the perspective of the history of China's food culture, since the Han Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, food culture has gradually entered the era of self-consciousness. Before that, the so-called food culture was closely integrated with politics, because there was no material abundance, so the issue of eating was first and foremost a political issue. The second part of "Ancient Texts and Books: Saying Destiny" has the sentence "If you make a good soup, you will be a salt plum", which means that you want to adjust the soup, and the key is to master the salty and sour, so as to govern the country as a metaphor. But from this sentence, we will also find that at that time, the seasoning was only salty and sour, and we could only eat soup every day, and we couldn't talk about "food" at all. With the development of economy and society, the refinement of Chinese cuisine continued to go to extremes under the vigorous promotion of the new aristocratic class, especially represented by the desperate excavation of rare ingredients, and the production techniques were also constantly complicated. For example, in "Dream of Red Mansions", "eggplant (pronounced 'ring')", Grandma Liu tried it and was amazed. So, Sister Feng smiled: "It's not difficult. You take the skin of the eggplant that has just come down, as long as the meat is cleaned, cut into broken nails, fried in chicken fat, and then use chicken breast meat and mushrooms, new bamboo shoots, mushrooms, spiced dried curd, and dried fruits of all colors, all cut into dices, simmer dry with chicken broth, collect the sesame oil, add the bad oil, put it in a porcelain jar and seal it tightly, take it out when you want to eat, and mix it with fried chicken and melon. "The aristocracy's pursuit of food refinement can be said to have reached the pinnacle.
And only today, when the materials are abundant, can there be a real sense of "high-end dishes for the people, and the dishes for the common people are refined". However, refinement is not the same as health, and things must be reversed! Nowadays, people are beginning to look at their stomachs in a little panic, and it is not a good thing to have white flour rice, delicacies from the mountains and seas, and big meat and fish every day, and they will become "full of brains and intestines" if they are not careful. As the old saying goes, "five grains are nourishing", coarse grains can make the stomach healthier and more balanced nutrition.
The prevalence of coarse grains can be clearly felt in dried fruit shops, rice shops, and meat and vegetable markets, and rice sellers are also selling wheat, beans, sorghum, and millet. It is precisely because of this that wheat cake, a snack that has disappeared for a long time, has "reappeared" in recent years and has become very popular, and can be seen in almost all Chaocai restaurants.
Wheat cake is available in both sweet and salty ways. Salted wheat kueh is cooked in the same way as sweet ones, with sugar being changed to salt, pepper and chopped green onions, and some eggs are added to enhance the taste. According to reports, there is still a question about whether the baked wheat kueh is delicious. First of all, the wheat flour used to make wheat cake must be whole wheat flour, that is, wheat flour that has not been sifted by wheat milling, which has a certain granular taste. Mix the whole wheat flour with an appropriate amount of sugar, add water and stir until it is stirred into a paste, it is made into a semi-finished product, and finally add some baking powder to further improve the taste; A little baking powder makes the wheat cake crunchy and not too firm. In addition, pay attention to the heat in the process of baking wheat kueh, the fire should not be too big, it is easy to burn black, too small and not reach the heat, and the middle part may not be ripe. To make the taste even more palatable, sweet wheat kueh is also added with sesame seeds and melon dices (winter melon slices marinated in white sugar). The melon album also has the effect of clearing heat, and the wheat flour is not only sweet and crispy, but also in line with the dietary balance of "combination of cold and heat" that Chaoshan people pay attention to.
Not only is it delicious but also easy to make, so vendors selling it on improvised stoves have reappeared on the streets. Shantou TV introduced a stall operating under the overpass, but after the report came out, diners flocked to it, causing traffic jams under the overpass, which caused dissatisfaction among the urban management and traffic management departments. It can be seen from this that the common people have a strong sense of identity with wheat cake.
Not only Chaoshan has wheat cake, but also Zhejiang also has a traditional famous "wheat cake", and the practice is basically the same as Chaoshan. Wheat cakes are also sweet and salty, the sweet ones are filled with sugar and sesame seeds, and the salty ones are filled with shrimp skin, chopped green onions, diced pork, dried fragrant and so on. There is a story about the origin of wheat cake in Zhejiang, legend has it that at the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Jin soldiers invaded, the treacherous Qin Hui ** sought glory, and the common people hated Qin Hui to the bone, so the wheat flour and oil were put into the oven to bake, and the name was "wheat cylinder cake" (* cake). It can be seen that it should be "twin brothers" with the fritters called "fried juniper".
Wheat cakes may be simple and ordinary, but this almost "original" snack has successfully counterattacked in today's extremely rich food, does it contain the philosophy of returning to the basics?